A new website called WP Engine Tracker shows how many sites have moved away from hosting provider WP Engine since the company’s feud with WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg began in September.
Automattic, which runs a rival web hosting service and is headed by Mullenweg, confirmed it created this site.
The site’s full URL is WordPressenginetracker.com, which is ironic given Mullenweg and Automattic have argued during the battle that WP Engine misused the WordPress trademark and tricked people into believing that WP Engine is associated with WordPress.com
Check out all these great offers of people that will migrate you off WP Engine: https://t.co/AKQGU7Hvpf
— WordPress (@WordPress) November 6, 2024
As of the time of writing, the page shows more than 16,000 domains have switched to another hosting provider.
“The beauty of open source software is that everyone is able to access data on a granular level, because it’s all publicly available information. That public data has shown that ever since WP Engine filed its lawsuit – making it clear that they do not have an official association with WordPress and attracting greater attention to the company’s poor service, modifications to the WordPress core software, increasing and convoluted pricing structure, and repeated down times – their customers have left their platform for other hosting providers,” an Automattic spokesperson said.
The official WordPress handle on X has aggressively promoted offers and blogs detailing alternatives to the WP engine.
Right now, Mullenweg, Automattic, and WP Engine are locked in a legal battle. In the last week, Mullenweg and Automattic filed documents in court, asking the judge to dismiss some key claims in WP Engine’s case. The company also asked the court to reject WP Engine’s preliminary motion, which, if passed, restores the hosting provider’s access to WordPress.org, a WordPress repository site owned by Mullenweg.
Last week, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Mullenweg said that in the next few weeks, WP Engine will lose more than 8% of their business. Notably, Mullenweg had asked WP Engine to pay 8% of their revenue as a licensing fee for the WordPress trademark in September.
“They are losing a lot of customers, so we’ll see what happens. Like I said, we’re at war with them. We’re either going to go brick by brick and take — us and other companies take — every single one of their customers,” he said.
WP Engine used some of these comments in a court document filed earlier this week to support their motion.
The story has been updated with Automattic’s statement.
