Should we all just ditch WordPress now?

A few concerned Etch users have been asking this question lately. Here’s my thoughts.

Written by

Matteo Greco

Published on

16 October 2024

WordPress

The short version

Here’s the TL;DR:

I think it’s too early to make any judgement calls. There’s a chance this thing will just go away in a relatively short amount of time. Pivoting from WordPress seems like a premature decision
We should be monitoring WP’s and its competitors’ market share to know when the time to make a decision is – if it ever comes to that
Etch users can read our official statement in our Circle community. What follows here is just my personal opinions.

In the next few sections, I’ll give you some context. If you’re already caught up with all the drama, you can skip straight to my thoughts.

What’s going on in WordPress right now?

Imagine going to sleep, and everything’s fine. Then suddenly, you’re woken up by screaming coming from the street in front of your apartment. You look outside and see two big guys yelling and punching each other. They’re surrounded by their friends, some cheering them on, some begging them to stop, and some so shocked they just run away.

This isn’t the first time you’ve seen people arguing or even fighting in the street, but it’s rare. As you wonder what to do, the rest of the neighborhood looks out their windows. They seem just as divided as the friend groups: some encourage one or the other guy to fight, some voice their concern, and some think they should just start packing and leave this neighborhood for good.

Well, that’s what’s happening in WordPress right now.

A quick summary of the events

On Sep 20th, 2024, in his keynote speech at WCUS24, Matt Mullenweg publicly called out hosting company WP Engine for not contributing enough to the WordPress project [¹]. In the related article [²], he says “This openness and generosity [of the WordPress ecosystem] will attract parasitic entities that just want to feed off the host without giving anything back”, referring to WP Engine’s parent company, private equity firm Silver Lake.

He compares the size of the 5 for the future [³] contributions, saying “Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours”. He emphasizes that “Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals”. And finally, he calls for “everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet”.

In the weeks since then, up to the day I’m writing this:

WP Engine and Automattic traded cease and desist letters
Matt banned WP Engine from wordpress.org [⁴], briefly restoring it later to let their engineers set up their own update servers, then banning them again
WP Engine sued Matt and Automattic [⁵]
Matt added a required checkbox to the wordpress.org login page saying “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” [⁶]
Matt forked WP Engine’s “Advanced Custom Fields” plugin, renamed it “Secure Custom Fields”, and republished it using the same URL of https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/ [⁷]

So what happens now?

Here’s the deal. Like many, I’m concerned too. Would be foolish not to be.

However:

WP Engine is likely hemorrhaging customers after losing wordpress.org access caused technical issues, and their staff are probably feeling the heat
Automattic is likely in turmoil after losing 8.4% of their staff, following Matt’s alignment offer [⁸]. And Matt is getting more unpopular by the minute, not just in the WordPress scene, but in the entire open source community [⁹] [¹⁰]
Companies and individuals investing money in the WordPress space are starting to get nervous

These two are too caught up in the fight to realize they’re bleeding, their friends are hurt, and their neighborhood is horrified. Somebody should probably call the cops on them, if the cops existed in this scenario.

My guess is that, over time, one of their key metrics will just go red. Maybe fewer new customers, more customers leaving, burnt-out employees, or work slowing down. Or maybe investors will come knocking at their doors, threatening to tighten their purse strings. Something’s gotta give.

When that happens, their boards might decide it’s time to sit down and talk things out peacefully.

So there’s a chance that in a month or two, this whole thing could blow over. And pretty soon after, the community will be all caught up in the next big drama, and this one will be old news.

But what if they don’t?

Well… That would suck. Because, no matter who comes out on top, both companies will have likely hurt their reputation, and lost even more customers and employees.

If this matter isn’t resolved soon, we’re in for a possibly long war of attrition, that could eventually result in an exodus of clients, customers, investors and talent. That could set the scene for competitors, both in the hosting and in the CMS scene, trying to take advantage of the distraction provided by the fight to acquire disgruntled customers and talent.

Furthermore, the community seems in dire need of healing and reassurance that this situation is transitory and won’t affect them. That requires a great display of leadership and empathy from Matt. Folks are confused and divided right now, and that’s not great either for attracting new interest, as well as keeping the existing one.

And that’s the real threat to WordPress: infighting, leading to distraction, leading to loss of market appeal.

If things do take a turn for the worse, I can see two contingency plans:

We move to a different CMS
We fork WordPress

It would sucks to have to do either. On one hand, I like WordPress and would prefer not to have to look for an alternative. On the other hand, a fork would be such an enormous undertaking, requiring planning, management, vision, sweat and, most importantly, a ton of money. Won’t be easy to do. But if WordPress were at the brink of collapse, and nobody wanted to leave the ship, I’m sure some would be interested in at least trying. It would still be, in my opinion, a hail Mary. But a possible one nonetheless.

Should we be worried?

I can’t speak for everyone – we each have to think about this in our own way.

I’m concerned. I already was, since WordPress had been stagnating for a while, not just in terms of overall market share and new installs, but in terms of innovation. That’s part of what motivated us to start building Etch.

This whole thing just makes me more concerned. But I’m not worried. At least not yet.

When should we start to worry?

I’ll worry if WordPress’ market share drops significantly, let’s say under 40%, and most of that market share goes to the same competitor.

Or, if the market share drops even further, let’s say under 37%, regardless of who gains that share.

That, to me, is a sign that WordPress is really in trouble.

But that’s old news by the time it shows up

Yes, you’re right. I’d rather use a drop in new installs as my metric. Problem is, I don’t know a reliable way to track that. If you do, or can think of a better metric, I’m all ears.