Tux Machines

WordPress: WP Engine and More, WordPress Alternatives

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 13, 2024

The Verge ☛ WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin

WordPress.org has taken over a popular WP Engine plugin in order “to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem,” WordPress cofounder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced today. This “minimal” update, which he labels a fork of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin, is now called “Secure Custom Fields.”

It’s not clear what security problem Mullenweg is referring to in the post. He writes that he’s “invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines,” in which the WordPress team reserves several rights, including removing a plugin, or changing it “without developer consent.” Mullenweg explains that the move has to do with WP Engine’s recently-filed lawsuit against him and Automattic.

David Darnes ☛ WordPress Alternatives - David Darnes

Due to gestures vaguely, everything going on right now with WordPress, I thought I'd put together a list of alternative CMSs that better fit the criteria someone might have for their website. The modern CMS landscape is super broad, with the very definition of "Content Management System" being stretched. Some see it as a full-package website platform, and some see it as just UI for their content stored elsewhere.

The criteria for this list are "Can it be downloaded, dropped onto a server, and you'll have a website?" This eliminates API and git-based CMSs, which I enjoy using; however, wiring a daisy chain of tools is just not viable for many.

Nick Heer ☛ What the Hell Is Going on With WordPress and WPEngine?

From a distance, it looks like an expensive pissing match between a bunch of increasingly unlikable parties, and I would very much appreciate if it never affects my self-hosted version of WordPress. Maybe it is a little confusing that WPEngine is not affiliated with WordPress, but I only learned this week that WordPress.org is personally owned by Mullenweg and is not actually affiliated with Automattic or WordPress.com. From Mullenweg’s perspective, this confusion is beneficial, but the confusion with WPEngine is not. From my perspective, I would not like to be confused.