The WP Engine and WordPress Lawsuit: Should You Rethink Your CMS Strategy?

What’s the lawsuit between Wordpress.org and WP Engine?

Here’s the quick lowdown of what’s happened so far:

• In September 2024, Matt Mulleneg, founder of WordPress, wrote a blog post accusing WP Engine of trademark infringement.
• After a cease-and-desist was sent by WP Engine for Mulleneg and Automattic (the owners of WordPress) to withdraw his comments, WordPress responded to WP Engine with a cease-and-desist of their own.
• Things continued to get heated, and WordPress effectively banned WP Engine from accessing its resources.
• In October, WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Mulleneg with numerous accusations. According to TechCrunch, many of WP Engine’s complaints stem from Mulleneg and Automattic allegedly not keeping their promise of ensuring WordPress remains fully open-source.
• This situation is very likely to drag out for some time, and as of this writing, WP Engine is still banned from accessing WordPress.

But why does this matter? At Leadpulse, we’re all about creating seamless web experiences.

And with WordPress’s open-source future under scrutiny, this conflict highlights the advantages of a headless CMS—a flexible, adaptable alternative for brands that want full control over their digital experiences.

Let’s talk about the impact.

What are the risks of continuing to use WordPress?

WP Engine is cut off from accessing WordPress. If your WordPress site is hosted by WP Engine, you’ll be unable to update your website, plugins, or themes. This comes with significant security risks, as plugin vulnerabilities are often targeted by hackers.

Let’s explore some of the risks:

• Uncertain future: With how easily WP Engine was cut off from the WordPress ecosystem, theoretically any WordPress site can face a similar fate if there’s ever a similar dispute with other providers.
• Open-source chaos: With every plugin on WordPress being open-source, disputes like this only highlight the ripple effect that small changes can cause. Some plugin crashes can be easily mitigated, while others could have an incalculable impact.
• Customer data: Security breaches are bad for business and will understandably tarnish your reputation. If plugins fail and leave you vulnerable, you could lose customer trust and be on the hook legally as well.
• Website down? Revenue will be too: This situation highlights the fragility of open-source plugins on an all-in-one CMS. If something goes wrong, your site could go down. If your site goes down, you’re missing out on new sales and repeat purchases.
  
  Note: If you aren’t hosted by WP Engine, you can still update your WordPress site and plugins as normal.

Mitigating risk with a headless CMS and Composable DXPs

If the WP Engine and WordPress conflict has you worried about the stability of open-source platforms, it’s time to explore modern alternatives. While headless CMS platforms decouple your content from your website’s backend, Composable DXPs take this a step further by enabling seamless integration across all digital touchpoints.

What is a Composable DXP?
A Composable DXP is a flexible platform that reduces the need for developers to build complex integrations between tools and channels. Unlike traditional CMS platforms, DXPs:

• Allow content to be pushed to any presentation layer—whether it’s your website, mobile app, or another channel.
• Minimize the need for custom development by connecting tools like Contentful to your DXP and configuring integrations rather than building them from scratch.
• Enable targeted updates through tags, making it easier to customize specific platforms (e.g., just your app) without disrupting other parts of your system.
  
  For example, with a DXP, you could update app-specific content in a CMS like Contentful, and the changes would automatically reflect wherever that content is used—eliminating repetitive manual work.
  
  

Why Headless CMS or Composable DXP is the smarter choice
The industry is shifting toward solutions that combine the strengths of headless CMS with the adaptability of DXPs. Together, they provide:

• Uncertainty of open-source platforms like WordPress: WordPress is a very uncertain platform to develop right now, and any open-source platform could face a similar issue in the future. This can be scary for businesses.
• Enhanced security: A headless CMS decouples the front and back end, allowing you to have separate security protocols for both. This keeps everything more secure.
• Keeping content safe: Tying into the above, should something happen to your website, your content is housed separately from the rest of the site keeping it nice and safe and making the restoration process much easier. This is different from WordPress, where content and development are tangled together.
• Faster loading: Content is housed separately and delivered via API. This means that once the site is loaded, it only needs to pull the content in from page-to-page resulting in much faster loading than all-in-one CMS platforms.
• Flexibility and omnichannel delivery: Content is stored as raw data and can be pushed and reformatted to any platform. This allows total flexibility in how content is displayed and this can be tailored to individual platforms, ensuring a consistent experience across all channels.
• Smoother maintenance and staging: With a decoupled front and back end, you can try new layouts, content, and features without impacting your live site. You can easily create a staging environment that fully replicates your live site, allowing you to test things in real-time without impacting your site.

Ready to switch? We can help

We’ll cut to the point: switching CMS platforms can be incredibly daunting. Rest assured, we can help.

At LeadPulse we can help you fully migrate your WordPress site over to a headless CMS—like our friends at Contentful. We’re confident that the experience will be so smooth and you’ll be so satisfied that you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!

If you’ve been looking for a reason to move away from WordPress, this is it.