'I think EmDash was created to sell more Cloudflare services': WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg gives his verdict on Cloudflare's EmDash

• Matt Mullenweg welcomes the competition, innovation and open-source nature of EmDash
• He sees it as an opportunity for Cloudflare to plug its own services
• Mullenweg says it's great, but it's not a 'spiritual successor'

Automattic and WordPress.com CEO Matt Mullenweg has weighed in on Cloudflare's launch of EmDash, rejecting the company's claim that the new project is WordPress's spiritual successor.

In a blog post, Mullenweg explains why EmDash isn't the website builder's spiritual successor, why EmDash hasn't solved the plug-in problem it criticized WordPress for, and how security issues can be fixed in the future.

"It’s all built on open source and web standards," he asserts. "You can run it anywhere; there’s no lock-in."

Mullenweg rejects EmDash claims

Mullenweg explained WordPress can run anywhere, from a Raspberry Pi or a smartphone to a cheap server or across multiple hyperscaler data centers – it's all the same code. On the flip side, he sees EmDash as an opportunity to sell Cloudflare services.

Mullenweg uses the post to praise Cloudflare, noting the company's status as a "top engineering organization" that's pro-open-source.

All in all, he doesn't have a bad word to say about EmDash or Cloudflare in principle, however for interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in, he notes that EmDash only runs optimally on Cloudflare.

As for the plug-in issue, Mullenweg explained that their unrestricted power is a feature, not a flaw, but artificial intelligence could significantly improve their security within the next 18 months.

"I actually think the product is very solid, there’s some excellent engineering, migration tools, it’s very fast, and the Astro integration is nice," he concludes.

So while EmDash isn't the spiritual successor to WordPress in Mullenweg's eyes, he welcomes the competition and supports that it's open-source. However, if there is to be a spiritual successor, it would be "even more open."

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