15 Years of Fueling the Open Web

In 2010, one WordPress®[1] user set out to make sites faster, more secure, and easier to scale. This was the founding idea behind WP Engine, a company built on a belief in the power of the open web and the creators responsible for it. 

“We didn’t want to build just another hosting company—we wanted to build the best foundation for builders who choose the WordPress platform,” recalled WP Engine Founder Jason Cohen. 

The company, which started from a small team and big dreams, has since grown into a leader in innovation, trusted by over two hundred thousand customers to power millions of websites around the world. One thing we’ve never lost sight of, though, is our why. It’s people—including creative professionals, digital innovators, web developers, entrepreneurs, and our own employees—who have made the last 15 years so remarkable.

“Our journey has always been about people—our team, our customers, and our community. Together, we’ve built something truly special,” said WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner. 

Come along as we revisit some of the milestones that defined WP Engine’s past 15 years—from our business growth, products, and innovations, to the customers and employees who made it all possible—and share a glimpse of what we envision for our future.

A timeline of business transformation

The story of WP Engine began in 2010 when Jason Cohen sat down at his kitchen table to set his vision to pen and paper. By May of that year, WP Engine had its first 30 customers, and by the next year, Cohen would hire WP Engine’s first four employees.

The company had outgrown its first office by 2013, so the company expanded into its current headquarters in downtown Austin to support its fast-growing team. 

That same year, WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner joined the team. In one of her first official actions, she and Cohen led a team-wide codification and signing of WP Engine’s Core Values. By the next year, WP Engine was serving more than 20,000 customers.

An era of expansion

In 2015, WP Engine expanded across the Atlantic, opening a London office to better serve a rapidly growing international customer base and strengthen our presence in Europe. At that time, the company was already supporting more than 40,000 global customers.

By 2016, that number would grow to 50,000, and WP Engine would open its second European office—this time in Limerick, Ireland—with the Brisbane, Australia office to open the following year.

That momentum continued into 2018 with the strategic acquisition of StudioPress, which brought the powerful Genesis Framework into the WP Engine ecosystem. The next year, WP Engine welcomed Flywheel—a fellow hosting innovator out of Omaha, Nebraska—and Perfect Dashboard—a Kraków, Poland-based technology company—into the family, opening offices in both cities.

In 2022, the company acquired Delicious Brains, making it the official steward of one of the WordPress® community’s most beloved tools: Advanced Custom Fields. Just two years later, our friends at Nitropack joined the team, bringing powerful new site performance optimizations to WP Engine.

Now, in 2025, we get the opportunity to celebrate 15 years of business transformation with a clear vision for the future that’s stronger, bolder, and more innovative than ever. 

Built for builders with a commitment to the open web

For customers who choose WP Engine, innovation is the expectation. From our earliest days, we’ve focused on building and maintaining tools and technologies that make WordPress® sites faster, more secure, and more flexible. That focus has driven the creation of breakthrough products and enhancements that have reshaped what’s possible on WordPress®.

Our early innovations laid the groundwork for continued improvements to the platform. EverCache™, Content Performance, and DevKit were some of WP Engine’s early signature features, helping to unlock faster page speeds, provide better insights into content performance, and build better developer workflows as we reimagined what managed hosting can offer. 

In 2016, we rolled out foundational platform improvements, including the introduction of free SSL certificates, which made secure connections accessible to all our customers. We launched the web’s first PHP Compatibility Checker, empowering developers to modernize their codebases with confidence. WP Engine also introduced one-tap payments and, by 2017, had expanded its data center availability with 17 new data centers across nine countries. 

By 2018, WP Engine was evolving quickly. We made StudioPress and the Genesis Framework available to customers at no cost and introduced Global Edge Security to strengthen site defenses. To ensure our teams were leaning into feedback from customers and that WP Engine remained a responsible steward of the tools we’ve adopted, we also launched our first-ever product community survey that year. 

Innovation at the speed of creation

Our commitment to intelligent automation took center stage in 2019 with the release of Smart Plugin Manager, helping customers keep their sites up to date and secure. 

By 2022, we launched Site Monitoring, and in 2023, we strengthened payment security for eCommerce customers through the Stripe Connect integration. WP Engine’s continued stewardship of community-loved tools would resurface yet again with the launch of the ACF Annual Survey in 2023, which directly engaged current ACF users to guide future development.

More recently, our focus has turned toward deepening performance and workflow optimizations. In 2024, we launched Performance Insights to help customers fine-tune their experiences, introduced Dynamic Plugin Loading for smarter performance management, and enabled Edge Page Full Cache to serve pages even faster. 

“As we continue to chart a course for the future, our product teams are leaning into customer feedback and identifying where we can use our expertise to make the most impact for them,” said WP Engine Chief Technology Officer Ramadass Prabhakar.

“Our goal is not to build products, but to build products with a purpose—products that make a difference as we all build the future of the web together.”

From essential security to cutting-edge performance, WP Engine has never stopped evolving, because our customers never stop building.

Powered by people, invested in opportunity

Since Jason Cohen onboarded our very first customers, one truth has remained constant: our greatest impact isn’t found in the tools we build, but in the people who build them and the people we build them for. 

Whether it’s the agencies and brands that trust our platform to power their digital experiences or the employees who drive our innovation forward every day, people have always been at the center of our story. That commitment is evident both in the vibrant culture we’ve built internally and the strong partnerships we’ve nurtured over the years.

In 2016, we made a public pledge to employee equity by joining the White House Equal Pay Pledge and launched 24/7/365 live chat support—two bold statements showing WP Engine’s commitment to both our employees and our customers. 

That same year, we began our long-standing partnership with the Webby Awards. What began as a small sponsorship would eventually evolve into Crafted With Code, a full-scale storytelling series dedicated to highlighting Webby-recognized websites built on WordPress® and the creators who bring them to life.

In 2017, we launched our Agency Partner Program to better support the creative professionals and agencies who rely on WP Engine to deliver for their clients. We were also honored as Company of the Year by the International Business Awards—a recognition that underscored our dual commitment to innovation and integrity. 2017 also marked the launch of our first employee resource group (ERG), Sheroes—now known as Roar—to champion women in tech and amplify their voices in the workplace.

Our investment in people has only deepened in the years since. Since 2017, WP Engine has earned nearly 40 Great Place to Work certifications and introduced several new ERGs, continuing to foster a workplace culture rooted in purpose and belonging. 

Externally, WP Engine continues to support the community that supports us. We’ve launched and sustained meaningful initiatives, from DE{CODE}, our annual virtual conference, to our recent presence at events like PressConf, Color Code, and CloudFest. Last year, we also introduced the Agency Partner Awards to recognize the creative excellence of the partners building extraordinary digital experiences on our platform.

In celebration of our 15th anniversary, we thought it was high time to recommit to the values that have strengthened us. This week, WP Engine’s more than 1,000 employees across the globe digitally signed our Core Values statement, harkening back to our Core Values codification back in 2013.

This re-commitment to our values has realigned and reenergized our team members, galvanizing a global movement of WP Engine employees to continue pursuing progress and working towards a better, brighter future for the WordPress® community and the web.

Through every effort we make, every event we support, every product we build, WP Engine aims to support a business model where people come first, always.

Expanding our vision and embracing the future

Fifteen years ago, WP Engine opened its doors with a bold idea with a clear purpose: to empower builders on the open web through world-class technology, tireless support, and a deep commitment to people. Today, that purpose is stronger than ever. 

Our journey has been shaped by the developers, creators, agencies, and teammates who’ve helped us grow, not just as a company, but as a community.

“As we celebrate this milestone, we do so with immense gratitude for everyone who’s trusted us to be part of their digital journey,” said Brunner.

“But more importantly, we look ahead, because while 15 years is a moment worth marking, our eyes are focused on what’s next—on continuing to support a web that’s faster, safer, more creative, and more open than ever before.”

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^{[1] The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation.}