In the style of the WordPress drama, but in a somewhat calmer, slower and more measured way, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert has given Pantheon CEO Josh Koenig a small slap on the wrist, after Koenig has repeatedly been critical of the direction the Drupal project is taking.
Before continuing, it should be made clear that Pantheon is one of the industry leaders in hosting for Drupal, a company that in turn competes in some way with Acquia, founded by Buytaert himself and which is a global leader in digital experience platforms (DXP) for enterprise. In addition, both Buytaert and Koenig were close collaborators in Drupal’s early days.
There have been many controversies, but at CMS MAG we covered one in December 2025 in which Koenig was very clear in stating that DXPs like Acquia were literally dead. “While all DXP platforms are in decline, Webflow is making major strides. Its designer first visual builder has grown by more than 40 % during the period studied, even among the top one million ranked sites, where it now powers more sites than any DXP platform, including Adobe”, Pantheon’s article states.
None of the above sat too well with Buytaert, who let the information settle for a while and finally responded. In short, he says that this open source thing is based on competing with good products and services on the one hand and actively contributing to the project on the other.
This is where the slap on the wrist comes in. In this regard, he says that Acquia engineers earned 2955 weighted credits on Drupal related issues, in addition to 164 from the Drupal Security Team, thanks to their contributions, while Pantheon, in the same period, earned 30 issue credits and 2 security credits.
The message is loud and clear and says that Pantheon should focus on improving its product, contributing more and not confronting other members of the Drupal ecosystem, because all this does is erode it.
The central message is that an open source company like Pantheon should focus not only on growing individually, but on growing the entire ecosystem. When the ecosystem grows, all participants benefit. Dries promotes the idea that the open source license sets the minimum allowed, but the sustainability of the ecosystem depends on voluntary contributions beyond what is mandatory.
Let us hope the matter does not escalate or end up in court as happened in the case of Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which had more or less the same disagreements, but handled in a somewhat more aggressive way by the WordPress cofounder.
This putdown also comes shortly after the announcement of the Acquia Fair Trade Initiative, through which Acquia commits to systematically donating 2 % of its company deals to the Drupal Association.
Update: WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has given his opinion on Dries’s article, pointing out that there are many similarities between what is happening between Acquia and Pantheon and what is happening between himself and his company, Automattic, and WP Engine”.
* Original article written in Spanish, translated with AI and reviewed in English by Jorge Mediavilla.
