Liquid Web inadvertently started a cascading series of controversies after it folded a group of well-known WordPress plugin brands into a new software lineup. The reconfiguration and rebranding caught users by surprise, leading to confusion and significant online backlash against Liquid Web across social media.
A Dynamic WordPress Facebook group admin started a discussion about the Liquid Web plugin and branding controversy that reflected the confusion at the time, writing:
“It looks like a bit of chaos in the Kadence FB group as LiquidWeb moves to integrate their tools under a single umbrella. What’s interesting is that they’ve dropped Lifetime Bundle (LTD) and now have 3 packages:
- $99 Essentials (theme and blocks),
- $219 Pro (which includes ShopKit)
- and $399 Elite.
Ultimately, people aren’t happy. It appears that their licenses aren’t working. That’s something they should be able to fix. However, it’ll be interesting to see what level of access people get. Will LTD owners still retain access to addons like ShopKit and Kadence Conversions?”
One person in that Dynamic WordPress Facebook group discussion blamed private equity investments in web hosting for the issue, a sentiment that was echoed on X, where @jeffr0 suggested that maybe Matt Mullenweg had a point about private equity firms and WordPress hosting investments.
@jeffr0 tweeted:
“So I guess @photomatt had a point. Private Equity in the WordPress ecosystem blows.”
Someone else disagreed with blaming private equity investors, responding:
“I’m not sure I agree. First, WPE wasn’t doing anything wrong. …I’m also not sure what’s happening to these plugins is a result of LW being owned by PE.”
Reflecting the confusion in the moment, @srikat tweeted:
“I can’t find the downloads for my lifetime Kadence purchase. Just sent them a support email ticket..”
Nexcess/Liquid Web Branding and Rebranding
Part of the confusion stems from a yearslong series of Liquid Web and Nexcess branding flip-flops.
- Liquid Web acquired Nexcess in 2019.
- The two brands later moved toward a unified Liquid Web identity.
- By late 2025, users who typed in nexcess.net were often redirected to liquidweb.com.
- In April 2026, Nexcess relaunched as a “Specialty Cloud” brand combining Liquid Web’s managed hosting expertise with Servers.com’s bare-metal infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Liquid Web is now the managed hosting brand within the Nexcess ecosystem.
StellarWP Disappears: Plugins Emerge In Nexcess And Liquid Web
Previously, the plugins lived under the StellarWP brand, with many maintaining their own standalone websites. The new branding is confusing for some users because both Nexcess and Liquid Web describe the same WordPress products as part of their own ecosystem.
The Nexcess relaunch announcement from April 8, 2026 says:
“We’re expanding your toolkit by bringing leading software solutions, like Kadence, GiveWP, The Events Calendar, and LearnDash, directly into the Nexcess ecosystem.”
Liquid Web’s May 12, 2026 web page describes the same products as part of the Liquid Web by Nexcess software portfolio:
“Liquid Web by Nexcess is concentrating its diverse WordPress software portfolio into four core products…”
The overlapping language between both brands helps explain why the rollout appeared confusing from the outside. The products were described as moving into both Nexcess and “Liquid Web by Nexcess,” and StellarWP seemingly disappeared without notice.
Liquid Web’s software announcement says its WordPress software portfolio is now concentrated into four core products: Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and Give. The company says SolidWP, Iconic, Restrict Content Pro, and MemberDash are no longer sold as standalone products, with their features folded into Kadence or LearnDash.
What It Means For Plugin Subscribers
For existing customers, Liquid Web says the change is optional. The company says customers can keep their current features, plans, pricing, tools, and license keys unless they choose to upgrade to one of the new software plans.
But the public rollout appears to have created confusion among plugin users, including lifetime deal customers who were unsure what happened to the products they had purchased. Social media posts described product pages disappearing, redirects not working as expected, and users trying to determine whether their plugins had been discontinued, renamed, or moved.
In a post to a discussion in the Dynamic WordPress Facebook group, Jack Kitterhing, Strategic Product Leader at Nexcess, confirmed that lifetime subscription plugin customers would retain what they already had and that every customer was being grandfathered in. He also acknowledged login issues and missing invoices, describing the move as a “massive migration and change of systems” that came with challenges.
Kitterhing posted an explanation of what’s going on:
“Just to confirm Lifetime customers retain everything they already had. We aren’t removing anything or watering it down. If you owned it you still own it today. Every single customer is being grandfathered in.
And we re-positioned Kadence Essentials so for those of you who just want the theme and blocks it’s now cheaper than it used to be ($99 vs $129) to get the core components of Kadence.
There are currently issues with logging in for some customers and missing invoices which the team is fixing as I type and we expect to be fully fixed in a few hours.
This was a massive migration and change of systems and like anything of such magnitude it comes with challenges. Thanks for bearing with us as we get this all up and running today.”
Takeaways
- Liquid Web says existing customers keep their current features, pricing, plans, tools, and license keys.
- Lifetime customers were told they retain what they already had.
- The backlash appears to have been driven by confusion during the rollout, not only by the product consolidation itself.
- Years of Liquid Web and Nexcess branding changes made the plugin migration harder to understand.
- Clearer advance communication may have reduced the confusion around product pages, redirects, licenses, and lifetime deal access.
There appears to have been insufficient communication from Liquid Web and Nexcess, compounded by the two companies’ branding flip-flops. The situation appears to be on the way to being resolved.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/hoangpts
