WP Engine scraps WordPress development tool fee

WordPress
(Image credit: Pixabay)

Managed WordPress hosting company WP Engine has made changes to the price of all Local tools and features for WordPress development.

Local is a set of WordPress developer tools and solutions offered by WP Engine, with around 300,000 users actively using it to develop an environment to build WordPress websites, test the sites and quicken development workflows.

Now, users will be able to access all WP Engine Local WordPress development features for free.

Free to use 

Now free for all, Local offers users a simplified way to build and develop WordPress websites on desktop. Even without access to the internet, Local has the ability to install WordPress and build a website.

Seth Halpern, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Small and Medium Business for WP Engine, said: “We’re doubling-down on our commitment to give back to the WordPress community by making all Local tools and features, including those formerly only available with a paid Local Pro subscription, free and available to all Local users."

“We believe Local Pro features benefit a broader WordPress developer community and we want to deliver the full value of Local to more developers than ever. We want to empower the freedom to create on WordPress by making all Local features available for free.”

Some of the benefits of Local include providing developers with a sandbox to experiment and develop new sites faster, while letting developers focus on building and launching WordPress websites.

Another benefit, highlighted by WP Engine, is that Local has an easy-to-use interface, making it easier to publish sites, pull down live sites for offline edits, and sync various developer tools for an overall simplified workflow. 

The features that are now free on Local are live links, MagicSync, link checker, instant reload, and cloud backup.

Abigail Opiah
B2B Editor - Web hosting & Website builders

Abigail is a B2B Editor that specializes in web hosting and website builder news, features and reviews at TechRadar Pro. She has been a B2B journalist for more than five years covering a wide range of topics in the technology sector from colocation and cloud to data centers and telecommunications. As a B2B web hosting and website builder editor, Abigail also writes how-to guides and deals for the sector, keeping up to date with the latest trends in the hosting industry. Abigail is also extremely keen on commissioning contributed content from experts in the web hosting and website builder field.