When a widely used WordPress plugin changes hands, the impact on day-to-day reliability can take time to surface — but for agencies and site owners running event-heavy sites, the signs tend to show up fast. The Events Calendar Pro, a premium event management plugin used on a large number of WordPress sites, is now at the centre of a growing community conversation about whether its quality has meaningfully declined since its acquisition by StellarWP.
A thread on r/WordPress drew substantial engagement, with multiple users describing experiences of unresolved bugs, slow or unhelpful support responses, and updates that introduced new problems rather than fixing existing ones. The plugin was previously considered a reliable solution for complex event scheduling, but the thread suggests that confidence has eroded among a vocal portion of its user base.
Much of the frustration centres on changes that followed StellarWP’s acquisition of the plugin. StellarWP, a brand under hosting company Liquid Web, has acquired several WordPress products in recent years. Some users in the thread allege that post-acquisition priorities shifted toward upselling and product bundling, though StellarWP has not publicly responded to these claims. The discussion identifies four recurring themes in the community feedback.
- Bug resolution
- Known bugs reported as persisting across multiple release cycles without fixes.
- Support quality
- Responses described as slow, scripted, or failing to resolve issues.
- Update stability
- Some updates reported to introduce new breakages on live sites.
- Pricing and bundling
- Concerns raised about value as features become tied to broader product bundles.
For agencies managing client sites with active event listings, the situation creates real operational risk. Migrating away from The Events Calendar Pro is not straightforward — the plugin uses its own custom post types (a WordPress data structure that stores content in a non-standard format) and data models, meaning a switch to an alternative event management solution requires careful data migration and front-end rebuilding. Several users in the thread suggested moving to alternative event management plugins as a result.
The thread also reflects a pattern that has surfaced repeatedly in the WordPress community: what happens to product quality when established plugins change hands, particularly when the acquiring company manages a large portfolio at the same time. The free version of The Events Calendar, still available in the WordPress.org repository, did not escape criticism either, with some users reporting it has become bloated or slower in recent versions.
None of the claims in the thread are backed by official statements from StellarWP or the plugin’s development team. Users in the thread reported testing updates on staging environments before pushing to production sites — a precaution that reflects how much trust in the plugin’s update process has shifted among those following the discussion.
