The StellarWP umbrella brand is no more, and this shift has left many WordPress site owners wondering how their favorite plugins will be affected. Back in 2021, Liquid Web—the parent company behind Nexcess—launched StellarWP to unify a collection of WordPress plugins it had been acquiring since 2020. This portfolio included well-known tools like GiveWP, LearnDash, SolidWP (previously iThemes), and several others, each with its own dedicated community and support team.
Now, Liquid Web has announced a major reorganization. According to their official statement, the StellarWP portfolio is being consolidated into four core products: Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and Give. Several familiar brands are being absorbed into these core offerings. For instance, SolidWP (which provided security and backup features) is becoming part of Kadence Security, IconicWP (WooCommerce add-ons) is merging into Kadence Shop Kit, and Restrict Content Pro is now under Kadence Memberships. MemberDash is being incorporated into LearnDash. GiveWP is rebranding simply as Give under Liquid Web, while LearnDash and The Events Calendar continue as standalone core products. Kadence itself is expanding to become the flagship suite.
The company has assured users that this is not a forced migration. Your current plan, pricing, and tools will remain unchanged unless you choose to upgrade. Legacy features will still receive development attention, and security patches for absorbed brands will be provided through April 2027. Your hosting setup remains self-hosted and unaffected. However, there is a critical catch: if your subscription lapses, you lose access to your legacy pricing and must purchase a new plan at current rates. Therefore, the most important immediate step for current customers is to confirm that auto-renew is enabled on their accounts.
While nothing breaks tomorrow, the long-term outlook suggests that absorbed products may see slower feature development, changes in support structure, and pricing shifts over time. For those considering alternatives, there are robust independent options available. For donations and fundraising, Charitable offers a one-click GiveWP importer and full-featured donation management. For online courses and memberships, MemberPress provides an integrated solution that covers both LearnDash and MemberDash capabilities. For content restriction, MemberPress again stands out as a powerful alternative to Restrict Content Pro. For popups and opt-ins, OptinMonster delivers advanced conversion tools beyond what Kadence Conversions offers. For backups and migrations, Duplicator is a trusted choice that pairs well with dedicated security plugins like Sucuri or Wordfence. For event calendars, Sugar Calendar provides a lightweight, performant alternative to The Events Calendar. For WooCommerce add-ons, Merchant from aThemes bundles over 40 conversion modules at a lower cost than IconicWP or Kadence Shop Kit. For themes, aThemes offers Sydney for business sites and Botiga for WooCommerce stores as independent alternatives to Kadence.
The overarching recommendation is to choose plugins built by focused, independent teams that prioritize their product as their main mission. This approach tends to ensure better support, faster development, and greater alignment with user needs over the long term. Whether you stick with your current tools or transition to alternatives, the key is to make a decision that supports your site’s goals for the next five to ten years. For further comparisons, explore our curated lists of the best WordPress donation plugins, LMS plugins, membership plugins, backup plugins, security plugins, event plugins, WooCommerce extensions, and themes.