WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting provider, has ended support for .htaccess directives. As part of the End-of-Life process, WP Engine is winding down the use of .htaccess on their servers and plans to end support for the file in October 2022.

It may seem unthinkable to stop supporting .htaccess since it is so deeply ingrained in the way websites are managed. The hosting web service may not suit how modern websites are created if customers cannot have a custom .htaccess.

Looking closer at WP Engine’s decision, however, shows that it makes sense and, more interestingly, it may in the future become a common characteristic of high-performance web hosting.

WP Engine stated several reasons for leaving .htaccess behind, including the desire to achieve performance gains by removing the file at the site level and the ability to leverage newer technologies.