ILLINOIS ATLAS Teaching and Learning with Technology

What ILLINOIS ATLAS Teaching and Learning with Technology does

ILLINOIS ATLAS Teaching and Learning with Technology (publish.illinois.edu, or "PIE") is an internal WordPress multisite hosting service operated by the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The service provides free, securely-hosted, accessible website hosting to UIUC faculty, staff, students, and approved affiliates who authenticate via Shibboleth/NetID credentials. As of 2026, the platform hosts over 6,000 individual WordPress websites spanning departmental sites, course blogs, research group pages, conference event sites, and personal academic portfolios.

The technology stack is a WordPress multisite network running the internally developed University of Illinois WordPress Theme (currently v3.0.6) and a curated suite of 30+ pre-approved plugins, including Akismet for spam control, Contact Form 7 for forms, TablePress for tables, MetaSlider for image sliders, Site Kit by Google for analytics, Editoria11y for accessibility, and Zotpress for Zotero-based reference management. The service also ships the Illinois Site Templater (Basic and Conference variants) for repeatable site structures, a pre-production test environment (test.publish.illinois.edu) accessible via VPN, and a dedicated analytics documentation site maintained by the Web Implementation Guidelines Group. Integration with Illinois Webtools calendars, Google Analytics 4, and Google Tag Manager is supported.

The business model is non-commercial: PIE is funded through University of Illinois institutional technology budgets and provided free of charge to UIUC affiliates. There is no revenue model, no paid tiers, and no external customers. Optional minimal annual fees may apply for custom domain registration. Distribution is entirely through internal university IT infrastructure, with user support delivered via the Technology Services Help Desk, monthly Web Conversations meetings on Microsoft Teams, and the [email protected] email channel.

Name

ILLINOIS ATLAS Teaching and Learning with Technology

Legal name

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Website

https://publish.illinois.edu

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Internal WordPress multisite hosting service operated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Office of the CIO, providing free, accessible web hosting to 6,000+ sites for UIUC faculty, staff, students, and affiliates via Shibboleth/NetID authentication.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Urbana, Illinois

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Free Hosting Service: Publish.Illinois.edu (PIE) is a free web hosting service provided by the University of Illinois Office of the Chief Information Officer to faculty, staff, students, and affiliates. No revenue is generated from this service as it is funded through university technology services budgets.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Publish.illinois.edu (PIE) is a free, managed WordPress multisite hosting service operated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office of the Chief Information Officer for UIUC faculty, staff, students, and affiliates. The service provides the Illinois-branded WordPress theme, a curated suite of 30+ pre-approved plugins, and template sites that let non-technical users launch secure, accessible websites in minutes without managing updates, backups, or security patching.

Product overview

Publish.illinois.edu (PIE) is a WordPress multisite hosting service for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, operated by the Office of the Chief Information Officer. The service hosts over 6,000 individual WordPress websites, offering free, securely-hosted, accessible web site hosting for non-technical users. The core offering consists of PIE hosting infrastructure, the Illinois WordPress Theme (currently v3.0.6), a curated plugin suite of 30+ pre-approved plugins, and template sites (Plugin Demo, Conference Template, Basic Template). Related services include a dedicated Analytics documentation site run by the Web Implementation Guidelines Group, a test environment for pre-deployment validation, and monthly Web Conversations community meetings. Users can choose between the Illinois Theme or the latest WordPress Twenty-X theme, with optional custom domains available for an additional annual fee.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Publish.illinois.edu (PIE) Web Hosting

Quantifiable outcome

• Site creation in minutes with no technical setup required
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration12 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• WordPress VIP: Enterprise WordPress platform from Automattic serving large media, government, and education organizations - comparable enterprise-grade WordPress hosting and CMS tooling.
• SiteGround: Major web hosting provider with WordPress specialization and education sector customers - comparable WordPress hosting infrastructure at different scale and price point.
• WP Engine: Major managed WordPress hosting provider with higher education customers and enterprise WordPress capabilities - comparable managed hosting platform but broader market focus beyond education.
• Pressable: Managed WordPress hosting provider owned by Automattic with higher education customers - comparable managed WordPress infrastructure model.
• Pantheon: Web operations platform serving higher education, government, and large organizations with managed WordPress and Drupal hosting - comparable hosting model targeting academic customers.

Direct peers

• CampusPress (Edlio): Provides managed WordPress multisite hosting specifically for K-12 and higher education institutions with curriculum integration, training, and support - the closest commercial analog to UIUC's internal PIE service.
• Reclaim Hosting: Education-focused hosting provider offering domain registration and managed hosting for academic institutions, faculty, students, and conference sites - directly comparable to PIE's academic user base and use cases.
• Edublogs: Free and paid educational blogging platform using WordPress multisite for students, teachers, and institutions - shares the same underlying technology stack and serves the same non-technical academic user segment.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/applied-technologies-for-learning-in-the-arts-and-sciences-tlt

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about ILLINOIS ATLAS Teaching and Learning with Technology