About Mendix

Mendix is a global leader in low-code application development, enabling enterprises to build apps faster across the full application lifecycle (ideation, development and testing through to deployment and operations). Their global reach and enterprise-scale deployments mean they maintain a web presence that spans geographies, including China.

The Challenge

Mendix’s global website is built on WordPress and hosted via WP Engine. While this setup works well for much of the world, but inside China, things were a different story:

“Loading times were inconsistent. While it would sometimes load in a reasonable amount of time, more often than not it would take up to 2-3 minutes and the page would still only partially load.”

- Bryan Liang, Head of APAC Growth at Mendix

The site was loading very slowly (38+ seconds) for Chinese visitors due to a mix of infrastructure and code-based incompatibility issues, typical for WP Engine-hosted sites in China.

Many third-party resources (e.g., external scripts, fonts, embeds) either failed to load in China or loaded so slowly that it was degrading the user experience.

Without optimized delivery, page interactivity and site conversion potential in China were at risk.

WP Engine, while providing strong global performance, cannot guarantee reliable performance or full resource delivery in China without additional optimization.

That gap mattered — Mendix needed to ensure that their brand experience, content and lead-capture functionality worked reliably in China without rebuilding the site or deploying a separate China-only version.

This led Mendix to Chinafy.

Why Mendix Chose Chinafy

Chinafy outperformed costly and complex alternatives by delivering instant China readiness without requiring a separate site or an ICP license, as well as reliable support that has kept Mendix renewing year after year.

Here’s how Mendix puts it:

“We evaluated Chinafy and a couple of other alternatives. We chose Chinafy in the end based on the price, effort, and time required, and the solution they provided, as Chinafy also partners with local CDNs in Mainland China.

Other alternatives we considered were either more expensive or required us to maintain a separate site in Mainland China, which also required obtaining an ICP license - a process that could take 6+ months.

There were some initial questions on data privacy and security from our internal compliance and security teams, but Chinafy was able to address all of them, and in a timely manner.

We continue to renew with Chinafy (currently in our third year) not only because of the reasons just mentioned, but also for their customer support. We haven't seen many issues, but when we have questions, they are always very responsive and willing to help.”

- Bryan Liang, Head of APAC Growth at Mendix

The Solution

With Chinafy, Mendix was able to accelerate and optimize their existing WordPress website for mainland China without rehosting or rebuilding the site.

Key aspects:

Chinafy’s technology scanned the site, identified slow or inaccessible resources, and handled them so the site functioned as intended in China’s network environment.

Traffic from China was routed to the China-optimized version, while global traffic remained unaffected.

The existing hosting (WP Engine), tech stack and site infrastructure stayed intact.

Implementation timeframe was short – a typical Chinafy deployment takes ~2 weeks.

Mendix retained their global WordPress workflow and did not need a separate onshore Chinese domain or site variant.

Results & Key Metrics

With Chinafy, Mendix achieved 22.5x faster full-load times (from 30+ seconds down to under 2 seconds), improved resource delivery, and better overall user experience in China.

Improved speed and reliability inside China typically contribute to: higher engagement, lower bounce rates, improved lead-capture conversions, and better indexability on Chinese search engines.

“Our average website load time went down to a few seconds, and everything loaded.

This significantly improved our overall customer experience in China, allowing us to create more touchpoints to link to our website (WeChat, webinars, offline events) and have more China- specific content accessible to customers without us worrying if the customer would have a bad experience.”

- Bryan Liang, Head of APAC Growth at Mendix

What Else?

Besides achieving performance improvements that are verifiable by third parties, the Mendix team can also benefit from:

Chinafy's automation rules keep global and localized versions of the site in sync

Mendix could continue using its existing website infrastructure on WordPress and WPEngine with minimal fuss, saving huge costs.

Thorough User Acceptance Testing (UAT) completed quickly and painlessly.

Improved access in China without needing a VPN.

In Summary

Mendix’s experience shows:

Even a globally performant WordPress + WP Engine setup can struggle in China without optimization.

China-specific performance issues are primarily due to code-based and infrastructure-based incompatibilities. Chinafy handles both these components.

With Chinafy, global brands like Mendix can deliver fast, fully-functional websites to China in ~2 weeks while retaining their existing infrastructure.

The result is a better user experience, improved access for Chinese visitors, and stronger support for Chinese-market growth.

About Chinafy

Chinafy specializes in making global websites load quickly, fully, and consistently in China without requiring teams to rebuild or rehost their sites. It works by optimizing code-level compatibility – handling third-party resources that underperform in China – and layering on infrastructure built for the region, including near-China or onshore CDNs to deliver reliable, China-specific performance.

Does your website work in China? Get started here to evaluate your website with us.