Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup, WP More newsletter issue 46, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

This issue sits at an odd crossroads. WordPress 7.0 is closed out and 7.1 is already taking shape, with AI quietly working its way into the core release plan. There’s also a new project calling out the worst behavior in your plugin folder, and a tribute to someone most WordPress users never knew by name but whose fingerprints are all over how this community came together.

Let’s get into it.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 wraps up, and the core team wants your feedback

• What’s coming to the AI Client in WordPress 7.1

• A new database is naming WordPress’s worst admin notice offenders

• Remembering Om Malik, the connector behind Automattic

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WordPress 7.0 Wraps Up, and the Core Team Wants Your Feedback

WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” is done, and the core team is already turning toward 7.1. But before everyone moves on, they want to hear from you, even if you only watched this release cycle from the sidelines. The retrospective survey covers process, communication, and what worked or didn’t, and contributors are treating the feedback as essential groundwork for tightening up the next cycle. You don’t need to have touched a line of code to weigh in. If you tracked the release, tested a beta, or just read the changelogs, your take counts. The form and comments stay open through July 20, so there’s a real window to make your case before the conversation closes for good.

Read the full retrospective on Make WordPress Core here.

Speaking of what’s next, the AI Client is shaping up to be one of 7.1’s bigger stories.

What’s Coming to the AI Client in WordPress 7.1

WordPress’s Core AI team has set its sights on 7.1, and the AI Client, the framework powering AI features across the plugin ecosystem, is getting two upgrades worth watching. First is generation streaming: responses will type out in real time instead of leaving you staring at a loading spinner, though full WordPress support is still a work in progress since most servers time out long before a multi-minute AI request finishes. Second is embeddings, the numerical fingerprint that lets software match “how do I reset my password” to a page titled “account recovery steps” even though the two share no words in common. Recent MySQL and MariaDB versions already support storing these natively, and an early vector search experiment is already running inside the AI plugin.

Read the full post on WordPress AI here.

If AI inside core feels careful and deliberate, the chaos happening in your plugin folder right now is anything but.

A New Database Is Naming WordPress’s Worst Admin Notice Offenders

Open any WordPress dashboard and you’ve met one of these: a banner begging for a five-star review, an upsell that won’t go away, or a license nag glued to every single screen you visit. Now there’s a public scoreboard for it. A new project is cataloging WordPress admin-notice spam plugin by plugin, pinning each offending notice to the exact line of code that fires it. The numbers are rough: thousands of notices catalogued across thousands of plugins, with roughly seven in ten configured to render on every admin screen instead of just the plugin’s own settings page, and over a quarter impossible to dismiss at all. One Instagram feed plugin currently tops the leaderboard for sheer volume of nags. If you’ve ever wondered whether your dashboard clutter was just your imagination, it wasn’t.

Read the full piece on Anchor here.

Spam notices are one kind of automation gone too far, this week’s last story is a different kind of milestone.

Remembering Om Malik, the Connector Behind Automattic

Tech journalist and GigaOm founder Om Malik has died at 59, after what his family described as a long health journey with his heart. He passed away this week at Stanford Hospital, surrounded by family and friends. His name never shows up in WordPress’s commit history, but it’s hard to overstate his role in the project’s early years. In 2004, while interviewing Toni Schneider for an unrelated story, Malik mentioned he was blogging on WordPress and offered to introduce Schneider to a 20-year-old Matt Mullenweg. That introduction led to Schneider becoming Automattic’s founding CEO. “We say all roads lead to Om,” Mullenweg told a WordCamp Europe audience in 2014. Malik was also one of just eight people who showed up to WordPress’s first-ever meetup in San Francisco in 2005.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

→ WordPress 7.1 Set to Hide Classic Block From the Inserter as Contributors Begin Phasing It Out

→ WordPress AI Team Proposes Adding Knowledge Post Type and Guidelines to Core

→ Plugin Developers and Site Maintainers Push Back on WordPress.org’s 24-Hour Update Delay

→ Automattic Wins Privilege Fight Over Pre-Lawsuit Trademark Strategy Slack Messages, Court Set to Rule on Motions to Dismiss

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ All Roads Lead to Om (ma.tt) - Matt Mullenweg’s own tribute to Om Malik.

→ GoDaddy Annual Cybersecurity Report: Website Malware Threat Landscape (godaddy.com)

→ The AI & Bot Traffic Reality Check (kinsta.com)

→ How WPBeginner Lost 99% of Its Google Traffic (2.6M to 27K Clicks) (blogginc.com)

→ Why I Might Skip WordCamp Europe Next Year (jessicarisch.com)

→ Who’s Left to Build WordPress? (wpmayor.com)

→ The Kodee MCP shift: What 914,000 conversations reveal about AI-managed VPS

On Other WordPress News

→ AI Contributor Weekly Summary – 24 June 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ The PHP Ambassador Program Is Open (thephp.foundation)

→ Merge Proposal: Guidelines Built on Knowledge (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Contributor Dashboard Gets Customizable Ladders for Make Teams in First Major Update Since Pilot Launch (therepository.email)

From WordPress Community

→ Update: The State of the Community Survey Is Open Through July 17 (thewpcommunitycollective.com)

→ Marketing WooCommerce as a Community: Our Real Strengths (dothewoo.com)

→ Destiny Kanno, Anand Upadhyay, Maciej Pilarski on How WordPress Education Programs Are Growing (wptavern.com)

→ Automattic Celebrates Graduates of University of Illinois Chicago’s AI Leaders Program (automattic.com)

→ Andrew Garcia Receives the Yoast Care Fund for His Contribution to the WordPress Community (yoast.com)

→ In Partnership With Variety: Screening of “Code for the People” Documentary (automattic.com)

→ Migrating From WordPress to Astro (billerickson.net)

→ The Enterprise WordPress Playbook (humanmade.com)

→ GoDaddy’s Adam Warner Challenges “NoDaddys” After Top Tier Benchmark Result, Company Reveals Engineering Push Behind the Numbers (therepository.email)

Conclusion

That’s it for issue 46. Between an AI client that’s learning to act instead of just advise, a database keeping plugin developers honest, and a reminder of how much WordPress owes to the people who simply showed up and made introductions, this was a week about who and what is quietly shaping the platform.

Reply and tell us what stood out to you, or pass this along to a fellow WordPresser who’d want to read it. See you next week.

Nishat, WP More

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Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup, WP More newsletter issue 45, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

This week is all about money and who actually gets it.

Plugin companies are rethinking what a license fee even covers, Envato just raised its cut to a flat 50%, and one founder is sharing the real receipts behind five years of plugin growth. Add a fresh push to pay WordCamp organizers and CERN’s enormous move to WordPress, and you’ve got a packed issue.

Let’s get into it.

In this Issue:

• What your plugin license is actually paying for in the age of AI

• Envato’s new 50% author fee, and what it really represents

• Five years and 10,000 installs later: marketing lessons from Accessibility Checker

• Why one organizer thinks it’s time to pay WordCamp speakers and organizers

• CERN just moved the birthplace of the web to WordPress

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What is Your Plugin License Actually Paying for?

AI is quietly rewriting the plugin business model. Casey Burridge, who runs growth at GravityKit, points out that when something breaks, your customers don’t file a ticket anymore. They paste the error into ChatGPT along with your docs URL and get an answer faster than your support queue can even assign it. Custom development is following the same path. AI coding tools can now write the hook or integration your dev team had planned for next quarter.

Burridge isn’t writing off support and updates entirely, security patches and architecture decisions still need real humans, but he argues the renewal pitch needs a third pillar. His bet: MCP servers that let AI agents work directly with your plugin, SaaS backends that keep core logic out of reach, and becoming the product AI recommends when someone asks what the best WordPress plugin is for a given job.

Read the full blog on Casey Burridge’s blog here.

If support and updates are losing their pull as selling points, distribution is facing its own reckoning too, just ask anyone selling through Envato.

Envato’s Flat 50% Fee is a Wake-up Call, not a Death Sentence

Starting July 1, 2026, Envato Market drops its tiered system for a flat 50% author fee across every account, paired with a non-exclusive model. Maria Ansari at BloggInc argues the headline number misses the real story: that 50% has always functioned as a marketing budget you don’t control, covering traffic acquisition, conversion testing, and placement inside Envato’s discovery system.

The piece isn’t a leave marketplaces now argument, going independent means owning licensing, fraud prevention, and customer acquisition yourself, and revenue often dips before it stabilizes. But brands like OceanWP, Melapress, and Blocksy have already built hybrid or fully independent distribution, and Ansari’s point stands: marketplaces are a channel you rent, not equity you build.

Read the full blog on BloggInc’s blog here.

Building that kind of equity outside a marketplace takes consistent, often unglamorous marketing, and Amber Hinds has plenty of receipts for what that actually looks like.

Five Years, 10,000 Installs, and No Shortcuts

While other plugin founders describe AI eating into their sales, Amber Hinds of Equalize Digital just crossed 10,000 active installs on Accessibility Checker, more than doubling from 4,000 in seven months and growing plugin revenue 44.3% in 2025. Her five-year breakdown is refreshingly unglamorous: weekly meetups since 2021, a podcast, hundreds of blog posts, and years of free accessibility help in Facebook groups before any of it converted into customers.

Her six-person team logged 2,362 hours on marketing in 2025 alone, on a budget that’s ranged between $25,000 and $71,000 a year. Nothing here is a growth hack. Hinds’ real point is that marketing and product quality compound together, and that the overnight success people see now is five years of unpaid groundwork finally paying off.

Read the full blog on Amber Hinds’ blog here.

That kind of long game depends on people willing to organize the events where this community actually connects, and increasingly, those people are asking to get paid for it.

Should WordCamp Organizers Finally Get Paid?

Rodolfo Melogli just spent months organizing his own event, Checkout Summit, and came home from WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków with a blunt take: the people running flagship WordCamps for free aren’t being compensated, they’re absorbing months of real work as a donation. A 50 euro ticket doesn’t cover travel, accommodation, or the year of planning behind it.

He’s careful to say not every volunteer role needs pay, just the people carrying an event on their shoulders for months. Amber Hinds added her own experience in the comments: WP Accessibility Day left the official WordPress community in part so it could pay speakers, easier to manage for a virtual event with no travel costs. Melogli says future Checkout Summit editions will set aside a real budget for organizers and speakers too.

Read the full blog on Checkout Summit’s blog here.

Paying the people who run our community events is one thing, but this week also brought proof of just how far WordPress’s institutional reach now extends.

CERN just Moved the Birthplace of the Web to WordPress

Thirty-five years after the first website went live at CERN, the organization has migrated home.cern from Drupal to WordPress, officially switching over the same day its team took the stage at WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków. The numbers behind it are wild: 183,346 content items, more than 510,000 files, and 580 WordPress sites now running on CERN’s own Kubernetes infrastructure. The audit covered CERN’s 800 most important Drupal sites, and WordPress beat five other CMS platforms in a six-month evaluation.

New sites spin up automatically in about a minute through a custom-built WordPress Operator. CERN plans to retire Drupal entirely by year’s end and open-source its migration tooling. As one of the engineers put it, the goal was a platform anyone at CERN could use regardless of their technical skills, accessible by design, not by accident.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Core Committers Float Chrome-Style Canary Approach for WordPress, Question Whether RTC Belongs in Core

• Anne McCarthy Named WordPress 7.1 Release Lead

• WordPress 7.1 Roadmap Focuses on Collaboration, Guidelines, and Responsive Styling With RTC Still Unresolved

• OptinMonster Plugin Hacked in CDN Supply-Chain Attack

• Awesome Motive Breach Widens as Uncanny Automator Confirms Customer Data Theft, MonsterInsights Users Hit With Phishing Campaign

• Developer Traces 13-Year Backdoor Campaign Across 44 WordPress.org Plugins to a Single Operator

• WordPress Plugins Team Adds Three Reviewers, Re-Opens Applications as Submissions Hit New Records

• WordPress.org Marketing Director Open Sources AI Agent Skills and Brand Writing Guide Powering Project’s Social Media

• U.S. Court Orders WP Engine to Reveal Strategy Deck Sentence, Finds Mullenweg Was “Evasive” in Deposition

• WordCamp Europe Draws 2,458 to Kraków, Bouncing Back From Basel Dip as CERN Goes Live on WordPress

• WordPress.org Launches ‘Protect the Shire’ Initiative, Adds 24-Hour Cooldown for Plugin and Theme Auto-Updates

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ Future of the Web 2026: Chapter 1 (wpvip.com)

→ From a 7 KB file to a 13-year backdoor operation (anchor.host)

→ The WordPress Conference We Need Next (remkusdevries.com)

→ Diversifying to break a $1.6M/yr plateau (indiehackers.com)

→ WordPress Is the Doorway, Not the Room (regionallyfamous.com)

On Other WordPress News

→ Core Committers Meeting – WordCamp Europe 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Announcing the WordPress 7.1 Release Squad (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 7.0.1 Release Schedule (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 23.4? (June 17, 2026) (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordCamp India 2027: What’s Next? (make.wordpress.org)

→ Meet Desktop Mode: A New Workspace for WordPress Admin (wordpress.com)

→ How effective are our advertising efforts for WordCamps? (make.wordpress.org)

→ How to Bring Your Community to Make WordPress Slack (make.wordpress.org)

→ Recap: Restoring removed version history (make.wordpress.org)

→ The Story Behind the Gifts from the WCEU 2026 Local Team (make.wordpress.org) → Update on the status of the plugin team – June 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Education at WCEU 2026: More Than Learning to Build a Website (make.wordpress.org)

→ Develop Locally on Linux with WordPress Studio (wordpress.com)

→ How AI and Automation Spotlight the Best of WordPress (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new for developers? (June 2026) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ AI Contributor Weekly Summary – 10 June 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Plugin Directory screenshots gallery update (make.wordpress.org)

→ React 19 upgrade temporarily reverted in Gutenberg (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call for WordPress 7.0.x Release Managers (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ Standing with Eric Binnion & his family (gofundme.com)

→ Where Have All the WordPress Speakers Gone? (elliottrichmond.co.uk)

→ Imokol Faith Ruth receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ How Was My WordCamp Europe 2026 in Krakow? (callmelana.com)

→ WordCamp Europe 2026: Worth the Wait (wordpress.com)

→ Rino de Boer’s WordCamp Europe 2026 recap thread (x.com)

→ Did I enjoy WordCamp Europe 2026? #WCEU - Imran Siddiq (youtube.com)

→ General, automated WordPress-to-WordPress sync is unsolvable (adamadam.blog)

Conclusion

That’s a wrap for issue 45.

Plenty to chew on this week: AI reshaping what a plugin license buys you, Envato resetting the rules of the marketplace game, a marketing playbook built on five patient years, a real conversation about paying the people behind WordCamp, and CERN proving WordPress can run at a genuinely massive scale.

Reply and tell me which story stuck with you most, and if you found this useful, share it with another WordPresser who’d enjoy it too.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 44, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

This week had a lot going on.

WordCamp Europe wrapped up in Kraków with nearly 2,500 attendees and a keynote from CERN. WooCommerce dropped version 10.8. WordPress’s market share slide hit six months in a row. The Core team kicked off a community testing push for real-time collaboration in 7.1. And Review Signal published its first hosting benchmarks in three years.

Plenty to catch up on.

In this issue:

• WordCamp Europe 2026 wrapped up in Kraków with 2,458 attendees from 81 countries

• WooCommerce 10.8 ships with storefront performance improvements and a new offline-aware admin

• WordPress market share drops for the sixth consecutive month, now at 41.9%

• The Core team launches a community outreach program to test real-time collaboration for WordPress 7.1

• Review Signal’s 2026 WordPress hosting benchmarks are back after a three-year gap

WordCamp Europe 2026 brought 2,458 people to Kraków

WordCamp Europe 2026 ran June 4–6 in Kraków, pulling in 2,458 attendees from 81 countries, about a quarter of them first-timers. The schedule packed in 49 talks and eight workshops across tracks covering core development, AI, and business.

Contributor Day kicked things off with teams spread across Polyglots, Core, Performance, Plugins, and more, with onboarding support for newcomers. The opening keynote came from CERN, the birthplace of the World Wide Web, who explained why they chose WordPress to carry their web presence forward.

There’s a lot more from Kraków worth reading about: the talks, the after-party, the community moments.

Read the full blog on Official blog here.

Now over to the product side of things, where WooCommerce pushed out a notable new release this week.

WooCommerce 10.8 ships with faster storefronts and an offline-aware admin

WooCommerce 10.8 dropped May 26, built by 67 contributors across 176 pull requests. First thing to check: it now requires WordPress 6.9 or higher, so update that before anything else.

The headline changes are a new offline-aware admin (no more silent save failures when your connection drops), UI alignment with WordPress 7.0 styling, and storefront performance improvements including a smoother Add to Cart flow. There’s also a database update in this release, so read the notes before you hit update.

For the full breakdown of what changed, including API updates and the beta-to-release differences, the release notes have everything.

Read the full blog on Official blog here.

While WooCommerce keeps shipping improvements, the broader WordPress platform picture looks a bit more complicated.

WordPress market share is down for the sixth month in a row

W3Techs data reported by Search Engine Journal puts WordPress at 41.9% of all websites as of late May 2026, down from 43.2% in December 2025. That 1.3 percentage point drop over six months is more than double what the platform lost across all of 2025.

WordPress still leads the CMS market by a wide margin (59.4% among sites with a known CMS), and the nearest rival Shopify sits near 5.2%. But the pace of decline is accelerating, and the timing lines up with the Automattic-WP Engine fallout plus growing interest in developer-focused alternatives like Astro.

Whether this is a blip or a real shift is the question everyone’s asking. The full article digs into the data.

Read the full blog on Official blog here.

Meanwhile, the people building WordPress core are focused on what comes next and they need your help testing it.

WordPress 7.1 wants you to test real-time collaboration

Real-time collaboration was cut from WordPress 7.0 last month over concerns about race conditions, server load, and recurring bugs. Now the Core team is setting it up properly for 7.1, with a proposed release date of August 19, 2026.

They’ve launched a community outreach effort, modeled on the old FSE experiment to get early adopters testing the feature in real-world conditions before Beta 1 on July 15. They’re looking for regular editors, professional teams (newsrooms, agencies, small businesses), and web hosts willing to recruit their customers. The goal isn’t just bug reports, they want honest feedback on what the experience actually feels like.

If you’ve been curious about collaborative editing, this is your window to shape it.

Read the full blog on Official blog here.

And wrapping up this week’s main stories, we’ve got something for everyone who’s ever agonized over a hosting decision.

WordPress hosting benchmarks are back after three years

Review Signal’s Kevin Ohashi just published his 2026 WordPress and WooCommerce hosting benchmarks, the first since 2023. The three-year gap had a reason: when Grafana Labs acquired k6, running the benchmarks on Grafana Cloud would’ve cost around $250,000 in virtual user fees. So Ohashi built his own open source load testing platform, Orderly Ape, from scratch. That took three years.

The 2026 results cover five WordPress price tiers (under $25/month up to $500+ enterprise) plus a WooCommerce tier, with updated tooling and methodology. One caveat: year-over-year comparisons with past editions need careful handling due to infrastructure changes.

Which hosts came out on top? You’ll want to read the full report for that.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Contributors Launch FSE-Style Outreach Program to Get Real-Time Collaboration Ready for WordPress 7.1

• Gutenberg 23.3 Ships Experimental Customizable WordPress Dashboard

• WordPress.org Overhauls 20-Year-Old Jobs Board, Adds Career Features to Profiles

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ 2026 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (wphostingbenchmarks.com)

→ Protect The Shire (wordpress.org)

→ WordPress powers 33% of the web in 2026 (down from 36% at its peak): CMS market share report (gravitykit.com)

→ Malware Targeting WordPress Abuses Steam Community Profiles for Command & Control Operations (godaddy.com)

→ Quarterly WordPress Threat Intelligence Report – Q1 2026 (wordfence.com)

On other WordPress News

→ WooCommerce 10.8.1: Dot Release (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – May 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Help Core help test Real Time Collaboration (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 23.3? (03 Jun) (make.wordpress.org)

→ Help test new career functionality on WordPress.org (make.wordpress.org)

→ wpcontributordashboard.org revamped and launched (wpcontributordashboard.org)

→ Welcome Estela as a team rep (make.wordpress.org)

→ Expanding Abilities across WooCommerce Extensions (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ The product editor beta is being retired in WooCommerce 11.0 (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ Automattic Joins the Tech Coalition (automattic.com)

→ Call for WordCamp Europe Host City 2028 (europe.wordcamp.org)

→ SiteGround Faces Backlash After Automatically Installing AI Plugin on Customer Sites (wp-content.co)

From WordPress Community

→ Arundhati Kane receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ Little Big Things for WordPress Editing (richtabor.com)

→ 1 Million Forced Installs and a 1-Star Rating: Inside SiteGround’s AI Plugin Rollout (wpmayor.com)

→ Kadence Is Now Liquid Web: My Honest Take on the Rebrand (diydreamsite.com) → Speaking at WP Accessibility Day (wpaccessibility.day)

→ AI Workflows for WordPress and WooCommerce: Live Event (developer.woocommerce.com)

Conclusion

That’s Issue 44 wrapped up. It’s been a big week, a packed WordCamp in Kraków, a solid WooCommerce release, some sobering market share numbers, a community call to help shape the next version of WordPress, and the long-awaited return of hosting benchmarks. A lot to take in, but that’s WordPress for you.

Thanks for reading WP More; if you found this useful, share it with a WordPress friend.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 43, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress 7.0 has landed, the next release is already calling for volunteers, WordCamp Europe’s attendance numbers deserve a closer look, a fresh security report has some uncomfortable findings, and the WordPress AI Team just saw its two founding co-leads step down.

A lot happened. Let’s get into it.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” is officially out

• WordPress 7.1 is already looking for volunteers

• WordCamp Europe 2026 attendance is down, and the data tells an interesting story

• Over half of WordPress sites have a plugin with a known vulnerability

• James LePage and Felix Arntz step down from the WordPress AI Team

WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” is officially here

Named after jazz legend Louis Armstrong, WordPress 7.0 marks the start of a new phase for the platform. The headline feature is AI infrastructure, this release lays the groundwork for AI across the WordPress experience. Alongside that, you get a modernized dashboard, new design tools, and enhanced development capabilities.

It’s a major release. If you haven’t updated yet, now’s the time to check your plugins for compatibility and plan your upgrade.

Read the full release post on WordPress.org here.

With 7.0 shipped, the team is already moving on to what comes next.

WordPress 7.1 is calling for volunteers

The ink is barely dry on 7.0 and planning for WordPress 7.1 is already underway. The proposed release date is August 19, 2026, and the Make WordPress Core team is looking for contributors to join the release squad.

Whether you’ve helped with a release before or this would be your first time, there are roles for different skill levels and time commitments. This is one of the most direct ways to contribute to WordPress core.

Read the full call on Make WordPress Core here.

While we talk about the future of WordPress, let’s look at how the community’s biggest annual event is faring.

WordCamp Europe’s attendance numbers are worth reading carefully

Jean Galea published a detailed breakdown of four years of WordCamp Europe data, and the picture is more specific than most headline takes suggest.

Actual attendance figures (using organizer-verified counts): Berlin 2019 had 2,734 attendees. Athens 2023 and Torino 2024 were essentially flat at around 2,545 and 2,584 respectively. Then Basel 2025 dropped to 1,723 — a 33% fall. Kraków 2026 is expected to land at roughly 1,650–1,800 based on ticket sales and historical show-up rates, which means Basel was the break point, not the start of a continuing slide.

The more telling detail is where the drop happened. Sponsor passes and volunteer tickets held steady across all four years. The contraction came entirely from paying attendees — Stripe and PayPal ticket sales fell from around 2,260 in Athens/Torino to around 1,400 in Basel/Kraków.

On the content side, AI talks jumped from one session in Torino 2024 to eight in Kraków 2026, now 16% of the program. Security talks doubled. Business and agency content nearly disappeared (nine sessions in Athens, two in Kraków). The program itself is smaller: 77 talks in Athens, 49 in Kraków.

Read the full analysis on Jean Galea’s blog here.

The security picture at WCEU matches a real-world study that came out this month.

Share

More than half of WordPress sites have a known vulnerable plugin

GuardingWP scanned 1,981 sites across 40+ verticals and analyzed 424 confirmed WordPress installs. The findings aren’t catastrophic, but they’re not comfortable either.

52.8% of those sites are running at least one plugin with a known CVE — meaning a documented vulnerability with a patch already published, sitting unpatched on the live site. 55.9% of sites leak their WordPress version through the generator meta tag, handing attackers a shortcut to finding relevant exploits. 93.2% are missing one or more modern security headers like HSTS, CSP, or X-Frame-Options. 35.8% still have XML-RPC enabled. And 15.9% of version-disclosing sites are on a WordPress branch that no longer receives security backports.

The report notes that most of these issues are fixable in about 10 minutes. The reason they persist is that nothing breaks visibly when you ignore them, until something does.

Read the full report on GuardingWP here.

And while we’re talking about the AI layer that WordPress 7.0 introduced, the team that built it just saw its leadership change.

James LePage and Felix Arntz step down from the WordPress AI Team

The two founding co-reps of the WordPress AI Team are moving on. James LePage and Felix Arntz stepped back from their leadership roles after what LePage described as taking WordPress AI “from 0 to 1” over the past year.

LePage is leaving Automattic entirely to start a new AI project of his own. He joined Automattic through the WPAI acquisition in 2024 and rose to Head of AI, sitting on Automattic’s executive leadership board. Felix Arntz, who joined the team from Google, also stepped back after the year of work getting AI into WordPress core.

Jason Adams is stepping in as the new Core AI Team Rep to lead the effort going forward.

The departures drew warm responses from across the community. Developer Brian Coords called it “one of the biggest impacts on WordPress in recent history.” Automattic’s Rich Tabor noted that LePage “treated AI like a product and ecosystem shift, not just a feature.”

Read the full story on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• The WP Community Collective Launches State of the Community Survey

• Five for the Future Gets Its Biggest Overhaul in Years With New Pledge and Profile Pages

• Matt Mullenweg Uses WordPress’s 23rd Birthday to Appeal Directly to Silver Lake: “You’ve Won. I Submit.”

• Patchstack CEO Warns WordPress 7.0 Could Trigger “Absolute Rush” To Steal AI API Keys

• SiteGround Auto-Installs AI Plugin on Customer Sites, Calls WordPress 7.0 a ‘Watershed Moment’ as Customers Push Back

• WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” Ships With AI Infrastructure, Modernized Dashboard, and New Design Tools

• Liquid Web Retires StellarWP in Botched Rollout, Drawing Backlash From Customers and Community

• CERN Engineers to Deliver WordCamp Europe 2026 Opening Keynote as Workshop Registrations Start Filling Up

• Envato Ends Exclusive Author Model, Moves All Marketplace Sellers to Flat 50% Revenue Share

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ WordPress 7.0 changed what a plugin can be (x.com)

→ I Love WordPress. There’s Nothing for Me at WordCamp. (regionallyfamous.com) → WordCamp Asia 2026 doubles local speaker representation (wpapac.com)

→ How Much Does a WooCommerce Store Cost in 2026? (studiowombat.com)

→ Safely Using AI API Keys in WordPress Connectors (wsform.com)

→ How to stand out as a WordPress developer (olgagleckler.com)

→ Hackers abuse Google ads for GoDaddy ManageWP login phishing (bleepingcomputer.com)

→ Your WordPress AI connector dies on the 4th click: the 30,000 token limit nobody warned you about (designsetgo.dev)

On other WordPress News

→ Help test new career functionality on WordPress.org (make.wordpress.org)

→ Hotfix available for #65286 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Accessibility Improvements in WordPress 7.0 (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordCamp Asia 2026 Core Committers Meeting (make.wordpress.org)

→ Open Horizons in Action: What Our First Cohort Has Been Up To (wordpressfoundation.org)

→ React 19 Upgrade in WordPress (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 6.9 Server Compatibility (make.wordpress.org)

→ WooCommerce.com is now running on nightly WC Core: here’s why (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ PHP support clarification, spring 2026 edition (make.wordpress.org)

→ Extending Unicode support in email addresses (make.wordpress.org)

→ Vercel AI Gateway plugin for WordPress (vercel.com)

→ AI Contributor Weekly Summary – 20 May 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Media Editor Modal: Call for Testing (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new for developers? (May 2026) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Woo’s Artistic Director talks agentic commerce at Stripe Sessions (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ WordPress 7.0: A new direction forward (youtube.com)

→ WordPress 7.0 in 7 Minutes (youtube.com)

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 23.2? (21 May) (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress AI Plugin Hits 1.0 Milestone With New Request Logging and Connector Approvals Experiments (therepository.email)

→ WordPress Gets an Official Browser Extension, Testers Wanted Ahead of 1.0 (therepository.email)

→ Automattic’s Radical Speed Month Wraps Up With Podcast, Payment and Publishing Tools Among 400+ Projects (therepository.email)

From WordPress Community

→ What 8 Years of Building Dynamic WordPress Websites Taught Us (crocoblock.com)

→ 2026 Has Changed Everything About WordPress Security (publishpress.com)

→ “Do the Woo” has become its own standalone podcast at dothewoo.com (openchannels.fm)

→ A conference for Nordic WordPress enthusiasts by the community (wpsuomi.fi)

→ Should Hosting Companies Own WordPress Products? (thewpminute.com)

→ AI, generate 100 designs for WordPress Playground (adamadam.blog)

→ Back on WordPress (dannyvankooten.com)

→ The Case for Content Modeling Without Code (briancoords.com)

→ If WordPress gets CPTs in Core, we also need custom fields (joost.blog)

→ The Breach Isn’t the Problem. Your Silence Is. (zant.com)

→ Legacy software companies are screwed (x.com)

→ The Ankler moves to new publishing platform created by Ben Thompson (axios.com)

→ Acquia builds Drupal funding into its partner program (dri.es)

→ Divi 5.5 Release Notes (elegantthemes.com)

→ Indebted: The Ugandan WordPress Dream that Flew to Asia (heropress.com)

Conclusion

What a week for WordPress. A major release shipped, the next one is already in planning, WCEU data tells a more specific story than the headlines suggest, security fundamentals still need attention across thousands of sites, and the team that built WordPress AI from scratch has handed the baton to new leadership. The platform keeps moving.

Thanks for reading WP More; if you found this useful, share it with a WordPress friend.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 42, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress 7.0 is a week away from release, and the lead-up has been anything but quiet. A third release candidate is out, real-time collaboration got pulled at the last minute, Gutenberg 23.1 shipped some genuinely useful editor upgrades, and behind the scenes, Matt Mullenweg is reshaping how WordPress.org operates, while a federal judge is asking hard questions about deleted messages.

A lot to cover, so let’s get into it.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 RC3 is out, final release set for May 20

• Real-time collaboration has been pulled from WordPress 7.0

• Gutenberg 23.1 lands with faster uploads, new UI primitives, and experimental tools

• Matt Mullenweg forms a trusted group to overhaul WordPress.org and Five for the Future

• A federal judge orders Matt to explain missing messages in the WP Engine dispute

WordPress 7.0 RC3 Is Here, Final Release on May 20

The third release candidate for WordPress 7.0 dropped on May 8, and the team is in the final stretch before the May 20 launch. RC3 addresses 143+ issues since RC2, and this is your last real window to test before the release goes out to the world.

You can test RC3 a few ways: install the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, download the RC3 zip directly, use WP-CLI with wp core update --version=7.0-RC3, or open a browser-based test environment via WordPress Playground — no local setup needed for that last option.

For plugin and theme developers, this is the time to wrap up testing and update your “Tested up to” value to 7.0. If you find bugs, report them in the Alpha/Beta support forum or on WordPress Trac.

• RC3 is the third and likely final release candidate before the May 20 launch

• 143+ issues addressed since RC2

• Plugin and theme authors should update their “Tested up to” version now

Read the full blog on WordPress News here.

One notable item missing from RC3 deserves its own section: real-time collaboration has been cut from the release entirely.

Real-Time Collaboration Will Not Ship in WordPress 7.0

Matt Mullenweg made the call on May 8: real-time collaboration is out of WordPress 7.0. His stated reason is that he’s not confident the current approach is stable enough for core. Specific concerns include race conditions, server load, memory efficiency, surface area risk, and bugs that surfaced through fuzz testing.

The decision is framed as putting a stable 7.0 release ahead of shipping a feature that isn’t ready. Work is underway to unwind RTC from the release, the May 20 date hasn’t moved, and a plan for broader testing and continued iteration will be shared once the immediate work is done, with 7.1 being the most likely next target. In the meantime, you can still test the feature through the Gutenberg plugin.

• Real-time collab won’t be in WordPress 7.0 due to stability concerns

• The May 20 release date is unchanged

• Development continues — expect an update and broader testing during the 7.1 cycle

Read the full blog on Make WordPress Core here.

What did ship this week is worth your time, Gutenberg 23.1 has real improvements for both everyday users and developers.

Gutenberg 23.1: Faster Uploads, New Experiments, and a Cleaner Editor UI

Gutenberg 23.1 landed on May 7 with a solid set of improvements across performance, developer tooling, and experimental features.

The most noticeable change for everyday users: image uploads are faster. Thumbnail generation now runs in parallel rather than one at a time, which makes a real difference on bulk uploads and large images, especially on slower connections. The @wordpress/ui package adds two new primitives — Drawer for slide-in side panels and Autocomplete for combobox-style inputs, along with polish across overlay components to support sticky headers and footers.

On the experimental side, there’s a new Custom Taxonomies management screen that lets you create and manage taxonomies without writing PHP, and an experimental Image Editor modal with a freeform cropper for Image and Site Logo blocks. The Classic block has been quietly hidden from the inserter (existing instances still work). Developers also get an early preview of @wordpress/grid, a new package for dashboard-style drag-and-resize layouts.

• Parallel thumbnail uploads speed up the media library noticeably

• New Drawer and Autocomplete UI primitives for developers

• Experimental custom taxonomies UI and image editor are worth testing if you’re a developer or power user

Read the full blog on Make WordPress Core here.

While the editor keeps moving forward, some significant changes are happening to how WordPress.org itself is run.

Matt Mullenweg’s #meta-janitors: A Trusted Group Overhauling WordPress.org

On April 18, Matt Mullenweg created a new Slack channel called #meta-janitors and handed a small group of handpicked contributors production access to WordPress.org, with a mandate to ship changes without approval from any team, committee, or stakeholder other than himself.

“Spinning up an initial group of people I’m very comfortable with having dotorg sandboxes and making changes without approval or feedback needed from any team, group, stakeholder, commenter, or approval from anyone but me,” Mullenweg wrote in his opening message. The channel launched just days after he spent hours in #core-committers calling WordPress’s culture broken and its output “boring or mediocre crap.” He told the group they could “override anyone in WordPress.org, including each other, except for me.”

The initial group of 12 included Automattic’s Anne McCarthy, WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard, WP Engine-sponsored core committer Weston Ruter, Human Made CGO Noel Tock, and longtime lead developers including Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin, and Dion Hulse. The channel has since grown to 32 members.

The most ambitious project underway is a full overhaul of Five for the Future, led by ServMask CEO Yani Iliev. Four mockups approved by Mullenweg would introduce a new Team Directory ranking contributors by weighted contributions, redesigned company and individual profile pages, and a “Find a Contributor” page for companies looking to sponsor active contributors. Other changes already shipped include a new WP-CLI landing page at wordpress.org/cli, an updated Requirements page, and LinkedIn-style “open to work” options in WordPress.org’s jobs infrastructure.

The channel is technically public on WordPress Slack, but the initiative hasn’t been formally announced, an unconventional approach for a project that has traditionally operated through team consensus and open discussion.

• A handpicked group now has production access to WordPress.org with authority to ship changes without community approval

• Five for the Future is getting a major structural overhaul, with new contributor ranking and discovery pages

• The initiative is public on Slack but hasn’t been formally announced — worth watching closely

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Matt Mullenweg Pulls Real-Time Collaboration From WordPress 7.0, Blames WP Engine Litigation

• WP Engine Accuses Audrey of Failing to Produce Documents in Discovery Fight

• Gutenberg 23.1 Ships Custom Taxonomies UI, Prompting “Why Now?” From the Community

• Contact Form 7 Creator Reveals Contactable.io Will Launch as RESTful API

• Court Rejects Developer’s Contempt Motion Against Automattic and Mullenweg

• New Contributor Onboarding Project Rallies Make Teams Ahead of WordCamp Europe Launch

• WordPress Accessibility Team Overhauls Theme Guidelines for the First Time in 14 Years

• WordPress 7.0 Gets a New May 20 Release Date

• New Presence API Feature Plugin Released as Side Project to Real-Time Collaboration

• WordPress.org Closes Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin After Author Operated Years-Long Backdoor

• WordPress AI 0.8.0 Introduces New Refine From Notes Experiment and Dashboard Widgets

• WordPress Community Team Opens Applications for WordCamp India 2027 Host City

• Woo Ships WooCommerce Subscriptions Health Check Tool Following Disclosure of Four Renewal Bugs

• Austin Ginder Reports Fourth Plugin Backdoor in a Month, Unveils WP Beacon

• Automattic Engineers Reimagine wp-admin as a Desktop OS — and Nick Hamze’s Already Built an App Store for It

• Woo to Notify WooCommerce Subscriptions Customers After Four Bugs Silently Broke Renewals

• WordCamp Europe 2026 Schedule Now Live, With New Extended Workshop Format

• Woo Ships Google for WooCommerce 3.6, Making YouTube Shopping a Direct Sales Channel

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

That WordPress.org governance story connects directly to the next one — because Mullenweg’s communication habits are now under legal scrutiny.

A Federal Judge Orders Matt Mullenweg to Explain Missing Messages

The WP Engine lawsuit took a serious turn. A federal magistrate judge has ordered Mullenweg to submit a sworn declaration explaining why so few messages from WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram were produced in discovery, calling WP Engine’s allegations that relevant communications were deleted “concerning.”

The dispute stems from a joint filing on April 10, where WP Engine alleged Mullenweg produced just 40 Telegram messages, one Signal message, and zero WhatsApp messages, despite actively using all three platforms. WP Engine also alleged he deleted posts from the WordCamp Sydney and WordPress.org X accounts, a Post Status Slack channel, and plugin reviews on WordPress.org. Automattic disputed the claims, saying thousands of communications had been produced and that no relevant WhatsApp messages were found after a “reasonable” search.

Magistrate Judge Ajay Krishnan wasn’t satisfied. He found WP Engine “plausibly contends” that Mullenweg deleted relevant documents after a legal preservation obligation was triggered, and said Automattic’s response failed to address the deleted X posts, Slack channel, and plugin reviews — writing that the response appeared to “elide that topic.” One particularly pointed detail: in September 2024, Mullenweg publicly invited people to contact him via “Signal with disappearing messages” at the start of what he called his “nuclear war” against WP Engine. Automattic said disappearing messages weren’t enabled, but Krishnan noted third parties could have toggled that feature when reaching out.

Mullenweg must now submit a sworn account covering his use of these platforms, steps taken to preserve messages, whether auto-delete was active, date ranges for preserved and deleted messages, and what happened to the deleted public content cited in the dispute.

• A federal judge found WP Engine’s spoliation allegations “concerning” and Automattic’s response “unsatisfying”

• Mullenweg must now submit a sworn declaration about his messaging app use and preservation steps

• The case is active and escalating — one of the most consequential developments in the dispute so far

Read the full report on The Repository here.

WordPress Must Read

→ An Open Letter to WooCommerce and the Woo Community (businessbloomer.com)

→ What I’d Build If I Had to Start Over in WordPress Today (devin.org)

→ Legacy software companies are screwed (x.com)

→ AI Can Design a WordPress Site. It Still Doesn’t Know Where the Design Should Live. (chrislema.com)

→ It Turns Out WordPress Was Built for the AI Era (therepository.email)

→ WordPress isn’t dying. It’s disaggregating (alexstandiford.com)

→ 2026 Community Survey Results: What You Told Us, and What’s Coming Next (generatepress.com)

→ Better, Faster, and Yes, Cheaper – Or Be Left Behind (therepository.email)

→ WordPress: The Operating System of the Agentic Web (automattic.com)

On Other WordPress News

→ Woo Design team joins X/Twitter — share your feedback (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ WooCommerce 10.7: 51% fewer queries, a real fulfillment API, one important cache fix (woocommerce.com)

→ Welcome All Languages and Communities to Make WordPress Slack (make.wordpress.org)

→ Proposal: Auto-generate Block Editor Handbook docs from block.json (make.wordpress.org)

→ Uganda Website Projects Competition | 2026 (events.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Student Clubs Build Momentum (wordpress.org)

→ WP A11y Docs update April 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Academy for young people in Krakow (make.wordpress.org)

→ Urgent: Testing request to Web hosts for collaborative editing by May 4th (make.wordpress.org) → Presence API Feature Plugin (make.wordpress.org)

→ Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 7.0 edition) (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 7.0 Release Party Updated Schedule (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Documentation Team Closes 200+ Issues — and Needs Your Help (make.wordpress.org)

→ Plugins Team: 20 Apr 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in AI 0.8.0 (23 APR 2026)? (make.wordpress.org)

→ Meetup Formats That Work: How WordPress Nairobi turned a meetup into a hands-on workshop (make.wordpress.org)

→ Requests for Automation (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ Using Studio Code to travel back in time (pablopostigo.com)

→ A Journey to Remember: My WordCamp Asia 2026 Experience in Mumbai (central.wordcamp.org)

→ Where Automattic Meets Up (automattic.com)

→ Block Format Bridge: A Practical Solution for AI-Generated Content in WordPress (gutenbergtimes.com)

→ WordPress Businesses Are Moving From Products to Services, With Robbie Adair (publishpress.com)

→ Behind the Fiber-Optic Rope: Engineering WordCamp (automattic.com)

→ Keeping #WPLDN free and open (github.com)

→ How to get started contributing to WordPress (thewpminute.com)

→ The Hero of HeroPress and quiet art of walking with people (heropress.com)

→ WPFolks Launches Platform With Community Fund to Support Members to Attend WordPress Events (wp-content.co)

→ From WP Credits to WordCamp: The first university thesis focused on WordCamp participation (wpbakery.com)

→ WordCamp Asia 2026 Contributor Day: Photos Team Recap (make.wordpress.org) → WordCamp Asia 2026 Community Booth: A Retrospective (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordCamp Asia 2026 でインドに行ってきました (miyoshitakayuki.com)

→ From a Small Village to WordCamp Asia: My WordPress Journey (heropress.com) → Back from Burnout (poststatus.com)

That’s a wrap on issue 42. It’s been one of the more eventful weeks in recent WordPress memory: RC3 out, real-time collab cut, governance changes happening quietly in the background, and a federal judge demanding answers. May 20 is close; if you haven’t tested WordPress 7.0 yet, this week is the time.

If this issue was useful, forward it to a WordPress friend or share it in your community. It genuinely helps the newsletter grow.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 41, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

It’s been a big week in the WordPress world. Mumbai just wrapped up one of the most memorable WordCamps in years, Matt Mullenweg dropped a candid (and pointed) critique in WordPress Slack, the April developer roundup for WordPress 7.0 is out with a lot to unpack, there’s a thoughtful post from Matt about how we recognize contributors, and PressConf 2026 wrapped in Arizona with some honest conversations about where the business of WordPress is heading.

Let’s get into it.

In this Issue:

• WordCamp Asia 2026 wraps in Mumbai with record attendance and a new flagship announcement

• Matt Mullenweg goes candid in Slack and it’s a lot

• What’s new for WordPress developers in April 2026

• Matt’s post on elevating individual contributors over corporate identity

• PressConf 2026 recap: clarity, challenge, and some uncomfortable truths

WordCamp Asia 2026: Mumbai Delivered and Then Some

WordCamp Asia 2026 wrapped up on April 11 in Mumbai, India, and by nearly every measure, it was the biggest and most memorable edition of the flagship Asian WordCamp yet. The event drew 2,627 attendees to the Jio World Convention Centre across Contributor Day and two full conference days, bringing together developers, designers, agency owners, bloggers, and first-time attendees from across Asia and beyond.

The program covered serious ground from technical sessions and workshops to conversations about WordPress’s future in the age of AI. The closing ceremony had one major announcement that landed with real excitement: WordCamp India will join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship WordPress event, a recognition of India’s long and active role in the WordPress project.

Penang, Malaysia was also confirmed as the host city for WordCamp Asia 2027, scheduled for April 9–11. Programs like Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, and YouthCamp all featured prominently, showing how wide the community has grown.

Key takeaways:

• 2,627 attendees made this a record edition for WordCamp Asia

• India officially confirmed as the fourth flagship WordCamp host country

• WordCamp Asia 2027 heads to Penang, Malaysia

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Mumbai’s energy carried into conversations happening in real-time back in WordPress’s own digital spaces, which brings us to what happened next.

Matt Mullenweg Says “The Wheels Have Fallen Off”

In a wide-ranging Slack session in the #core-committers channel, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg delivered a blunt assessment of the WordPress project. Returning from WordCamp Asia and catching up on messages mid-flight over Starlink, he weighed in on a disputed Trac issue and then kept going.

Over several hours, Mullenweg criticized what he described as a release culture producing “boring or mediocre crap,” called for an end to attacks on Automattic, and said the project had spent years doing damage to itself. He also posted publicly: “The only bomb is what we’ve been doing the last few years. And yes it’s my fault, and I’m going to fix it.”

Reactions in the community were split. Some found themselves agreeing with the substance of his critique while pushing back on the delivery. Others pointed out that the WordPress 7.0 release has been stalled and that contributions haven’t always been going to the right places. One contributor noted that Mullenweg’s communication style, processing things internally and then delivering it all at once, can make it difficult to actually act on his vision.

Key takeaways:

• Mullenweg is openly self-critical about where the project has gone

• The reaction in the community was mixed, support for the substance, pushback on the approach

• Expect more changes to how WordPress development is run in the coming months

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Mullenweg’s concerns about project culture tie into something he posted directly to Make WordPress Core the same week, which we’ll cover next.

What’s New for WordPress Developers in April 2026

The April developer roundup from the WordPress Developer Blog is out, and it covers a lot of ground for WordPress 7.0. The biggest news first: the 7.0 release schedule was extended after a performance issue in the Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) database architecture required a deeper architectural fix rather than a late-cycle patch. Pre-releases were paused until April 17, with a new schedule to be announced by April 22. Everything else in 7.0 is ready to go.

On the feature side, two major systems are coming: the WP AI Client, a new core PHP library that gives plugins a standardized way to work with AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, and the Connectors API, which lets site owners configure their preferred AI providers from a dedicated screen in the admin.

There’s also the new Client-Side Abilities API, a JavaScript counterpart to the PHP Abilities system introduced in 6.9. For themes, WordPress 7.0 brings button pseudo-state styling in Global Styles, viewport-based block visibility controls, and gradient support for background images. Developers should also note that PHP 7.2 and 7.3 support is being dropped; the new minimum is PHP 7.4.

Key takeaways:

• WordPress 7.0’s release schedule was extended to fix RTC database architecture

• AI Client and Connectors API are coming to core, a big deal for the plugin ecosystem

• PHP 7.2/7.3 sites will need to update before the 7.0 update

Read the full blog on the WordPress Developer Blog here.

And while the technical side of WordPress evolves, there’s a parallel conversation happening about who gets recognized for building it.

Elevating Individuals: Matt Wants to Put People Back at the Center

In a post to Make WordPress Core that spans several teams, Matt Mullenweg made a direct appeal: let’s go back to celebrating individual contributors, not just corporate sponsors. The prompt was a badge photo from WordCamp Asia, specifically a badge displaying “SELF EMPLOYED” as the primary identifier in place of a name, which led Mullenweg to reflect on how the push for corporate sponsorship recognition has quietly reshaped the culture around contribution.

He points out that this isn’t just about badge design. It shows up in Five for the Future testimonials, in the plugin and theme directories, in WordCamp business models, and in how the project measures contribution at all. His core argument: WordPress has been tracking and celebrating inputs (hours pledged, sponsorships listed) rather than actual impact and results.

He’s calling for a rethink, both in how events recognize attendees and in how the project evaluates whether contribution is actually moving things forward. He also refers to the Mythical Man-Month, noting that adding more contributors doesn’t automatically equal more progress.

Key takeaways:

• WordPress has drifted toward recognizing companies over individuals, Mullenweg wants that reversed

• The Five for the Future model needs to focus on real impact, not just pledged hours

• This is a cultural shift, not just a design fix

Read the full blog on Make WordPress Core here.

The question of what WordPress values and who it values was also at the heart of what was being discussed in Tempe, Arizona ,at PressConf.

PressConf 2026: The Business of WordPress Gets Honest

PressConf 2026 wrapped up at Tempe Mission Palms in Arizona on April 11, and the theme for this year’s edition was “clarity”, with a deliberate edge to it. Organizer Raquel Manriquez designed the event to be more challenging than the first, with fewer sessions and more space for real conversations. Her belief going in: if you’re clear-eyed about where WordPress actually stands right now, it’s uncomfortable.

That discomfort was present throughout. One of the sharpest sessions came from Bryce Adams of Metorik, who made the case that WooCommerce has been trying to compete with Shopify for years and lost that fight before it started. On the plugin economics panel, moderated by The Repository’s Rae Morey, the consensus was that a smaller, more focused WordPress community built around real business outcomes might actually be healthier than a platform stretching to be everything to everyone.

PressConf doesn’t stage product launches or perform optimism; it’s a room of people with actual businesses at stake, being honest with each other about what’s working and what isn’t. For anyone in the WordPress business world, this is the one event worth following closely.

Key takeaways:

• Clarity was the theme and it came with some uncomfortable conclusions

• WooCommerce’s competition with Shopify was called out directly

• The ecosystem may be healthier at a smaller, more focused scale

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress.org Closes 31 Plugins After Backdoor Planted Across Flippa Portfolio

• Decision to Build EmDash Came from Cloudflare CEO, Engineer Reveals

• Matt Mullenweg Overrules Core Committers to Put Akismet on WordPress 7.0’s Connectors Screen

• WordPress 7.0 Pre-Releases Paused Through April 17, New Schedule Due by April 22

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ Being The Bigger Table (sereed.media)

→ How to Prepare Your Plugins and Sites for WordPress 7.0 (unleash-wp.com)

→ Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted Backdoors in All of Them (thenextweb.com)

→ WordPress Media Is Becoming the Real Front Page (thewp.world)

→ It’s Time to Level Up in WordPress (remkusdevries.com)

→ AI Across The WP Ecosystem (j.cv)

→ Why ‘Future Revisions’ Should Be the Next Priority Feature for WordPress (briancoords.com)

→ WordPress Plugins Are in Trouble (justinferriman.com)

On Other WordPress News

→ Announcing Our 2026 Global Partners! (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s New in AI 0.7.0 (9 Apr 2026)? (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Core Dev Environment Toolkit: A Faster Path to Your First Core Contribution (make.wordpress.org)

→ Twenty Twenty-Seven: Team Announcement (make.wordpress.org)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – March 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ New AI-Powered Tools for Creating WordPress Learning Materials (make.wordpress.org)

→ Defining Expectations for Iteration Issues (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ Sumit Singh Receives the Yoast Care Fund for His Contribution to the WordPress Community (yoast.com)

→ New WP Engine AI Agency Trends Report Finds the Rise of the Intelligent Web Is Accelerating Digital Agency Investment in AI (wpengine.com)

→ 5 Years at Rank Math (kafleg.com.np)

→ WordPress Is Very Much Alive (kittenkamala.com)

→ Your AI Remembers Everything. You Own None of It. (regionallyfamous.com)

→ WordCamp Asia 2026, FOMO or JOMO? (tacoverdo.com)

→ Meet Studio Code: I Redesigned My WordPress Site in 2 Hours (riad.blog)

→ Write: What If WordPress Was Designed Purely for Writers? (pootlepress.com)

→ After WordCamp Asia 2026: The AI Conversation Nobody Was Prepared For (vapvarun.com)

Conclusion

That’s a wrap on Issue 41. This week made one thing clear: WordPress is in a moment of genuine self-reflection about its culture, contributors, releases, and business ecosystem.

That’s not a bad thing. Projects that can ask hard questions about themselves tend to come out better for it.

If something here sparked a thought, hit reply; we read every message. And if a friend or colleague would find this useful, feel free to pass it along.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WordPress roundup — WP More newsletter issue 40, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress 7.0 is close enough to touch and the ecosystem around it has been buzzing. This week we're covering the final stretch of the 7.0 release cycle, a Gutenberg update packed with collaboration fixes, some hard lessons from the 6.9.2 security release, a challenger CMS that's got everyone talking, and a quiet but solid update from ClassicPress.

Lots to dig into.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 Is Almost Ready, Here’s How to Test It

• Gutenberg 22.9 Brings Gradient Overlays, Better Collaboration, and More

• The 6.9.2 Security Release Didn’t Go Smoothly, Here’s What the Team Learned

• Cloudflare Launched a “WordPress Spiritual Successor” and The Community Wasn’t Buying It

• ClassicPress 2.7.0 Is Out , With Speed Boosts You’ll Actually Notice

WordPress 7.0 Is Almost Ready, Here’s How to Test It

The second Release Candidate for WordPress 7.0 is out, which means the final release is right around the corner. RC2 dropped ahead of the scheduled, and the core team is asking the community to help with one last round of testing before it ships.

You can test it four ways: install the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, download the RC2 zip directly, use WP-CLI (wp core update --version=7.0-RC2), or try it instantly in your browser via WordPress Playground — no setup required.

Two areas the team specifically wants eyes on: Real Time Collaboration and Pattern Editing with content-only interactivity. If you find a bug, report it on the support forums or directly on Trac.

This is also the point where plugin and theme authors should wrap up their compatibility testing and update the “Tested up to” value in their readme files to 7.0.

• RC2 marks a hard string freeze — translations need to be finalized now.

• WordPress Playground makes testing dead simple, even if you don’t have a test server handy.

Read the full blog on Official WordPress blog here.

Speaking of what’s going into 7.0, the Gutenberg project just shipped a release that gives us a clearer picture of what’s coming.

Gutenberg 22.9 Brings Gradient Overlays, Better Collaboration, and More

Gutenberg 22.9 is out, and it’s a tidy release with a few highlights worth knowing about. The Group block now supports background gradients alongside background images, meaning you can finally layer a gradient overlay on top of a photo without workarounds. A new gradient picker appears in the Background panel and works independently of existing color controls.

The command palette (Cmd+K / Ctrl+K) is getting an experimental upgrade too: it now shows sections for recently used commands and contextual suggestions, making it easier to find actions quickly. To try it, enable “Workflow Palette” under WP-Admin > Gutenberg > Experiments.

Real-time collaboration also got meaningful stability improvements. Block comments now sync properly between editors without requiring a page refresh, and the “Join” button in the post list correctly reverts to “Edit” when a collaboration lock expires. A handful of behind-the-scenes fixes also prevent memory issues during collaborative sessions.

• 131 pull requests merged, with 5 first-time contributors.

• A new EmptyState component was added to the wordpress/ui package for consistent placeholder UI patterns.

• The experimental Forms block now supports hidden input fields.

Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.

Before we get too excited about what’s new, there’s an important post-mortem worth reading about what went wrong last month.

The 6.9.2 Security Release Didn't Go Smoothly, Here's What the Team Learned

The WordPress 6.9.2 security release in March had a rough rollout, and the Security Team has published a candid retrospective about it. The short version: a bug fix triggered a fast-follow 6.9.3 release just eight hours later, three security commits were accidentally left out of the original 6.9.2 package (leading to a 6.9.4), and backporting fixes to 22 older branches turned out to be a slow, labor-intensive process.

The good news is that the team has identified concrete fixes. The minor release checklist will be updated to include double-verification of merge commits, clearer steps for releasing during a beta phase, and better documentation throughout. On the technical side, backport tooling and automation are being improved to reduce the manual burden.

There’s also a longer-term question on the table: Matt Mullenweg has asked what AI-assisted tooling could help review changes going into releases and improve quality control. No specifics yet, but it’s being explored.

• A checklist gap - no step to independently verify all commits made it into the branch, caused the missing fixes in 6.9.2.

• The 6.0 branch (version 6.0.12) remains unreleased at the time of writing due to an unresolved build issue.

• Backporting to 22 branches is increasingly unsustainable without better automation.

Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.

While the WordPress team was working through its own growing pains, a newcomer arrived claiming to pick up WordPress’s mantle and the community had thoughts.

Cloudflare Launched a “WordPress Spiritual Successor” and The Community Wasn’t Buying It

Cloudflare released a new CMS called EmDash on April 1, not a joke, billing it as a “spiritual successor to WordPress.” Built on TypeScript and Astro 6.0, running serverless on Cloudflare Workers, and licensed under MIT, it was built in roughly two months with heavy AI assistance. Its headline claim: plugins run in isolated sandboxes, solving the plugin security problem.

Matt Mullenweg pushed back firmly, arguing that WordPress’s spirit is about democratization, running anywhere, on any host, with no lock-in. Critics across the community echoed that point: EmDash’s sandboxed plugin model only works on Cloudflare’s infrastructure, which is a hard limit for anyone hoping to see it adopted at WordPress’s scale.

Others pointed out that the editing interface felt dated (it uses TipTap, not Gutenberg), that it lacks site editing capabilities, and that it’s built almost entirely for developers, leaving out the bloggers, small business owners, and content managers who make up most of WordPress’s actual user base.

• Joost de Valk (Yoast founder) praised EmDash as a CMS “built for 2026,” particularly for AI-assisted development workflows.

• WordPress CMS market share has dipped below 43% for the first time since 2022, making the broader conversation about alternatives more relevant.

• Mullenweg said he expects plugin security to be addressed in WordPress itself within 18 months, with the help of AI.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• The Admin Bar’s 2026 Agency Survey Shows Growth Slowing and Passive Marketing at Its Limit

• The WP Community Collective Publishes Open Source Contributor Pay Standard

• Roots Launches WP Composer as Open Source Alternative to WPackagist

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

And finally, a quieter but genuinely useful update from the WordPress fork that keeps things classic.

ClassicPress 2.7.0 Is Out , With Speed Boosts You'll Actually Notice

ClassicPress, the community fork of WordPress that dropped Gutenberg in favor of the classic editor, released version 2.7.0 in late March, and it’s a practical update focused on speed and reliability.

The two headline features are view transitions in the admin (navigation between pages now feels smoother, closer to a single-page app experience) and a built-in object cache option under Settings > Reading. When enabled, the object cache reduces database queries significantly and speeds up your site for both logged-in and logged-out users, something page caching alone can’t do. It requires your host to support the APCu module, and ClassicPress will tell you if yours doesn’t.

The Text widget was also completely rewritten in vanilla JavaScript, dropping jQuery and Backbone.js dependencies. That’s part of ClassicPress’s ongoing effort to remove outdated libraries and improve performance across the board. Translation loading also got faster, which will be noticeable on non-English sites.

• Object caching works alongside other caching methods like OpCache and page caching, they’re not mutually exclusive.

• The jQuery removal in the Text widget is part of a longer-term modernization project.

• Version 2.7.0 also includes security fixes and library dependency updates.

Read the full announcement on Official blog here.

WordPress Must Read

→ WordPress 7.0 AI Connectors: Pros, Cons, and What the Ecosystem Needs to Get Right (vapvarun.com)

→ WooCommerce Data Insights, 2026 Edition (studiowombat.com)

→ WordPress 7.0 Source of Truth (gutenbergtimes.com)

→ The Lifespan Of SSL Certificates Is Shrinking, And Agencies Must Adapt (forbes.com)

→ State of the WordPress Agency 2026 (theadminbar.com)

→ WordPress Is Colliding With AI — and Nobody Had ‘None’ on Their Bingo Card (therepository.email)

→ Do you need a CMS? (joost.blog)

→ The Risk of Software Dependency (zant.com)

→ Building WordPress plugins in context (mattcohen.co)

→ AI Featured Images (darinkotter.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ @wordpress/build, the next generation of WordPress plugin build tooling (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – March 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing the WordPress Facilitator Training Program (make.wordpress.org)

→ Community Summit alongside a flagship event for 2027 or 2028 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Building a custom sync provider for real-time collaboration (make.wordpress.org)

→ How WordPress 7.0 Is Building the Foundation for AI-Powered Sites (wordpress.com)

→ New in WordPress Studio: Studio CLI on npm & phpMyAdmin Access (wordpress.com)

→ The Path Forward for WordPress 7.0 (make.wordpress.org)

→ 2026 Community Team Reps (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Studio now has an independently installable CLI (x.com)

→ Announcing the Training Team Cohort: “Block Theme Development in WordPress” (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordCamp Creator Studio, Sponsored by WordPress.com: Available for Sign Ups Now! (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ Rethinking Left Navigation (make.wordpress.org)

→ Plugin Directory MCP Server (make.wordpress.org)

→ Guidelines Lands in Gutenberg 22.7 (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in AI 0.6.0 (20 MAR 2026)? (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call for Testing: Community AI Connector Plugins (make.wordpress.org)

→ Contribute to the Plugins Team! (make.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing the Connectors API in WordPress 7.0 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Twenty Twenty-Seven default theme: Call for Volunteers (make.wordpress.org)

→ Connect AI coding agents to WordPress Playground with MCP (make.wordpress.org)

→ Plugin Directory: Local Development Environment (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ Checkout Summit {Reloaded} - The first independent online conference for WooCommerce builders, founders, and agencies (checkoutsummit.com)

→ Alina Kakshapati receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ Joan Namunina receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ WP Packages is Working the Way Open Source Should (wordpress.org)

→ WP Engine Announces DE{CODE} 2026: Shape What’s Next (wpengine.com)

→ Akramul Hasan receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ Organizing Asia’s Biggest WordPress Gathering: A Conversation with the WordCamp Asia 2026 Event Leads (wp-content.co)

→ #WCEU2026 - Community That Shapes WordCamp Europe (youtube.com)

→ WordPress Campus Connect Jinja 2025 Recap: Piloting Africa’s First and Largest Campus Connect Program Across 12 Campuses in Eastern Uganda (central.wordcamp.org)

→ Introducing EmDash — the spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security (cloudflare.com)

→ EmDash Feedback (ma.tt)

→ AI for Nearly a Billion (j.cv)

→ #209 – Simon Pollard on Navigating the New Normal for WordPress Community and Events (wptavern.com)

Conclusion

That's your WP More roundup for this week. Whether you're testing WordPress 7.0 RC2, watching the EmDash conversation unfold, or just quietly appreciating a ClassicPress object cache, there's a lot happening in this corner of the web.

If something here sparked a thought, hit reply; we read every message. And if a friend or colleague would find this useful, feel free to pass it along.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 39, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

It's been a busy couple of weeks in WordPress land. A major release is closing in, the block editor keeps getting smarter, WooCommerce stores are getting faster, and underneath all the product news, a conversation is brewing about who gets to speak up in this community and what happens when they do.

Here's what you need to know.

WP More In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 Is Getting Close, Here’s What’s New in Beta 5

• Gutenberg 22.7: Real-Time Collaboration, AI Connectors, and More

• WooCommerce 10.6 is here: Smarter Product Blocks, Cleaner Cart, Faster Everything

• WP Engine Acquires WPackagist and Gets Called a “Parasite” for It

• The Silence in WordPress, One Developer Finally Breaks It

WordPress 7.0 Is Getting Close, Here’s What’s New in Beta 5

WordPress 7.0 is on track for an April 9, 2026 release, and Beta 5 is now available for testing. This round brings over 101 updates and bug fixes since Beta 3 and one genuinely useful new feature.

Logged-in editors will now see a Command Palette shortcut in the admin bar (look for the ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol). Click it and you get instant access to navigation, customization tools, and more without hunting through menus. It’s a small change that should noticeably speed up day-to-day editing.

The WordPress team is asking for help testing before the final release. You can jump in using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, a direct download, WP-CLI, or even right in your browser via WordPress Playground, no setup needed.

• The final release date is April 9, 2026.

• Beta 5 includes 101+ fixes since Beta 3.

• The new Command Palette shortcut (⌘K / Ctrl+K) is available to logged-in editors from anywhere on the site.

Read the full blog on Official WordPress.org blog here.

The block editor powering 7.0 also got its own major update — and there’s a lot to unpack there too.

Gutenberg 22.7: Real-Time Collaboration, AI Connectors, and More

Gutenberg 22.7 dropped on March 11 with a handful of changes that matter for everyday users and developers alike.

The headline feature: Real-Time Collaboration is now enabled by default. Multiple people can now edit the same post simultaneously without any extra setup. There’s also a new Connectors screen under Settings that lets you manage external integrations, starting with an OpenAI connector demo, with hooks for plugins to add their own.

On the design side, the Grid block Visualizer now updates live as you adjust columns, making layout work much more intuitive. The Playlist block gains a waveform visualizer so your audio content has a visual presence. And style variation transforms now show a preview before you commit, a small but welcome addition for anyone who switches themes or styles.

For developers, there’s phpMyAdmin support in wp-env, custom CSS selector support in block.json, and a new experimental Content Guidelines API for managing site-wide content rules.

• Real-Time Collaboration is now on by default, no plugin or config needed.

• A new Connectors screen lays the groundwork for AI and third-party integrations.

• Style variation previews and a live Grid Visualizer make visual editing smoother.

Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.

Speaking of smoother experiences, WooCommerce 10.6 has some welcome improvements for store owners too.

WooCommerce 10.6 is here: Smarter Product Blocks, Cleaner Cart, Faster Everything

Released March 10, 2026, WooCommerce 10.6 is a solid quality-of-life update with 299 commits from 80 contributors. Note that this release includes a database update.

Product Collections now start with a proper picker; choose your products, brand, tag, or category right at the beginning instead of hunting for settings after the block is placed. It’s a workflow fix that saves real time.

The Cart and Checkout Blocks got visual polish: the remove button now uses a trash icon, price savings badges are repositioned alongside individual item prices, and spacing throughout is tighter and cleaner.

Under the hood, 10.6 is notably faster. The Recent Reviews widget now loads asynchronously (fixing admin slowdowns), SQL queries are reduced across product, cart, and admin pages, and smarter caching cuts down redundant database calls.

There’s also a new filter for tax-inclusive shipping pricing; important for EU merchants who need to display fixed shipping costs regardless of VAT rates.

• Product Collection blocks now launch with a picker, making setup much more intuitive.

• Cart and Checkout Blocks have improved visuals and layout.

• Multiple SQL optimizations improve performance across the admin and storefront.

Read the full blog on Official WooCOmmerce Developer blog here.

While those product updates are encouraging, not everyone in the WordPress ecosystem is feeling great right now and that brings us to some harder news.

WP Engine Acquires WPackagist and Gets Called a "Parasite" for It

On March 12, WP Engine announced it had acquired WPackagist, a free service that lets developers install and manage WordPress plugins and themes via Composer. It’s been maintained since 2013 by UK digital cooperative Outlandish, and it handles millions of requests weekly. WP Engine said the service will remain free.

Much of the community welcomed the news. Several developers praised WP Engine for stepping up to maintain critical infrastructure that Outlandish had kept running largely on goodwill.

The official WordPress X account, widely understood to be controlled by co-founder Matt Mullenweg, did not. It called WP Engine “a parasite” and “cancer,” echoing language Mullenweg used publicly in September 2024 that kicked off an ongoing legal dispute between the two companies. A jury trial is currently scheduled for June 2027.

Yoast founder Joost de Valk acknowledged WP Engine’s contribution but raised a pointed concern: what happens to WPackagist if WP Engine loses its court case? He also noted that WPackagist only exists because WordPress.org never built a proper Composer registry and now a private company, currently involved in litigation, owns a critical piece of developer infrastructure.

• WPackagist will continue to operate as a free service under WP Engine.

• Community reaction was largely positive; the official WordPress account was not.

• The acquisition highlights an ongoing gap: the WordPress project has no community-owned Composer registry.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress Launches Playground-Powered Personal Workspace, but Reception Is Mixed

• WordPress Ships Two Releases in One Day as 6.9.2 Security Update Triggers Blank Screen Bug

• WordPress 6.9.4 Arrives as Security Team Discovers Incomplete Fixes From Tuesday’s Releases

• From Experimental Tool to AI Infrastructure: Adam Zieliński’s Vision for WordPress Playground in 2026

• AI Experiments Plugin Gets Two Updates in a Week, With WordPress 7.0 Now the Focus

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

That tension between official leadership and the broader community points to something a long-time WordPress developer has been sitting with and finally decided to say out loud.

The Silence in WordPress, One Developer Finally Breaks It

Coen Jacobs has been part of the WordPress ecosystem for nearly twenty years. He was one of the first developers on the WooCommerce team, has contributed to core, and has spoken at WordCamps. And for a long time, he kept his opinions to himself, even when he had plenty to say.

In a recent post, Jacobs writes honestly about the culture of self-censorship that has developed in the WordPress ecosystem. The worry isn’t just fear of consequences, he argues, it’s something quieter: the belief that your voice doesn’t matter enough to justify the discomfort of using it.

He points to a concrete example. When several community members publicly called for governance reform, proposing a foundation with a diverse board and shared ownership of community assets, their WordPress.org accounts were deactivated within hours. Not for forking the project or causing disruption. For suggesting things should work differently.

That kind of response, Jacobs argues, shapes who speaks and who stays quiet. And when the only voices that get heard are the ones with the least to lose, the community loses one of its most important feedback mechanisms.

He’s not calling for a fight. He’s making a quiet case that the ecosystem gets better when more people show up to it, honestly.

• A culture of self-censorship exists in WordPress, driven partly by real risks.

• Developers who proposed governance reform had their WordPress.org accounts deactivated.

• Jacobs argues that more voices, including uncertain, unpopular ones, make the ecosystem healthier.

Read the full blog on coenjacobs.com blog here.

WordPress Must Read

→ We’re Building Google Docs Inside WordPress While the AI Opportunity Slips Away (therepository.email)

→ How CloudFest Is Becoming the Most Important WordPress Business Event Nobody’s Talking About (therepository.email)

→ A year of reinvention as we turn 17 (rtcamp.com)

→ AI optimization is replaying early SEO, just faster (joost.blog)

→ Gone (Almost) Phishin’ (ma.tt)

→ I shipped a WordPress theme I couldn’t build a year ago (derekhanson.blog)

→ What it costs to run Drupal's infrastructure (dri.es)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ What’s new for developers? (March 2026) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 7 AI Revealed | Here's What Actually Works (youtube.com)

→ WordPress Studio: New Debugging Tools for Local Development (wordpress.com)

→ Join us for WooCommerce “Building Ecommerce Community” Live Event (developer.woocommerce.com/)

→ WordPress 7.0 Release on Contributor Day (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ WordCamp Canada 2026 Heads West to Vancouver (canada.wordcamp.org)

→ How WordPress Playground cut PHP.wasm binary sizes by 122 MB (make.wordpress.org)

→ March 2026 stats for the WordPress Photo Directory (make.wordpress.org)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – February 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress debuts a private workspace that runs in your browser via a new service, my.WordPress.net (techcrunch.com)

→ WordPress VIP Launches Advanced Professional WordPress Developer Certification (therepository.email)

→ How to Generate a WordPress Theme with Telex (wordpress.com)

From WordPress Community

→ International Women’s Day 2026: The Women of WebDevStudios (webdevstudios.com)

→ Did AI just kill WordPress? Let's chat about it. (youtube.com)

→ WordPress Community Raises ₹3,50,000 to Honor Zeel Thakkar With Memorial Scholarship (therepository.email/)

Conclusion

That's your WP More for this issue, new features to look forward to, tools to test, and some honest questions about where WordPress is headed. If something here sparked a thought, hit reply and tell us. And if you know someone who'd find this useful, we'd love it if you passed it along. See you next time.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 38, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress is moving quickly right now and not just in one direction. This week we've got AI features landing in the editor, a long-overdue fix to plugin discovery, a major version inching toward release, a new WooCommerce update packed with performance improvements, and a candid post-mortem on a governance experiment that didn't pan out. A lot to cover, so let's get into it.

In this Issue:

• WordPress AI Experiments 0.4.0 Brings Image Generation to the Editor

• WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 Is Out and Needs Your Testing

• WooCommerce 10.6 Focuses on Performance and Better Defaults

• The WordPress Plugin Featured Tab Is Finally Rotating Again

• FAIR Winds Down Its WordPress Ambitions

WordPress AI Experiments 0.4.0 Brings Image Generation to the Editor

The AI Experiments plugin just hit version 0.4.0, and this release is focused on two things: helping you create images without leaving WordPress, and giving editors smarter feedback on their content.

The new Generate Image workflow lets authors create images from a text prompt directly inside the block editor, no need to hunt for stock photos or switch to another tool. You can tweak the prompt, generate variations, and insert your chosen image straight into the post. The same functionality is also available in the Media Library, so generated images go directly into your site’s collection for reuse later.

The other big addition is Generate Review Notes. This experiment analyzes your content and surfaces AI-generated suggestions, things like missing alt text, readability issues, grammar corrections, and SEO improvements, right inside the editor, either for the full post or individual blocks.

• Image generation works both in the editor and the Media Library

• Review Notes can flag accessibility, readability, grammar, and SEO issues

• Next up in 0.5.0: image editing, contextual tagging, and deeper WordPress 7.0 integration

Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.

Speaking of WordPress 7.0, that release is getting closer and Beta 3 just dropped.

WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 Is Out and Needs Your Testing

WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 is available, and the final release is scheduled for April 9, 2026. This beta includes more than 148 fixes and updates since Beta 2, 70 in the editor and 78 in core, making it a meaningful step forward in stability.

One notable improvement in Beta 3: the WP AI Client Connectors screen now dynamically pulls in providers from the WP AI Client registry, beyond the three default options. That means more flexibility when connecting AI tools to your WordPress site.

This is not a release to run on a live site, but testing it on a staging environment is genuinely useful. You can try it via the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, a direct download, WP-CLI, or WordPress Playground right in your browser — no setup required.

• Beta 3 has 148+ fixes across the editor and core

• AI provider setup is more flexible with dynamic registry support

• WordPress Playground makes it easy to test with zero installation

Read the full blog on Official WordPress blog here.

WooCommerce users have their own update to look forward to; version 10.6 is almost here too.

WooCommerce 10.6 Focuses on Performance and Better Defaults

WooCommerce 10.6 was scheduled to be released in March 2026, and it brings a solid set of improvements across performance, UX, and developer tooling.

On the performance side, checkout pages now run fewer SQL queries thanks to deferred transient deletion, and cache priming has been consolidated across product data stores to reduce redundant queries. The Recent Reviews widget now loads asynchronously, which prevents admin lockouts when review data causes errors.

For store builders, the Product Collection blocks get a noticeable UX upgrade. Instead of seeing an empty “no products” placeholder when inserting hand-picked products or category-filtered collections, you now see a searchable picker right away. Brands also get dedicated first-class support with a new collection type. In the cart and checkout, the remove item button has been redesigned as a trash icon, and sale badges and product variations now display more compactly.

• Fewer SQL queries on checkout and admin pages

• Product Collection blocks are now open with a searchable interface instead of empty states

• New tax-inclusive shipping filter for EU compliance

Read the full blog on Official WooCommerce Developer blog here.

While WooCommerce keeps shipping improvements, a different part of the ecosystem is rethinking how plugins get discovered in the first place.

The WordPress Plugin Featured Tab Is Finally Rotating Again

For roughly eight years, the Featured Plugins tab inside the WordPress admin showed the same static list. That’s changed. Contributor Nick Hamze has launched an experiment that rotates eight plugins every two weeks, specifically targeting newer plugins with fewer than 10,000 installs that have been released in the past year.

The curation isn’t just automated filtering; there’s a human layer. Hamze looks at whether a plugin solves a real problem, whether the developer is active in support forums, and whether the UX feels like someone actually cared. Plugins also need to meet a quality baseline: real, readable code with proper security practices, a useful readme, and no unnecessary feature bloat.

The impact showed up fast. Ollie Menu Designer, one of the first eight featured plugins, roughly doubled its install count within hours of appearing on the list. That’s the kind of distribution most small plugin developers can’t generate on their own.

• Eight plugins rotate every two weeks, all under 10,000 installs and under 12 months old

• Human curation beyond automated criteria determines the final picks

• Featured placement can dramatically accelerate growth for smaller plugins

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi Step Away from FAIR as Project Pivots to TYPO3

• After FAIR’s Co-Founders Step Back, the WordPress Community Weighs In

• WordPress Contributor Dashboard Pilot Now Live, Team Proposes Next Phase

• WordPress 7.0 Beta 2 Ships With Connectors UI, Delivering on Mullenweg’s AI Vision

• Yoast Launches Schema Aggregation in Partnership with Microsoft, Giving AI a Site-Wide View of WordPress Content

• CloudFest Hackathon 2026: A Record Year for Projects, a New Schedule, and an AI Art Experiment

• PressConf Returns to Tempe with a New Mission: Challenge the WordPress Community

• Automattic Again Seeks to Dismiss WP Engine’s Latest Complaint, Moves to Drop WooCommerce From Case

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

Not everything in the WordPress ecosystem is moving forward, though — sometimes it’s just as important to know when to step back.

FAIR Winds Down Its WordPress Ambitions

Karim Marucchi and Joost de Valk, two long-time WordPress voices, have announced they’re stepping away from FAIR, the neutral package management initiative they launched under the Linux Foundation to address WordPress governance concerns.

The technical work was real and functional. FAIR was a working alternative to the existing infrastructure, not just a concept. But after months of conversations with hosting companies and major ecosystem players, the conclusion was clear: no one was willing to fund it. Hosts acknowledged the problems but weren’t ready to invest in a solution that required shared commitment and financial risk.

Marucchi and de Valk are candid about what this revealed. The very reluctance of large players to step up actually clarified something Matt Mullenweg has pointed to for years, that the ecosystem’s incentive structure is misaligned, with many companies benefiting from WordPress without contributing proportionally. That doesn’t mean they agree with how he’s handled it, but they see the economic reality more clearly now.

FAIR itself will continue in a different direction: the TYPO3 community has embraced the project, particularly given European interest in digital sovereignty and federated package management.

• FAIR was technically viable but couldn’t secure ecosystem funding to move forward

• The experience gave its founders more empathy for the underlying economic tension, even if not the methods

• The project lives on with TYPO3

Share

WordPress Must Read

→ FAIR: Successes, Lessons, and What’s Next (halfelf.org)

→ Mike Little: the British co-founder of WordPress you’ve probably never heard of (but should)… (netribution.co.uk)

→ WordPress Faces an Event Horizon, Not a Sunset (therepository.email)

→ WordPress, AI, plugins, future of software engineering (ma.tt)

→ Building FAIR, and Letting Go of What Could Have Been (carriedils.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ WooCommerce 10.5.3: Dot release (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ Real-Time Collaboration in the Block Editor (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call For Feedback: Increasing Value of Release Party Testing Phase (make.wordpress.org)

→ Retiring the WordPress Campus Connect–Specific Mentor Program (make.wordpress.org)

→ Store API Vulnerability Patched in WooCommerce 5.4+ – What You Need To Know (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 22.6? (25 February) (make.wordpress.org)

→ Bringing WordPress Campus Connect to Malaysia: A Milestone for Open-Source Education at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (make.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing Core Team Reps for 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Developer documentation restored. (make.wordpress.org)

→ Transparency Report Update: July – December 2025 (transparency.automattic.com)

→ Elemnetor launches agency survey for WordPress pros (elementor.com)

From WordPress Community

→ WPPT Follow Up with Nick Hamze (youtube.com)

→ Contribute to the first-ever Checkout Summit edition even if you can’t attend. (checkoutsummit.com)

→ Meet Wapuulika: The Official Mascot of WordCamp Asia 2026 (asia.wordcamp.or)

→ What GoDaddy learned from talking to hundreds of web designers and developers in 2025 (godaddy.com)

→ Iterating on Notes in WordPress (nomad.blog)

→ Gutenberg Changelog #127 – WordPress 7.0 Beta and Gutenberg 22.6 (gutenbergtimes.com)

→ Hostinger posts fourth consecutive year of 50%+ growth, driven by platform-wide AI agent use (hostinger.com)

→ What Automattic’s AI Enablement Training Means for WordPress (automattic.com)

→ SudoWP Initiative Launched to Secure Abandoned WordPress Plugins (wp-content.co)

→ Jonathan Desrosiers on WordPress Sustainability, Community Engagement, and Release Strategies (wptavern.com)

→ How WordPress Is Reaching the Next Generation of Contributors (thewpminute.com)

Conclusion

That’s a full week in WordPress; AI tools getting practical, a major version nearly ready, performance gains in WooCommerce, a small but meaningful fix to plugin discovery, and an honest look at why a governance effort didn’t take root.

If any of these stories sparked a thought, hit reply. We’d love to hear what’s on your mind. And if a fellow WordPress user would find this useful, feel free to pass it along.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 37, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

The WordPress world rarely sits still, and this week is no exception. From a major new release entering beta to a lawsuit revealing some eyebrow-raising internal conversations, there's plenty to dig into. We've also got a scholarship opportunity with a deadline coming up fast, so read on.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 Beta 1 Is Here — and It's Packed

• Apply Now: The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp Europe 2026

• Matt Mullenweg Wants WordPress Slack to Feel Less Like a Ghost Town

• The First WooCommerce Conference in Nearly a Decade Is Happening in April

• WP Engine’s Lawsuit Against Automattic Gets More Revealing

WordPress 7.0 Beta 1 Is Here — and It's Packed

The first beta of WordPress 7.0 dropped this week, and the feature list is substantial. The headline addition is real-time collaboration: multiple users can now edit the same post or page simultaneously, with offline syncing and a default HTTP polling provider built in. It’s opt-in during the beta period while the team gathers feedback.

On the design side, the admin experience is getting a visual refresh, new default color scheme, a cleaner dashboard, and smooth view transitions as you move between screens. Visual revision comparisons are also new, so you can see exactly what changed between versions at a glance.

For builders, there are several new blocks (Icons, Breadcrumbs, and Heading variations), an updated Navigation block, responsive visibility controls to show or hide blocks by screen size, and video backgrounds in the Cover block. Developers get a new WP AI Client in Core, a Client Side Abilities API, and PHP-only block registration with auto-generated inspector controls.

Key takeaway:

• Real-time collaboration is the biggest workflow change for teams.

• New blocks and responsive controls give designers more flexibility out of the box.

• The final release is scheduled for April 9, 2026; test now at wordpress.org/beta-tester.

Read the full blog on Official WordPress blog here.

With so much changing under the hood, it’s a good time to spin up a test environment and kick the tires before it ships.

Apply Now: The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp Europe 2026

If you’re an active WordPress contributor who identifies as a woman and has never attended WordCamp Europe, this one’s for you and the application deadline is March 15, 2026.

The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship, supported by the WordPress Foundation, covers your ticket, round-trip airfare, and lodging for WordCamp Europe 2026. It exists to remove financial barriers for contributors who might otherwise miss one of the community’s most important annual gatherings.

The scholarship honors Kim Parsell, a beloved community member who passed away in 2015. Known warmly as #wpmom, Kim contributed countless volunteer hours to the documentation team and to supporting women entering tech. The scholarship continues her legacy of inclusivity and encouragement.

Eligible contributors span every corner of the ecosystem: core, translations, documentation, design, community events, and more. If you meet the criteria, the organizers want to hear from you. All applicants will be notified by April 15, 2026.

Key takeaway:

• Applications close March 15, 2026; don’t wait.

• Coverage includes ticket, flights, and accommodation.

• Open to any active contributor who identifies as a woman and hasn’t attended WCEU before.

Read the full blog on Official WordCamp Europe blog here.

The scholarship is a reminder of how much the community invests in making WordPress a space where everyone can show up — which connects nicely to the next story.

Matt Mullenweg Wants WordPress Slack to Feel Less Like a Ghost Town

In a February 18 post, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg called for consolidating WordCamp Slack groups; currently spread across separate workspaces for WCUS, WCEU, and WCAsia into the main WordPress.org Slack. The idea is to reduce fragmentation, make collaboration easier, and give the community a livelier shared space.

Mullenweg also floated more social channels to make the Slack feel less like a pure work tool. He’s already created channels like #dogs, #cats, #today-i-learned, and #games to get things started.

The proposal prompted a healthy back-and-forth in the comments. Organizers from flagship events raised legitimate questions: What happens to existing workflows and app integrations? How do you keep sponsor discussions and surprise announcements private? What about local Slack communities where most conversation isn’t WordPress-related at all?

No final decision has been announced. Dion Hulse noted that Slack’s permission model has improved enough to deputize more people to manage channels, and Mary Hubbard suggested date-stamping private channels to keep things tidy over time.

Key takeaway:

• This is a proposal, not a done deal; community feedback is actively shaping it.

• Flagship event organizers have real workflow concerns that will need addressing.

• More channels and better onboarding could make WordPress Slack genuinely useful for more people.

Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.

The Slack conversation reflects a broader question the WordPress community is working through: how do you build infrastructure that brings people together without creating new headaches for the volunteers running events?

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The First WooCommerce Conference in Nearly a Decade Is Happening in April

WooConf, WooCommerce’s own conference series, went dark after 2017. Since then, WooCommerce has had a presence at WordCamps but no dedicated event of its own. Rodolfo Melogli — the person behind Business Bloomer, a long-running WooCommerce resource site — decided to change that.

Checkout Summit takes place April 23–24, 2026 in Palermo, Sicily. It’s capped at 150 attendees, features 12 speakers over two days, and nothing will be recorded or livestreamed. That last part is intentional: Melogli wants speakers to speak freely, without cameras running.

The lineup includes James Kemp, Woo’s Core Product Manager, delivering a keynote titled WooCommerce Unfiltered: Inside the Decisions Shaping the Platform. Other talks cover a WooCommerce-to-Shopify migration post-mortem, what building Shopify apps taught one WooCommerce developer, MCP integration, and a security breakdown of 20+ WooCommerce hosts tested against real exploits.

Melogli has been building the event in public, leaning on community support at every stage. WooCommerce signed on as headline sponsor. Tickets are €399 and all-inclusive. Around 70–80 of 150 spots have sold as of publication, and an inclusion grant is available for attendees who need help with costs.

Key takeaway:

• Checkout Summit is the only dedicated in-person WooCommerce event since WooConf ended in 2017.

• The no-recording policy is a deliberate choice to encourage candid conversation.

• An inclusion grant covers ticket, flights, and accommodation for those who need it.

Find more: https://checkoutsummit.com

Read the full Report on The Repository here.

Melogli’s event may be small, but it’s already sparked a larger conversation — including from Automattic’s own leadership about whether it’s time to bring WooConf back.

WP Engine's Lawsuit Against Automattic Gets More Revealing

WP Engine filed a third amended complaint in its ongoing lawsuit against Automattic and CEO Matt Mullenweg this week, and newly unsealed passages make it one of the more detailed public accounts yet of what allegedly went on behind the scenes.

The complaint claims internal Automattic documents categorized competing hosting companies into tiers — from “friends” who pay substantial licensing fees, to “charlatans” described as “free game” who should have “every single WP site” stolen from them if they refused to engage. WP Engine alleges that in early 2024, Automattic devised a plan to offer trademark licensing deals to at least 10 competing hosts, with a stated approach of either closing a deal or “start stealing their sites.”

The filing also alleges that Mullenweg emailed a Stripe executive in October 2024 — days after WP Engine filed its initial lawsuit — urging Stripe to cut ties with WP Engine, with a threat to exit Automattic’s own contracts if Stripe didn’t comply.

Automattic has called the amended complaint legally insufficient and says it will file a renewed motion to dismiss. The next court hearing is scheduled for June 4, 2026, with a jury trial set for June 2027.

Key takeaway:

• The unsealed documents include alleged internal language about “destroying competition” and pressuring third-party services.

• Automattic disputes the legal sufficiency of the claims and is seeking dismissal.

• The case won’t go to trial until June 2027 — this will be a long-running story.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress 7.0 Beta 1 Ships After Delay as Project Leadership Realigns Release Around AI and Milestone Story

• Automattic, Mullenweg Ask Court to Keep Details of WordPress.org Hosting Negotiations Private

• The WP Community Collective President Resigns Over Board’s “Tolerance for Risk and Discomfort”

• Inside WordCamp Asia 2026: Planning for 3,000+ Attendees and a Live WordPress 7.0 Release

• Matt Mullenweg: Global Sponsors’ Products Should Be “Fair Game” For WordCamp Talks

• Mullenweg Calls for Markdown Endpoints on WordPress.org as He Pushes “Web OS” Vision

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ The WordPress Interface Is Disappearing: What Comes After Gutenberg? (pootlepress.com)

→ API is the UI (rich.blog)

→ Open source has a big AI slop problem (leaddev.com)

→ A Modest Server-Centric Development Proposal (automattic.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ Another wave of brilliant minds is joining the stage at WordCamp Asia 2026 (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ WordCamp Europe 2026 needs volunteers to help make this event unforgettable! Become a Volunteer! (europe.wordcamp.org)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – January 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Matt Mullenweg Asked on polyglots: Where are we going? (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new for developers? (February 2026) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in AI Experiments 0.3.0 (9 FEB 2026)? (make.wordpress.org)

→ Telex Updates: From Napkin Sketch to WordPress Block (and More) (wordpress.com)

→ WordPress Campus Connect: January 2026 Feedback Highlights (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ Sandeep Kumar receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ WordPress Studio MCP (youtube.com)

→ The Best Image Compression Tools for WordPress Websites: Agency owners share the image optimization tools they trust — from WordPress plugins to local apps and server-level solutions. (theadminbar.com)

→ Matt Mullenweg CEO of Automattic: What is The Future of WordPress in a World of AI? (youtube.com)

→ The WP Community Collective Expands Board, Chris Reynolds Named Interim President (therepository.email)

→ Preserving the Open Web: Inside the New Wayback Machine Plugin for WordPress (blog.archive.org)

→ Leadership at the Peak (ma.tt)

→ #WPGivesAHand 2025: A Recap of Impact and Growth (wpgivesahand.com)

Conclusion

That's the week in WordPress, a major beta to test, a scholarship deadline to act on, and a legal case that keeps getting more complicated. If something here caught your attention, hit reply and let us know what you're watching. And if a friend or colleague would find this useful, send it their way. See you next week.

Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WPMore roundup — WPMore newsletter issue 36, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress is evolving fast in 2026, and this week brings updates that touch every part of the ecosystem. From new AI development tools to community-building efforts and infrastructure debates, these stories show where WordPress is headed and what it means for you as a site owner, developer, or community member.

In this Issue:

• AI Agents Get a WordPress Testing Playground

• WordPress 6.9.1 Fixes 49 Bugs Across Core and Block Editor

• WordPress 7.0 May Bundle AI Infrastructure (But No AI by Default)

• WordPress Meetups Are Getting a Major Revamp in 2026

• FAIR Plans to Rebundle Top 10,000 WordPress Plugins by Year's End

AI Agents Get a WordPress Testing Playground

AI code agents are getting better at writing WordPress plugins and themes, but testing has been the bottleneck. WordPress contributor Brandon Payton just released wp-playground, a new AI agent skill that uses the Playground CLI to give AI agents a fast, repeatable way to run WordPress and verify their code as they build.

The skill automatically detects where code belongs, mounting plugins into wp-content/plugins or themes into wp-content/themes by recognizing file signatures like plugin headers. This cuts the “ready to test” time from about a minute down to just a few seconds. Agents can now alternate between tools like curl and Playwright to interact with WordPress, verify results, apply fixes, and re-test quickly.

• Install via: npx openskills install WordPress/agent-skills

• New repo launched at github.com/WordPress/agent-skills for community contributions

• Future plans include persistent Playground sites and wp-cli command support

Read the full official blog on WordPress.org here.

This development tool might seem niche, but it signals how AI is becoming part of the WordPress development workflow.

WordPress 6.9.1 Fixes 49 Bugs Across Core and Block Editor

WordPress 6.9.1 is now available as a short-cycle maintenance release. This minor update addresses 49 bugs affecting the block editor, mail functionality, and classic themes. Sites with automatic background updates enabled will update automatically, or you can manually update through your WordPress Dashboard.

The release was led by Aaron Jorbin and Aki Hamano, with contributions from over 80 community members. It’s a testament to the WordPress community’s ability to coordinate asynchronous fixes into stable releases.

• Next major version: WordPress 7.0, scheduled for April 9, 2026 at WordCamp Asia

• Download available at WordPress.org or via Dashboard > Updates

• Full bug fix list in the release candidate announcement

Read the full blog on WordPress.org here.

Speaking of WordPress 7.0, there’s a significant proposal on the table for that release.

WordPress 7.0 May Bundle AI Infrastructure (But No AI by Default)

A proposal is on the table to merge the WP AI Client into WordPress 7.0, providing developer infrastructure for AI features without actually enabling any AI functionality by default. This is about laying groundwork, not shipping AI to every WordPress site.

The WP AI Client is a provider-agnostic API that lets WordPress code call generative AI models through a consistent interface. It includes WordPress integrations for HTTP transport, event handling, caching, credentials, and a REST/JS layer. Crucially, without explicit configuration and explicit calling code, WordPress won’t send any prompts or data to external services.

What this means for you: WordPress won’t automatically use AI. Site owners will install plugins to enable specific AI providers, and plugins can detect whether AI is configured before offering AI features. The goal is to reduce duplicated SDKs and settings pages while giving the ecosystem a stable foundation.

• Security: REST/JS execution is capability-gated; secrets won’t leak

• Privacy: No outbound AI calls by default

• Performance: Minimal footprint when unused

Feedback is being collected via comments and a Trac ticket. Testing instructions will be available when a pull request opens.

Read the full official blog on Make WordPress here.

While WordPress Core explores AI infrastructure, the community team is focusing on something more human.

WordPress Meetups Are Getting a Major Revamp in 2026

Meetups have been explicitly called out as “the primary front door to the WordPress community” in the 2026 Big Picture Goals, and the Community Team is planning a significant evolution. With WordPress Credits and Campus Connect scaling quickly, meetups need to be ready to welcome newcomers and turn curiosity into active participation.

The focus is on adding hands-on, issue-focused sessions alongside the presentations and social gatherings meetups already do well. This means working together on real WordPress problems, expanding learning opportunities tied to actual WordPress needs, and providing clear paths from meetup participation to contribution on Make teams.

The Community Team’s Q1-Q2 priorities include:

• Auditing the Meetup Organizer Handbook for guidance on hands-on sessions

• Reaching out to all existing meetup groups to assess activity and offer support

• Creating templates for contribution-focused meetup formats

• Highlighting meetups already running successful hands-on sessions

They’ll also work to strengthen the meetup-to-contribution pipeline by coordinating with Make team reps and improving visibility of “good first issues” that groups can tackle together.

Read the official blog on Make WordPress here.

While WordPress.org strengthens its community infrastructure, an alternative distribution network continues to gain momentum.

FAIR Plans to Rebundle Top 10,000 WordPress Plugins by Year’s End

The FAIR project has published its 2026 roadmap with an ambitious plan: rebundle the top 5,000 to 10,000 WordPress.org plugins by December, reformatted to meet FAIR Protocol specifications with added metadata and cryptographic package signing.

FAIR’s roadmap is structured around three quarterly milestones. The first (April 26) focuses on trust systems and verification infrastructure. The second (August 16) targets direct engagement with commercial plugin publishers to build authenticated API endpoints for payment gateways and license validation, letting site admins purchase licenses and manage subscriptions from within their WordPress dashboard. The third (December 6) shifts to infrastructure scaling and sustainability.

What this means: FAIR is positioning itself as a viable alternative to WordPress.org’s centralized repository, with federated distribution and a focus on security verification. The project acknowledges it will need significantly more contributors to handle package vetting at this scale.

• Six months after launch, FAIR has nine software projects in active development

• November 2025 hackathon with Patchstack delivered vulnerability information directly to WordPress dashboards

• Board and committee member announcements are underway but not yet scheduled

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress 6.9.1 Released with Fixes for 49 Bugs in Core and Block Editor

• WordPress AI Experiments Plugin Tests Eight New Features, Including Type-Ahead and Comment Moderation

• WP Engine Wins Approval to Add WooCommerce as Defendant as Court Signals Frustration with Lengthy Filings

• WordPress Meetups to Add Hands-On Contribution Sessions Alongside Traditional Formats

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

Share

WordPress Must Read

→ How We Waste Great Talks at WordCamps (And How to Fix This) (checkoutsummit.com)

→ Wordfence Bug Bounty Program Monthly Report – December 2025 (wordfence.com)

→ My 7-Year-Old Wanted to Build a Website. Should I Still Teach Him WordPress? (wpmayor.com)

→ Marketing Lessons from WordCamp Asia (make.wordpress.org)

→ Content Guidelines: A Gutenberg Experiment (make.wordpress.org)

→ In the past week, there has been an explosion of visible AI progress in the WordPress project (j.cv)

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On other WordPress News

→ Hosting Team Reps 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Automattic Backs University of Illinois Chicago Program Set to Pay Students for WordPress-Based AI Training (therepository.email)

→ It’s official: WordPress.com has a Claude Connector (wordpress.com)

→ WordCamp Asia 2026 WP Campus Connect Scholarship Sponsor Applications Now Open (wp-content.co)

→ New concept: National Championships at WordCamps (make.wordpress.org)

→ Proposal: Monthly Office Hour Meeting for Make WordPress Training (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Studio 1.7.0: Meet the New Studio CLI (wordpress.com)

→ Call for testing: Experimental REST API Caching in WooCommerce 10.5 (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ Apply for Scholarships to Attend WordCamp Asia 2026 (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ Recap: WordPress 6.9 “Gene” Retrospective (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call for Testing – Customizable Navigation (“Mobile”) Overlays (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call for Scholarship Sponsors: Support Student Participation through WordPress Campus Connect (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ The right time: Leaving Automattic (nickdiego.com)

→ WP Engine Launches Newsroom, a Publishing Platform Built on Big Bite’s Newsroom Expertise (therepository.email)

→ #202 – Charly Leetham on Using WordPress to Enable a Digital Nomad Life (wptavern.com)

→ Luke and Jonathan catch up with Jeff Paul, VP of Open Source Solutions at Fueled and an active contributor to the WordPress project for the past decade. They discuss Jeff’s contribution journey, their shared agency experiences, and thoughts on the upcoming 7.0 release. (crossword.fm)

→ Hackathons and jam sessions for WordPress builders (pluginjam.com)

→ Underfunded PHP Tools: A Global Business Threat (openchannels.fm)

→ Excerpt Talks Episode #6 – WP Credits Panel Discussion (wpbakery.com)

Conclusion

WordPress in 2026 is shaping up to be a year of foundational changes, some technical, some cultural, all significant. Whether you're building sites, writing code, or just keeping up with the ecosystem, these shifts will affect how you work with WordPress.

Have thoughts on any of these stories? Hit reply, I'd love to hear what you think.

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WPMore roundup — WPMore newsletter issue 35, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

WordPress is stepping into 2026 with ambitious plans and unresolved tensions. This week brought clarity on where the project is headed: real-time collaboration, AI integration, and revitalized meetups, but also reminders of the challenges it still faces. From security gaps that should worry every site owner to community friction that won’t seem to fade, here’s what you need to know.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 Aims for Google Docs-Style Collaboration

• AI Experiments Plugin Adds Excerpt Generation and Developer Tools

• Official WordPress.org X Account Mocks FAIR Project, Draws Backlash

• Most Hosts Can’t Block WordPress Vulnerabilities—74% of Attacks Succeed

• WP Engine Customers Refile Class Action After Court Dismissal

WordPress 7.0 Aims for Google Docs-Style Collaboration

WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard outlined the project’s 2026 roadmap, and WordPress 7.0 is the centerpiece. Set to coincide with WordCamp Asia, the release will focus on Phase 3: Collaboration, bringing real-time co-editing directly into the block editor; think Google Docs, but for WordPress.

Beyond collaboration, 7.0 will introduce a Command Palette powered by the Abilities API, client-side media processing to reduce server load and speed up uploads, and responsive editing controls that let you customize mobile menus and hide blocks by viewport. New blocks like Tabs and Icon round out the creative toolkit.

The update also continues WordPress’s intentional push into AI. Hubbard emphasized AI will remain opt-in and plugin-based, with no automatic features injected into sites. The Core AI team is developing project-wide guidelines focused on transparency, user control, and data responsibility; guardrails designed to keep AI helpful without overstepping.

• Key takeaway: WordPress 7.0 aims to make the editor more collaborative, faster, and smarter, without forcing AI on anyone.

• For site owners: Expect smoother uploads and better mobile customization tools once 7.0 drops.

Hubbard also stressed the importance of revitalizing meetups as the “primary front door” to the WordPress community, encouraging hands-on learning and clearer onboarding for new contributors, especially students arriving through programs like Campus Connect and WordPress Credits.

Read the full blog on Make WordPress Here.

AI Experiments Plugin Adds Excerpt Generation and Developer Tools

The AI Experiments plugin hit version 0.2.0, bringing AI-powered excerpt generation to WordPress editors. Instead of leaving excerpts blank or writing them last, authors can now generate a first draft directly from post content, then review and edit as needed.

The release also introduces the Abilities Explorer, a new admin screen that surfaces all registered AI capabilities within the plugin. It’s designed to help developers understand what AI-powered actions are available and how they’re exposed in the system, a foundation for making the Abilities framework more extensible as new features roll out.

Looking ahead, version 0.3.0 is already in progress with content summarization, featured image generation, alt text generation, and a refactored Abilities Explorer built on TypeScript and DataViews. These experiments are meant to inform future core AI discussions, not replace editorial judgment.

• Key takeaway: AI in WordPress is evolving carefully, with tools that assist rather than automate away editorial control.

• For editors: Excerpt generation could save time on archives and feeds, but you’re still in charge of what gets published.

The plugin remains experimental, but the direction is clear: practical, optional, and transparent AI features that fit into existing workflows.

Read the full blog on Make WordPress here.

Official WordPress.org X Account Mocks FAIR Project, Draws Backlash

The official WordPress.org X account sparked backlash last week after posting a mocking reply about the FAIR project, a federated, independent repository initiative launched by developers who were previously banned from WordPress.org.

The controversy started when Nicholas Garofalo, Director of Marketing for WordPress.org at Automattic, mentioned his personal site got stuck in maintenance mode after updating a FAIR Connect plugin. The WordPress.org account replied: “Looks like the Federated and Independent Repository project is going great… Maybe they need some REST.” The “REST” reference was widely interpreted as a jab at Ryan McCue, creator of the WordPress REST API and a FAIR co-chair who was among those banned in 2024.

Community reaction was swift. Several developers and leaders criticized the post as unprofessional and out of step with WordPress leadership’s stated goal of rebuilding trust after last year’s moderation controversies. Some critical replies were later hidden by the account, raising further concerns about how dissent is handled on official channels.

• Key takeaway: The post felt like a return to last year’s drama, at a time when the community wants to move forward.

• For the community: It’s unclear who authored the post, but it highlighted ongoing tensions around governance, moderation, and tone.

WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard outlined moderation reforms in May, but this episode suggests the reset is still a work in progress.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

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Most Hosts Can’t Block WordPress Vulnerabilities—74% of Attacks Succeed

A new security study from Patchstack tested 30 known WordPress vulnerabilities across multiple hosting companies and the results are alarming. Even after expanding the experiment to include more hosts and more generic attack types, 74% of exploit attempts still succeeded.

The study found that hosts performed better against non-WordPress-specific vulnerabilities like SQL injection or directory traversal, but struggled badly with WordPress-specific attacks like privilege escalation (blocked only 12% of the time). Once an attacker gains admin privileges, they can access customer data, edit content, or upload malicious files, often bypassing other protections entirely.

Even hosts advertising commercial web application firewalls showed inconsistent results. The best performers were hosts with in-house firewall solutions, suggesting that investing in custom security infrastructure matters more than relying on third-party tools. Notably, the study also retested 10 vulnerabilities from an earlier experiment and many hosts still hadn’t addressed them months later.

• Key takeaway: “Secure hosting” marketing doesn’t guarantee protection against WordPress vulnerabilities.

• For site owners: Don’t assume your host has you covered. Layer your security with a dedicated plugin like Patchstack, Wordfence, or Sucuri.

• For hosts: If you’re serious about WordPress security, generic WAFs won’t cut it.

The study confirms what many security researchers already knew: WordPress vulnerability mitigation remains largely unsolved, and vibe-coding practices are only making it worse.

Read the full report on Patchstack here.

WP Engine Customers Refile Class Action After Court Dismissal

WP Engine customers Ryan Keller and Sharon Schanzer have filed an amended class action lawsuit against Automattic and CEO Matt Mullenweg, seeking to revive claims a judge dismissed last month for insufficient detail.

The original lawsuit alleged Automattic intentionally interfered with their WP Engine contracts during the late-2024 standoff, when WordPress.org access was cut off and the Advanced Custom Fields plugin was taken over. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled they hadn’t shown Automattic knew about their specific contracts or pointed to concrete lost business opportunities.

The amended complaint adds fresh evidence, including the WordPress Engine Tracker website, which publicly listed over 842,000 WP Engine-hosted sites alongside promotional links to competing hosts like Automattic-owned Pressable. A 6,584-page CSV of those sites is filed with the complaint as proof Automattic could identify specific customers. The filing also details technical impacts, arguing that WordPress.org access is hard-coded into the software and couldn’t simply be rerouted.

• Key takeaway: The legal battle over last year’s WP Engine conflict is far from over.

• For WP Engine users: This case could have implications for how disputes between platform owners and third-party hosts are handled in the future.

A hearing date hasn’t been set, but the case continues to unfold as a central piece of fallout from 2024’s most contentious WordPress dispute.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Matías Ventura Named WordPress 7.0 Release Lead as Contributors Close In on Real-Time Collaboration Approach

• Inside WordCamp Europe 2026: Lead Organizers on Getting More People to Kraków and This Year’s Education Focus

• WordPress.org Launches New Education Hub Highlighting Campus Connect, Credits, and Student Clubs

• WordPress 7.0 Planning Continues With Call for Release Squad Volunteers

• WordPress Plugins Team Reviewed Record 12,713 Plugins in 2025 as Submissions Doubled

• Misunderstandings Over AI Use Fuel Confusion Around WordPress.org Plugin Reviews

• WordPress to Drop PHP 7.2 and 7.3 Support With WordPress 7.0

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ PHP can AI: WordPress.com Agentic Infrastructure (piszek.com)

→ Why WordPress Needs to Plug Into the Agentic Web (wpengine.com)

→ I Dug Through 6,162 WordPress Plugins From 2025. Let’s Talk About What’s Missing—And Why 2026 Could Be Different (regionallyfamous.com)

→ Market analysis: WordPress in 2026 (humanmade.com)

→ Matt Mullenweg on WooCommerce’s Existential Threat, AI Hype, and Why Breaking Sites Makes Him Furious (therepository.email)

→ Happy Birthday Drupal! (jonathandesrosiers.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ WordPress Community Team Encourages Women-Centric Events for International Women’s Day 2026 (therepository.email)

→ New: Request a video message from Matt for your WordCamp (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 22.4? (20 January) (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 6.9.1 Release Schedule (make.wordpress.org)

→ Three New UI Updates to WordPress Playground from December 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Nominations for Core Team Reps: 2026 Edition (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Studio 1.7.0: Meet the New Studio CLI (wordpress.com)

→ Product Permalink Changes Coming in WooCommerce 10.5 (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ What’s new for developers? (January 2026) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing WP-Bench: A WordPress AI Benchmark (make.wordpress.org)

→ WC REST API fixes for product variation attributes with special characters in WooCommerce 10.5 (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ A New Home for WordPress Education Programs (wordpress.org)

→ Sample text Five (domain.com)

From WordPress Community

→ Exploring work in progress for WordPress 7.0 (nomad.blog)

→ Ohia ᚛ᚈᚐᚂᚐᚋᚆ᚜ receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community (yoast.com)

→ $3 Millions in Sales Later – 2025 Review (seopress.org)

→ Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty (dri.es)

→ Overall adoption HTTP Archive measurements show that CMS-driven sites account for over 54% of observed websites in 2025, reinforcing CMSs as the default infrastructure for the web. (almanac.httparchive.org)

→ WordPress is moving fast on AI, and plugin builders need to keep up. WP Product Talk sits down with Jason Adams, Core AI Team Lead at Automattic, to unpack how plugins WordPress AI efforts are shaping what’s possible right now. (youtube.com)

→ Is There a WordPress Replacement in 2026? I Went Looking (jeangalea.com)

→ BuddyPress Is Fading: Why We Must Act Now to Save It (vapvarun.com)

→ The Future of The Web, What does the Open Web look like in an AI future? How will websites change? (j.cv)

→ Closing the door (for now) on Content Creators slack channel (nomad.blog)

→ The silence is deafening: Google’s “agentic” future leaves the WordPress economy behind (joost.blog)

→ Aditya Kane reflects on his 11 years of WordPress contribution journey (bombaypirate.com)

→ Matt Mullenweg on WooCommerce’s Future and Competitive Strengths in Online Commerce (openchannels.fm)

→ Product Thinking in Practice: The Choices Behind Synced Pattern Popups (mattcromwell.com)

→ Checkout Summit: A Conference for WooCommerce Devs ft. Rodolfo Melogli (webmasters.fm)

→ Growing Agency Success with People-Centric Values and Open Source Education (openchannels.fm)

Conclusion

That's the week in WordPress: big plans, real risks, and unresolved tensions. Whether you're excited about 7.0's collaboration features or concerned about security gaps and governance drama, one thing is clear: 2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year.

Got thoughts? Hit reply, I’d love to hear from you. And if you found this useful, share it with a fellow WordPress user who could use the update.

Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this week’s WPMore roundup — WPMore newsletter issue 34, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.

We're covering some major moves in the WordPress ecosystem: a long-awaited PHP version bump, the sobering reality of plugin sales in 2025, and practical security insights you can use today. Plus, updates from the Plugins and Test teams on how AI is reshaping workflows. Let's dive in.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0 Waves Goodbye to PHP 7.2 and 7.3

• Plugin Sales Took a Hit in 2025, Here's What the Data Shows

• The Plugins Team Doubled Its Workload And Leveled Up With AI

• The Test Team Is Rebuilding With Training and Clearer Expectations

• A Deep Dive Into WordPress Security: From Foundations to Hardening

WordPress 7.0 Waves Goodbye to PHP 7.2 and 7.3

WordPress 7.0, scheduled for April 2026, will drop support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3. The new minimum supported version will be PHP 7.4.0, while the recommended version remains PHP 8.3. Usage of PHP 7.2 and 7.3 has fallen below 4% of monitored WordPress installs, well under the project’s 5% threshold for retirement.

This shift aims to keep WordPress maintainable for the long haul. Over time, raising the minimum PHP version benefits the plugin and theme ecosystem, improves tooling and libraries (including AI integrations), and strengthens the project’s developer relations. WordPress core is already fully compatible with PHP 8.0–8.3 and beta compatible with PHP 8.4 and 8.5.

Sites still running PHP 7.2 or 7.3 will stay on the WordPress 6.9 branch once 7.0 launches. Security fixes will be backported to WordPress 4.7 when possible, even though only one branch officially receives updates. The Gutenberg plugin will also bump its minimum PHP version to 7.4.

• Key takeaway: If you’re still on PHP 7.2 or 7.3, now’s the time to upgrade. Contact your host if you need help.

• What’s next: No set schedule for future PHP bumps, usage and the 5% threshold will guide decisions going forward.

Read from the Official Make WordPress Blog here.

This move keeps WordPress modern and sustainable, but it also means plugin developers and site owners need to stay current.

Plugin Sales Took a Hit in 2025, Here’s What the Data Shows

Plugin sales were tough in 2025. Katie Keith at Barn2 saw new plugin sales drop 17.8%, with revenue up only 0.65% thanks to renewals. A poll of plugin companies revealed that 80% experienced flat or declining sales compared to 2024. A follow-up survey dug deeper, and the patterns were striking.

Replaceability mattered most. Plugins that are hard to replace saw two-thirds reporting growth, regardless of how “essential” they were. Partially replaceable plugins struggled, with many down 15–29% or worse. Easy-to-replace plugins were hit hardest; competition, AI-generated alternatives, and theme features are pulling customers away.

Organic search took a beating. Companies relying heavily on SEO saw the biggest declines. AI tools are changing how people discover plugins, and fewer clicks are converting into sales. Freemium and marketplace listings showed mixed results, but partnerships and affiliates held steadier; being embedded in someone else’s workflow provided a buffer.

What founders can do in 2026:

• Make your plugin irreplaceable, own a clear outcome and solve a problem no one else does quite as well.

• Reduce dependence on SEO by diversifying into YouTube, partnerships, email, and direct outreach.

• Be explicit about why paying is worth it; support alone isn’t enough; emphasize reliability, updates, and peace of mind.

• Market consistently, not occasionally. Growth stories came from deliberate visibility, not passive discovery.

Read the full report on WP Product Talk Here.

The WordPress plugin market is shifting fast, and adapting now will separate the winners from the rest.

The Plugins Team Doubled Its Workload And Leveled Up With AI

The WordPress Plugins Team reviewed 12,713 plugins in 2025, a 40.6% increase over 2024. Weekly submissions surged from 150 to over 330, and the team kept the queue under one week despite the volume. How? By heavily upgrading their tools with AI-assisted checks and automation.

The Internal Scanner now tackles repetitive tasks like verifying plugin names, checking branding compliance, and confirming ownership, adding over 80 new features and 100 improvements in 2025. The Plugin Check Plugin (PCP) evolved into a security-focused tool, with five major releases adding nonce verification, forbidden function checks, localhost detection, and enhanced PHP 8.1+ compatibility. In October, PCP started running automatic security scans on every plugin update, reports are internal for now, but authors will soon receive feedback to improve their plugins proactively.

Despite the progress, challenges remain. Nearly 39% of reviewed plugins received no reply from authors, a drop from 2024 but still a drain on volunteer time. Approvals rose to 69.5% (up from 63.4% in 2024), and the average number of issues per plugin declined, showing submissions are better prepared. AI is lowering barriers to entry without compromising quality, the approval bar hasn’t dropped, but more people are building plugins than ever before.

• Key takeaway: The team is scaling through smarter tools, not just more people. Plugin authors should use PCP in their workflows to catch issues early.

• What’s ahead: Scaling the team and processes in 2026 to handle record-breaking submissions while maintaining standards.

The Plugins Team is proving that AI can amplify human effort without sacrificing quality.

Read from the Official Make WordPress Blog here.

The Test Team Is Rebuilding With Training and Clearer Expectations

The WordPress Test Team is restructuring in 2026 to address resource bottlenecks and clarify what it means to be a team member. Historically, joining was either easy (as a yearly representative, often without real contribution) or extremely hard (through exceptional effort like triaging hundreds of tickets). Moving forward, earning “emeritus” status will require sustained, consistent contribution over time, not short-term or symbolic involvement.

The new approach lowers the barrier to join “the hard way” while phasing out representatives as the sole entry path. Representatives were meant to support the team for a year, but the role often attracted badge-seekers rather than committed contributors. The new system emphasizes duty over accomplishment, and non-emeritus members who don’t meet consistent expectations will be removed.

To support this shift, the Test Team is launching a four-week Training Program starting in January 2026. It covers handbook development, collaboration, testing fundamentals, and meeting management. Participants need to invest at least 20 hours (two-hour live sessions plus three hours of weekly practice). Graduating doesn’t guarantee a team spot, but it provides clear guidance on how to get there. The program is capped at five participants, selected by technical skill level if demand exceeds capacity.

• Key takeaway: The Test Team is prioritizing active, long-term contributors over short-term participation.

• Sign up: Live sessions start January 8 or 15, held around 3–4 PM GMT on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This restructuring aims to build a more sustainable, engaged team that can handle WordPress testing at scale.

Read from the Official Make WordPress Blog here.

A Deep Dive Into WordPress Security: From Foundations to Hardening

Tài Hoàng published a comprehensive handbook on WordPress security, covering everything from the platform’s layered security model to actionable hardening techniques. The guide emphasizes that WordPress itself isn’t insecure, 96% of vulnerabilities in 2025 were found in plugins and themes, not core. The real problem is mismanagement: outdated plugins, weak server configs, poor passwords, and neglected maintenance.

The security model visualizes WordPress as four layers: server/infrastructure (foundation), WordPress core (application), plugins/themes (extension), and edge/network (CDN/WAF like Cloudflare). Each layer reinforces the others, but a failure in one—like a vulnerable plugin—weakens the whole system.

Best practices include choosing a reliable VPS host, reducing your attack surface by keeping your plugin stack lean, controlling access with proper file permissions and 2FA, disabling unnecessary features (XML-RPC, file editor, WP-Cron), and building a long-term security culture with regular audits and documentation. The handbook also covers practical steps like hiding PHP and Nginx versions, blocking direct IP access to bypass Cloudflare, securing wp-config.php, changing the default login URL, limiting login attempts, and using Nginx rules to block malicious requests.

Key tools mentioned:

• Admin and Site Enhancements (ASE) plugin for login URL changes and login attempt limits

• Two-Factor plugin for 2FA

• UpdraftPlus for backups following the 3-2-1 rule (three copies, two media types, one offsite)

• Key takeaway: Security isn’t a plugin you install, it’s a discipline. Harden every layer, from server to edge, and maintain it consistently.

Read the Full Guide here.

This guide is a must-read for anyone serious about keeping their WordPress sites secure in 2026 and beyond.

WordPress Must Read

→ From installation to integration: Making plugins “agent-ready” (joost.blog)

→ When a WordPress Site Needs a Rehab Instead of a Full Redesign (speckyboy.com)

→ Automattic AI, 2025 (j.cv)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ WordPress 7.0 Call for Volunteers (make.wordpress.org)

→ Plugin teams’ eviews are not AI generated (reddit.com)

→ Introducing new Themes Team representatives for the 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Vulnerability Report — December 31, 2025 (solidwp.com)

→ WP Engine Acquires Big Bite (wp-content.co)

→ Seahawk Media Partners with Patchstack to Strengthen WordPress Security (patchstack.com)

From WordPress Community

→ Support Inclusion in Tech (SiNC) Opens Applications for 2026 WordPress Contributor Funding Program (wp-content.co)

→ Matt 4.2 (ma.tt)

→ My 2025 recap (by the Numbers) (pootlepress.com)

→ On Being Vegetarian (sunitarai.com.np)

→ 2025 year in review & transparency report (barn2.com)

→ 2025: My Year in Review (elliotsowersby.com)

→ Wombat Plugins 2025 Year in Review (studiowombat.com)

Conclusion

That's a wrap for this edition of WPMore. Whether you're upgrading PHP, rethinking your plugin strategy, or tightening security, there's no shortage of work ahead, but the tools and knowledge are there to help you succeed.

Have thoughts on any of these stories? Hit reply and let me know. And if you found this useful, share it with a fellow WordPress user who could benefit. See you next time!

Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this year’s final WPMore newsletter, issue 33, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place. I hope your holidays are going great and that your New Year's plans are still intact.

WordPress is gearing up for a busy 2026. The project has announced three major releases timed with flagship WordCamps, launched a pilot dashboard to track contributor engagement, and shipped Gutenberg 22.3 with a dedicated Fonts page. Meanwhile, new data reveals how bot traffic and security practices are reshaping website performance across the globe. Here's what you need to know.

WordPress In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2: Your 2026 Release Roadmap

• A New Dashboard to Track Contributor Journeys

• Gutenberg 22.3 Brings a Dedicated Fonts Page and Better Image Editing

• Bots Now Drive Up to 70% of Web Traffic (and Why That Matters)

• The WordPress Stories That Shaped 2025

WordPress 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2: Your 2026 Release Roadmap

WordPress is returning to a three-releases-per-year cadence in 2026, with each major version launching during a flagship WordCamp event. WordPress 7.0 is scheduled for April 9th during WordCamp Asia, 7.1 lands August 19th at WordCamp US, and 7.2 wraps up the year around December 8–10th during State of the Word.

The four-month spacing gives contributors enough time to build quality features while encouraging iterative shipping over chasing perfection. It also creates unique teaching opportunities; newer contributors can watch or even help with live releases at WordCamps, learning the process firsthand.

A few practical notes: you don’t need to attend in person to be involved, all coordination happens in Slack, and the 7.0 Release Squad call for volunteers goes out the week of January 4th. The dates may shift slightly based on community feedback, but the overall rhythm is set.

This schedule also leaves room for minor releases between major ones, giving teams breathing space to deliver improvements with confidence.

Read the official Make WordPress blogpost here.

A New Dashboard to Track Contributor Journeys

WordPress is piloting a Contributor Dashboard to map how people join, participate, and grow across Make teams. The dashboard uses a five-stage ladder - Connect, Contribute, Engage, Perform, Lead- to describe participation patterns without ranking contributors or suggesting that some work matters more than others.

The goal is simple: help teams understand engagement, spot where support is needed, and improve the contributor experience over time. Right now, contribution activity is scattered across many tools, and non-code work often lacks visibility. This pilot aims to change that.

The dashboard will launch at the end of February 2026 with a limited multi-team pilot. It uses a custom plugin to map existing activity from WordPress.org systems to ladder stages, so it won’t require new infrastructure or place new demands on contributors. It also respects privacy—no personal or sensitive information gets displayed.

If you’re interested in helping test or refine the dashboard, you can comment on the project thread or join the conversation in the #five-for-the-future Slack channel.

This work builds on years of community requests for better contributor recognition and visibility.

Read the official Make WordPress blogpost here.

Gutenberg 22.3 Brings a Dedicated Fonts Page and Better Image Editing

The latest Gutenberg release, 22.3, introduces a dedicated Fonts page under the Appearance menu for block themes. Until now, managing fonts meant digging through several panels inside Global Styles. The new page centralizes typography management, letting you browse, install, and preview fonts in one place. Support for classic themes is coming next.

The image cropper also got a rebuild. It works the same way, but now aspect ratios and zoom levels stay put when you rotate images - a small fix that clears up a long-standing frustration. This update also sets the stage for more image-editing improvements down the road.

Other highlights include email notifications for Notes (so collaborators get alerts when someone leaves feedback), alignment support for the Breadcrumbs block, and a responsive Grid block that adapts layouts across screen sizes. The editor also now shows clearer error messages when you lose connection.

• Fonts page simplifies typography management for block themes

• Image cropper improvements fix rotation issues

• Grid block now responds to different screen sizes automatically

These changes make everyday editing smoother without forcing you to rethink your workflow.

Read the official Make WordPress blogpost here.

Bots Now Drive Up to 70% of Web Traffic (and Why That Matters)

WP Engine’s 2025 Website Traffic Trends Report reveals that automated, non-human traffic now accounts for nearly one in three web requests globally. AI-driven bots consume up to 70% of the most resource-heavy operations like hosting and performance, turning traffic management into a financial priority. Unverified bot traffic is growing 76% worldwide, yet only 38% of sites use dedicated bot-mitigation tools.

Security practices now directly affect speed and cost. Sites that fully adopt HTTPS and proactive bot mitigation load 1–5 seconds faster in Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) than those using HTTP. Larger organizations show near-universal use of two-factor authentication and HTTPS, while smaller teams lag by about 25%.

Geography and mobile also matter more than ever. North America and Europe still post the strongest performance, while high-growth regions like Asia and Latin America are slowing down because traffic is rising faster than optimization efforts. About 50% of the top 10 million sites still don’t use a CDN, even though doing so improves LCP by roughly 20%. Mobile performance consistently trails desktop despite mobile being the dominant traffic source.

• Bot traffic now represents nearly 1 in 3 web requests

• HTTPS adoption improves LCP by 1–5 seconds

• 50% of top sites still lack a CDN, missing 20% performance gains

If your site feels slower or you’re seeing unusual traffic patterns, these trends might explain why.

Read the full report on WP Engine here.

The WordPress Stories That Shaped 2025

The Repository wrapped up the year by revisiting the most-read WordPress stories of 2025. The list reflects a year marked by conflict, but also by grassroots efforts to move the project forward. The top story was the abrupt shutdown of the WordPress Sustainability Team in January, which sparked backlash over how volunteer work was dismissed. Other highly read stories included the launch of the FAIR project to decentralize WordPress.org services, a class action lawsuit against Automattic over the WP Engine dispute, and Automattic’s layoffs affecting 16% of its workforce.

But 2025 wasn’t only about friction. Quieter developments like WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, and the launch of the WordPress AI Team showed contributors continuing to build, organize, and experiment despite the tension. One bright spot was Ollie’s Menu Designer being flagged for potential inclusion in WordPress core, with Automattic developers offering to help guide the work forward.

As 2026 begins, most people have moved on from the conflicts to focus on their work, teams, and businesses. Long-time contributors say they’re glad tensions have eased so they can contribute again, while new contributors are already getting involved through initiatives like Credits.

The year was messy, but it also showed that people keep showing up to build, even when things get hard.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

On other WordPress News

→ WooCommerce 10.4.3: Dot Release (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ WordPress 6.9 Release Retrospective (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 7.0 – What to Expect in 2026 (Current Situation and Possibilities) (fluentforms.com)

→ WooWeekly #579: Traffic Down, Community Up (wcwkly.com)

→ Introducing CSS Grid Lanes (webkit.org)

→ WordPress Vulnerability Report — December 24, 2025 (solidwp.com)

→ Bringing Back Women-Centric WordPress Events for International Women’s Day (make.wordpress.org)

→ WP Plugin Info Card 6.2.0 Released with WordPress.org Profile Badges and Screenshots Block Improvements (dlxplugins.com)

→ Plugin Check (PCP) got new update (wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ SiteOrigin Page Builder is proof that steady progress can still win (X.com)

→ WordCamp Nepal 2026 is 24 days to go! The ticket is still available! (nepal.wordcamp.org)

→ Freemius 2025 Year in Review (freemius.com)

→ Lessons Learned, Course Building Edition (remkusdevries.com)

→ InfluenceWP December Journal (influencewp.com)

→ Etch Review: My Web Dev Journey from Angelfire, to WordPress to Etch. (youtube.com)

Conclusion

That's the latest from WordPress as we head into 2026.

Whether you're planning for new releases, tracking contributor growth, or just trying to keep your site fast and secure, there's a lot to keep an eye on.

Got thoughts on any of these updates? Hit reply, we'd love to hear from you. And if you found this useful, share it with someone who'd appreciate it.

— Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this month’s WPMore newsletter issue 32, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one.

WordPress is closing out 2025 with momentum. Planning for version 7.0 is underway with ambitious features like real-time collaboration and responsive editing. The project's new AI architecture shipped with 6.9, education programs are spreading globally, and long-time contributors are reflecting on what it takes to sustain open source at scale. Here's what's happening across the WordPress ecosystem.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 7.0: Real-Time Collaboration and Responsive Editing on the Roadmap

• WordCamp Bhopal Brings WordPress to Central India This Weekend

• Jonathan Desrosiers Marks Seven Years as a WordPress Committer

• WordPress Education Programs Expand Globally

• State of the Word 2025: AI, Education, and a Year of Highs and Lows

WordPress 7.0: Real-Time Collaboration and Responsive Editing on the Roadmap

Planning is officially underway for WordPress 7.0, expected in March or April 2026. Core contributors recently shared their priorities, and the list is extensive. The biggest ticket items include real-time collaboration (think Google Docs-style editing with live cursors and conflict resolution), major upgrades to the Notes feature introduced in 6.9, and a responsive editing mode that lets you customize designs for different screen sizes.

New blocks are also in the pipeline: tabs, breadcrumbs, playlist, slider, dialog, and icon blocks are all in progress. The navigation block is getting a simpler editing flow, and the DataViews system (used for managing posts and pages) will become more extensible. Behind the scenes, work continues on the Abilities API, block bindings, and a new design system built on WordPress UI components.

• Real-time collaboration depends on server infrastructure; WordPress will ship a baseline peer-to-peer version, with hosts and plugins able to extend it.

• Responsive editing will let you hide blocks and adjust styles based on screen size, with customizable breakpoints.

• Many items are still experimental; not everything listed will make the final release.

Read the full post here.

With 6.9 delivering only two major releases this year due to disruptions, the 7.0 roadmap signals renewed energy heading into 2026.

WordCamp Bhopal Brings WordPress to Central India This Weekend

WordCamp Bhopal is happening December 20–21, marking Central India’s first major WordPress conference. Over 400 developers, designers, and community members are expected to attend. The event kicks off with Contributor Day on December 20 at SFA Technologies, where attendees can work directly on the WordPress open-source project. The main conference follows on December 21 at the Courtyard by Marriott.

Sessions cover AI automation, remote work strategies, and SEO updates, with networking events including a “404: Adulting Not Found” games evening and an after-party. Platinum sponsors include Bluehost, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. Student discounts are available, and organizers are teasing a “Wapuu” mascot reveal. It’s a strong showing for the local tech community and a sign of WordPress’s continued reach across India.

This event adds to the 97 WordCamps held globally this year, attended by over 100,000 people.

Jonathan Desrosiers Marks Seven Years as a WordPress Committer

Jonathan Desrosiers recently celebrated his seventh anniversary as a WordPress Core Committer, a contributor with the ability to commit code to the main repository. Since 2018, he’s made 2,552 commits across all branches, placing him fifth on the all-time list behind Ryan Boren, Sergey Biryukov, Andrew Nacin, and Andrew Ozz.

In the past year, Desrosiers made 365 commits (up 42% from the previous year), gave props to 66 unique contributors, and worked across build tools, bundled themes, security, and external libraries. He’s also been traveling to conferences, mentoring contributors, and thinking deeply about decision-making in large open-source projects. His anniversary post reflects on what being a “great contributor” means to him, shaped by a year he describes as both productive and challenging for the WordPress community.

• WordPress has had roughly 117 people with commit access since 2004; 111 have made at least one commit.

• Desrosiers’ first commit happened on November 30, 2018—also Blue Beanie Day.

Read his full blog here.

His work is a reminder of the steady, often invisible effort that keeps WordPress running.

WordPress Education Programs Expand Globally

WordPress’s education initiatives are growing fast. Campus Connect, which started as a grassroots program in India, has now held 14 events across 28 institutions, reaching 2,690 students. Recent events in Spain, Bangladesh, and the Philippines included hands-on workshops where students built their first WordPress sites. Five more events are scheduled, and 11 are in the planning stages.

The WordPress Credits internship program, launched this year with the University of Pisa, has expanded to universities in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Bangladesh, and Poland. Eighty-eight students are actively working on contribution projects, completing structured training and working with mentors. At WordCamp Pisa, students attended Contributor Day and presented their progress, with one student opening the event to discuss her project.

Learn WordPress served over 1.5 million users this year, with a 32% jump in engagement after WordCamp US. A new wordpress.org/education page and handbook have also launched to help organizers and mentors get involved.

• Campus Connect focuses on meeting students where they are, with local leadership and mentorship.

• Credits gives students a supported pathway into open source, lowering barriers to entry.

Read the full report on Make WordPress here.

These programs are building the next generation of WordPress contributors, not just users.

Share

State of the Word 2025: AI, Education, and a Year of Highs and Lows

Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of the Word address from San Francisco, marking the release of WordPress 6.9 live during the keynote, a first for the event. He described 2025 as a “rollercoaster” year shaped by legal disputes, governance tensions, and internal challenges, but also by progress in AI and education.

WordPress still powers 43% of the web, with 56% of sites now non-English. Japan remains a standout market, with 58.5% of all Japanese websites using WordPress. The plugin directory surpassed 60,000 plugins, up 68% from 2024, and block theme adoption increased 40%. WordPress 6.8 was downloaded 79.5 million times by the time 6.9 shipped.

AI was a major focus. The WordPress AI Team, formed in May, delivered all four of its planned “Building Blocks” with 6.9, including the Abilities API. The team’s roadmap for 7.0 includes a Workflows API for chaining AI actions and deeper integration with collaborative editing. Mullenweg emphasized that WordPress isn’t adding “sparkle buttons everywhere” but building infrastructure the ecosystem can extend.

• Automated AI checks now support plugin reviews, translation, theme validation, and security scanning.

• A new 24-hour delay for auto-updates gives developers time to catch issues before they roll out to millions of sites.

Executive Director Mary Hubbard highlighted the education initiatives detailed above, framing them as a shift toward actively nurturing the next generation rather than waiting for them to arrive. The keynote also featured a livestream crossover with the TBPN podcast, bringing WordPress to a wider tech audience.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• Proposed 2026 Release Schedule Ties Major WordPress Versions to Flagship Events

• Court Dismisses WP Engine Customer Class Action Against Automattic, Allows Amended Complaint

• The SEO Framework Creator Launches Troy as Alternative to WordPress.org Plugin Distribution

• State of Enterprise 2025: WordPress Usage Deepens as Long-Term Commitment Jumps to 95%

• Real-Time Collaboration Shows Promise in Early WordPress VIP Testing

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ WordPress Gives A Hand: Connecting, collaborating and creating for good (wpbakery.com)

→ The Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review (radar.cloudflare.com)

→ We All Lose With Ad Hominem Arguments (remkusdevries.com)

→ Once A Year, I Get To Be Scrooge (pootlepress.com)

→ Don’t Let WordPress Ruin Your Christmas (davidallsop.com)

→ Product Shops: Want to Win in 2026? Learn How to Go to Market (wpproducttalk.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ Call for Volunteers: Support Our Education Programs (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Credits Mentor Huddles – Notes and Next Steps (make.wordpress.org)

→ Stephen Wolfram has joined as a special advisor to Automattic (ma.tt)

→ Ability to Hide Blocks in WordPress 6.9 (make.wordpress.org)

→ State of the Word 2025: Innovation Shaped by Community (wordpress.org)

→ WordPress 6.9 Hotfixes (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new for developers? (December 2025) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Training Team Meeting Recap – 25th November 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Proposal to change the user documentation workflow (make.wordpress.org)

→ Community Team Rep Nominations for 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ 2026 Global Partner Program Announcement (wordpress.org)

→ When Typepad Shut Down, WordPress.com Helped 3,684 Blogs Find a New Home (wordpress.com)

From WordPress Community

→ Remembering Harshad Mane (bombaypirate.com)

→ SOTW 2025:The Year WordPress Became AI-Native (j.cv)

→ ClassicPress Version 2.6.0 is Out! (classicpress.net)

→ Top 10 WordPress Products Bought During Black Friday 2025 (webtng.com)

→ Enqueue Shows Why Australia Needed a Developer-Focused WordPress Event (therepository.email)

→ DHH & Open Source (ma.tt)

→ ‘Source available’ is not open source (and that’s okay) (dri.es)

Conclusion

2025 wasn’t easy for WordPress, but the project kept moving. Version 7.0 is coming soon with features that could reshape how people build and collaborate on sites. Education programs are spreading, AI infrastructure is maturing, and contributors are staying committed. If you’re building with WordPress, now’s a good time to pay attention.

What are you most excited about for 7.0? Hit reply and let me know. And if you found this useful, forward it to someone who’d appreciate the update.

— Nishat, WPMore

Follow Us → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join the Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

Welcome to this month’s WPMore newsletter issue 31. This week’s newsletter carries a heavier weight than usual. We’re reflecting on a devastating loss to our community, confronting uncomfortable truths about WordPress security, and looking ahead to what 2026 holds for the platform. There’s also a heartwarming reminder that our ecosystem is at its best when we give back. Let’s dig in.

In this Issue:

• The WordPress Community Loses a Bright Light

• 111,000+ Infected Sites Had Security Plugins, Here’s What Went Wrong

• WP Gives a Hand Returns December 22–28

• The Core Program Team Sets Its Sights on Roadmaps

• WordPress 7.0 Targets Spring 2026 with Three Major Releases Planned

The WordPress Community Loses a Bright Light

The WordPress community is mourning Zeel Thakkar, a web developer from Ahmedabad who collapsed on stage at WordCamp Surat on 16 November and passed away shortly after. She was addressing the audience when she fell, and despite being rushed to the hospital, she couldn’t be revived. Local authorities suspect cardiac arrest.

Zeel had been contributing to WordPress since 2023, quickly becoming a fixture in the community. She helped organize multiple WordCamps, contributed to WordPress 6.7 and 6.8, served as a Training Team mentor, and was part of the WordCamp Asia 2026 operations team. She received the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship in 2024 and traveled to Manila for WordCamp Asia 2025 as a volunteer. Tributes have poured in across Slack, X, and LinkedIn from contributors worldwide, all remembering her passion, kindness, and the lasting impact she made in such a short time.

• She started contributing just two years ago after a WordPress 20th anniversary event

• Recognized as an all-star mentee in the Contributor Mentorship Program

• Her legacy lives on through the communities she helped build

The loss reminds us how precious and fragile life is, and how much one person can accomplish when they show up with genuine care for others.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Speaking of security, this next story is a wake-up call we all need to hear.

111,000+ Infected Sites Had Security Plugins—Here’s What Went Wrong

If you think installing a security plugin means your WordPress site is protected, this will make you uncomfortable. In September alone, malware removal team WeWatchYourWebsite cleaned 111,354 infected WordPress sites. Every single one had at least one security plugin installed. Nearly 20% were running two leading security plugins simultaneously. None of them stopped the attacks.

The root cause? A staggering 81% were compromised through stolen admin credentials or hijacked authentication cookies. Attackers didn’t exploit vulnerabilities, they walked in using legitimate login access. Traditional security plugins watch for malicious files and suspicious activity, but they can’t stop someone who has your password or session token. Even more telling: on 1,377 sites running SolidWP’s security plugin, attackers followed a deliberate pattern, they authenticated first, then immediately deactivated the security plugin before installing backdoors.

The article argues that most security services fail at something critical: root cause analysis. Cleaning malware without understanding how attackers got in means the same vulnerability remains. Sites get reinfected weeks later because the stolen credentials are still valid, the weak password is still in use, or the vulnerable plugin is still installed.

• Use passkey authentication or hardware-based 2FA (not SMS or email codes)

• Monitor continuously for post-compromise indicators like file changes

• Update ALL plugins, not just your security plugin

• Demand root cause analysis from any security service you hire

Effective WordPress security in 2025 requires layered defense: strong authentication, traditional hardening, continuous monitoring, and regular updates. One layer alone won’t cut it.

Read the full report here.

Now for something that reminds us why this community matters beyond code and features.

WP Gives a Hand Returns December 22–28

It’s that time of year again. WP Gives a Hand, the WordPress community’s annual charity initiative, runs from December 22 to 28 this year. The concept is simple: participating WordPress businesses donate a portion of their revenue to charities of their choice, then share the results publicly.

The initiative started in 2020 when people across the WordPress ecosystem decided to do something meaningful instead of just offering Christmas discounts. It wasn’t about raising money alone, it was about shifting the conversation toward compassion and responsibility. The idea caught on, and #WPGivesAHand has returned every December since.

Here’s how it works: companies, agencies, freelancers, and developers choose a charity, decide what percentage of revenue they’ll donate, announce their participation publicly using the #WPGivesAHand hashtag, and share their final results after the week ends. The initiative builds momentum, when one company gives, another sees it and joins. When users buy from participating businesses, it encourages others to do the same.

• WordPress businesses can join by reaching out to WP Gives a Hand and announcing participation

• WordPress users can support participating products during the campaign week

• The movement grows each year because it’s authentic, transparent, and impactful

Whether you’re a business or a user, there’s a role for you in making this December’s campaign the biggest yet.

Read the full report on wpbakery.com here.

Now on the WordPress roadmaps, what you should know —

The Core Program Team Sets Its Sights on Roadmaps

The WordPress Core Program team has announced its main focus for Q4: creating a unified approach to roadmaps across the project. Tammie Lister shared the proposal following discussions on GitHub, explaining that the team wants to concentrate energy efficiently rather than spreading efforts too thin.

The roadmap initiative will start as a discovery task, gathering and documenting all existing roadmaps across WordPress teams to understand how they’re built, maintained, and communicated. From there, the team plans to suggest a lightweight process for teams that don’t have roadmaps yet and find a central location, potentially a roadmap page; where contributors can see what needs work across the entire project. The goal isn’t to replace individual team roadmaps but to provide a bird’s-eye view of WordPress development.

Beyond this main focus, the Core Program team identified several collaboration opportunities. They’ll support WP Credits as it grows, explore ways to help Five for the Future, assist with tooling for WordCamps (currently in discovery), and work on improving recognition of invisible contributions, efforts already underway in the Documentation team and around non-dev contributions.

• The discovery phase will document how existing roadmaps work and recommend formats others can follow

• A central roadmap location would help contributors identify where help is needed

• Multiple teams are working on contributor recognition from different angles, potential for collaboration

The team is now gathering feedback on the proposed focus before starting work together.

Read the full report here.

Meanwhile, the WordPress project is making plans for a busy year ahead.

WordPress 7.0 Targets Spring 2026 with Three Major Releases Planned

WordPress is returning to three major releases in 2026, a shift from earlier plans to ship just one due to ongoing legal matters and Automattic’s pause in contributions. According to notes from this week’s Core Committers Check-in, WordPress 7.0 is targeted for March or April, with two more releases to follow later in the year.

The meeting covered several potential features for 7.0, including template activation, the Tabs block, and client-side media editing. The most extensive discussion centered on the WordPress AI Client, which shipped version 0.1.0 last week. The AI Client provides a native, provider-agnostic way for plugins and themes to interact with AI services without hard-coding specific providers. Committers see it as a strong candidate for core because it encourages the ecosystem to build on solid foundations. However, they stressed that WordPress will remain agnostic—no specific AI model will be baked in, and the project won’t favor certain third-party services.

The admin redesign also came up. Contributors clarified it won’t be a full overhaul but rather a “fresh coat of paint” refreshing what’s already there. The redesign is part of Phase 3: Collaboration, but there’s still no timeline for when it might land. The last major admin refresh shipped over a decade ago in WordPress 3.8.

• February was ruled out since beta would fall during holiday season

• Committers discussed raising minimum PHP version to 7.4 but made no decision

• The group wants clear use cases for AI features in “default WordPress” before proceeding

It’s encouraging to see the project returning to a healthier release cadence and thinking carefully about how to integrate emerging technologies responsibly.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress 6.9 RC3 Arrives as Field Guide Drops and Final Release Nears

• WordPress 6.9 to Introduce Notes, Bringing Asynchronous Collaboration to the Post Editor

• Inside FAIR’s Approach to Security: A New Model for WordPress Package Safety

• FAIR and Patchstack Build Security MVP at CloudFest USA Hackathon

• WP Engine Moves to Dismiss Automattic’s Counterclaims, Arguing They Were Filed Too Late

• Letters of Protest Fail to Stop ‘Managed WordPress’ and ‘Hosted WordPress’ U.S. Trademark Bids

• Real-Time Collaboration Flagged for WordPress 7.0 Amid Ongoing Technical Challenges

• State of the Word 2025 Set for San Francisco, Coinciding With WordPress 6.9 Release

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Must Read

→ Understanding the Abilities API: What It Is, Why It Matters and How It’s Going to Transform WordPress (therepository.email)

→ Breaking free from subscription fatigue: Why Nag Me Not switched to pay once (nagmenotwp.com)

→ The State of Ecommerce in 2025 (storeleads.app)

→ WordPress needs to catch up to the web (progressplanner.com)

→ The importance of a good changelog (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Enterprise Doesn’t Doubt WordPress. They Doubt Us. (jamesgiroux.ca)

→ We need to reinvent contributor days (progressplanner.com)

→ Did the UK budget leak because of WordPress? (altis-dxp.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ The PHP Foundation is Seeking a New Executive Director (thephp.foundation)

→ WooCommerce 10.4: Pre-release updates (developer.woocommerce.com)

→ Preview Gutenberg Development Branches in Your Browser (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Importer can now migrate URLs in your content (make.wordpress.org)

→ MCP Adapter v0.3.0 is now available. (make.wordpress.org)

→ PHP 8.5 support in WordPress 6.9 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing the WordPress AI Client SDK (make.wordpress.org)

→ Call for Mentors: Join WordPress Campus Connect! (make.wordpress.org)

→ A Month in Core – October 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ In Loving Memory of Zeel Thakkar (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ Meet your 2026 Training Team Representatives (make.wordpress.org)

→ What’s new for developers? (November 2025) (developer.wordpress.org)

→ Playground CLI adds ImageMagick, SOAP, and AVIF support (make.wordpress.org)

→ Automattic Inc. Claims It Owns the Word ‘Automatic’ (404media.co)

→ Rethinking Contributor Recognition in Documentation Team (make.wordpress.org)

→ Monthly Education Buzz Report – October 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

From WordPress Community

→ The WP Community Collective Celebrates Contributor Day Table Leads With Appreciation Campaign (therepository.email)

→ Summary of Hallway Hangout on content creation across different mediums (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Udupi Community Empowers 300+ Students Across Coastal Karnataka Through Campus Connect (central.wordcamp.org)

→ WordCamp Canada: Reflections from an Organizer (troychaplin.ca)

→ Celebrating #YourDay: Four years of the 4-day work week (wpbakery.com)

→ Life at Automattic: Communication is oxygen (jonathanbossenger.com)

→ Shape the Future: SiNC Seeks Senior Leaders to Mentor WordPress Contributors (supportinclusionintech.com)

→ FAIR: rethinking how WordPress software is distributed (fair.pm)

→ Finding the Next Right Thing (mattcromwell.com)

→ Why people really choose WooCommerce (in the words of the community) (barn2.com)

→ The Story Behind Checkout Summit: the New WooCommerce Conference (publishpress.com)

→ How Page Builders Transformed WordPress and What’s Next for the Web | Raitis Sevelis (WPBakery) (youtube.com)

What's Your Thought?

This week brought us loss, lessons, and opportunities to come together. Zeel’s memory reminds us to show up fully and support each other. The security data reminds us that protection requires more than good intentions. And the planning for 7.0 and WP Gives a Hand show a community that keeps moving forward, building better tools and making space for kindness.

What’s on your mind after reading this issue? Hit reply and let me know. I read every response.

Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

P.S. — If these stories resonated with you, forward this to someone who needs to hear them. And if you have a story about why you’re still here, hit reply and tell us. We read every one.

Welcome to this month’s WPMore newsletter issue 30,

WordPress 6.9 is shaping up to be a significant release with expanded template management, new blocks, and AI integrations on the horizon. But the community’s attention has been divided, trademark disputes involving Automattic are making waves, and important conversations about WordCamp sustainability are heating up. Here’s what you need to know this week.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 6.9 Beta 2 Is Ready for Your Feedback

• Automattic Sends Trademark Notice to AutomaticCSS Creator

• WordPress Foundation and WooCommerce Join WP Engine Countersuit

• The Hidden Costs of Your WordCamp Ticket

• Matt Mullenweg on AI, Playground, and the WordPress Roadmap

WordPress 6.9 Beta 2 Is Ready for Your Feedback

WordPress 6.9 Beta 2 arrived this week, bringing the December 2 release one step closer. This update includes over 33 editor improvements and bug fixes since Beta 1, with 28 core tickets closed. Testing betas is how they catch bugs before millions of sites upgrade, so your participation matters.

The 6.9 release brings meaningful updates: multiple templates per slug, Notes for block-level collaboration, new Accordion and Math blocks, an expanded Command Palette across the dashboard, and the new Abilities API for AI integrations. Performance improvements include reduced CSS in classic themes, better caching, and optimized script loading.

Key features to test:

• Draft and activate/deactivate templates without publishing immediately

• Hide blocks on the frontend while keeping them editable

• New drag-and-drop behavior (blocks move instead of copy)

You can test via the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, direct download, WP-CLI, or WordPress Playground (no setup required). Report issues to the Alpha/Beta support forums or WordPress Trac if you’re comfortable writing bug reports.

The admin redesign originally planned for this release has been postponed, and for the first time in seven years, WordPress 6.9 won’t ship with a new default theme.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

This sets the stage for the legal and community challenges that have complicated development this year.

Automattic Sends Trademark Notice to AutomaticCSS Creator

Automattic has sent a legal notice to Kevin Geary, creator of Automatic.css, over name similarity. The letter from law firm Morgan Lewis claims that “Automatic” is “nearly identical” to “Automattic” and could confuse users, especially since both target WordPress developers. Automattic became a registered trademark in 2016.

Kevin shared the letter publicly on X (formerly Twitter), sparking debate. Matt Mullenweg responded that Automattic also owns automatic.com, making this “a fraught naming area.” Kevin countered that “AutomaticCSS” is called “automatic” because the framework automates many tasks, and owning a domain for a generic term doesn’t make it off-limits.

The twist? Back in July 2024, Matt had asked Kevin to add a disclaimer clarifying that AutomaticCSS wasn’t affiliated with Automattic. Kevin agreed, and the site’s footer still carries that note. Despite this, Automattic escalated with a formal legal notice requesting a rebrand.

Community reactions are split:

• Some see it as overreach—”Nobody’s confusing Automattic with a CSS framework”

• Others argue Kevin should have chosen a different name from the start

• A trademark lawyer called Automattic’s claim “baseless” and unlikely to hold up in court

Whether you see this as trademark protection or unnecessary drama, it’s a reminder that naming WordPress products requires careful consideration of the ecosystem’s major players.

Read the full report on wp-content.co Here.

Speaking of legal battles, Automattic isn’t done yet.

WordPress Foundation and WooCommerce Join WP Engine Countersuit

The WordPress Foundation and WooCommerce have officially joined Automattic and Matt Mullenweg in countersuing WP Engine for trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair competition. Filed October 23, the counterclaims accuse WP Engine of calling itself “The WordPress Technology Company” and allowing others to call it “WordPress Engine” to mislead consumers.

The filing alleges WP Engine’s trademark use increased after Silver Lake acquired a controlling stake in 2018 as part of a “coordinated scheme” to inflate valuation ahead of an anticipated sale. It also claims WP Engine engaged in bad-faith licensing negotiations, knowing that paying fees would hurt earnings and Silver Lake’s expected return.

The counterclaims reveal:

• Automattic was approached to acquire WP Engine but declined

• A 2010 agreement gave Automattic an exclusive, royalty-free license to use and enforce WordPress trademarks commercially

• “Direct, real-world examples” of consumer confusion, including redacted support tickets from WP Engine customers who mistakenly contacted Automattic

• Graphs showing WP Engine’s trademark usage “dramatically increased” between 2021 and 2023

The collective is asking the court to bar WP Engine from using WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks in marketing and to recover profits earned through alleged trademark misuse, with potential triple damages if infringement is found willful.

WP Engine responded that its use of the WordPress trademark “is consistent with longstanding industry practice and fair use under settled trademark law.”

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress Plugins Team Rolls Out Automatic Security Scans for All Plugin Updates

• Automattic Again Pushes to Dismiss WP Engine’s Antitrust Claims Amid Dispute Over Redacted Excerpts

• WP Engine Accuses Automattic and Matt Mullenweg of Concealing Control of WordPress.org and the WordPress Trademarks

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

While these legal battles play out, community members are raising important questions about sustainability.

The Hidden Costs of Your WordCamp Ticket

WordCamp tickets are remarkably affordable—often around 25 euros per day. But who’s really paying for these events? According to Taco Verdonschot’s analysis, the answer goes far beyond sponsors and ticket sales. There are massive hidden costs, and they’re carried almost entirely by volunteers.

The breakdown:

• Organizers spend 100–300 hours per event, often unpaid. At a 65 euro/hour freelance rate, that’s 6,500–19,500 euros in donated time per organizer—often exceeding top-tier sponsorships

• Volunteers typically work 4-hour shifts during the event, contributing around 260 euros per day in time (minus their free ticket)

• Speakers spend hundreds of hours preparing talks, receive no speaking fees or travel reimbursement, and get only a free ticket in return

For flagship WordCamps (the larger, international events), Verdonschot suggests it might make sense to pay for travel and accommodation for outside speakers—people who aren’t giving back to their own community but simply giving. He argues that inviting speakers from outside WordPress could bring valuable cross-pollination of ideas.

His proposals:

• Keep local WordCamps volunteer-driven to support community thriving

• Allow flagship events to compensate non-WordPress speakers for travel and accommodation

• Expand the WordPress Foundation’s role in advancing diversity through programs like the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship

The post sparked important conversations about sustainability. As Verdonschot notes, WordCamp budgets only show financial income and costs—they don’t capture the thousands of donated hours that make these events possible.

Read the full report on progressplanner.com Here.

This analysis ties back to the broader challenges facing WordPress development and community events this year.

Matt Mullenweg on AI, Playground, and the WordPress Roadmap

At WordCamp Canada, Matt Mullenweg delivered an unscripted talk covering everything from his personal projects to WordPress’s future. He discussed Day One (his encrypted journaling app), WordPress Playground (which spins up WordPress in your browser in 30 seconds using WebAssembly), and his vision for WordPress as a full development platform capable of powering entire mobile apps.

On the commerce side, WooCommerce now processes over $30 billion in gross merchant volume annually and runs on 8% of all websites worldwide. Mullenweg also highlighted Beeper, a messaging app that unifies WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram DMs, LinkedIn messages, and more into one interface.

On AI and the photo directory:

Mullenweg suggested WordPress could evolve its photo directory rules to allow AI-generated faces (since they don’t require model releases) and use AI for better semantic search across the 30,000+ Creative Commons Zero-licensed photos. He noted that WordPress.org already uses AI models like Gemini to handle plugin submissions more efficiently, reducing the review queue from six months to under a week.

On legal challenges:

Mullenweg acknowledged that “the main distractions and things holding back WordPress right now are the legal attacks from WP Engine and Silver Lake,” but said he couldn’t comment further, promising “major updates soon.” The legal situation contributed to the earlier decision to skip a second major release in 2025, though that was later reversed.

On WordPress philosophy:

When questioned about Hello Dolly (the plugin that ships with WordPress core), Mullenweg defended keeping it simple rather than over-engineering it: “The whole idea is to show how easy it is to use the actions and filter system inside of WordPress.” He emphasized that WordPress has “soul” and honors jazz musicians in every release name.

Mullenweg closed by encouraging attendees to check out his blog at ma.tt, where he’s been posting daily for 29 consecutive days (with one missed day).

Read the full blog on ma.tt Here.

WordPress Must Read

→ Every website needs a brand assets page (progressplanner.com)

→ Do Lifetime Licenses Really Cost More to Support? We Finally Have the Data (wpproducttalk.com)

Share

On other WordPress News

→ Automattic 20 & Counter-claims (ma.tt)

→ State of the Word 2025 San Francisco | December 2, 2025 (wordpress.org)

→ What’s New for WordPress Developers – October 2025 (youtube.com)

→ Judge Reins In Discovery Fight as WP Engine Ordered to Produce Customer Data (therepository.email)

→ Devin Walker Joins Automattic as Artistic Director for Jetpack (therepository.email)

→ Gutenberg 21.9 (October 22) (make.wordpress.org)

→ FAIR and Patchstack Joining Forces at CloudFest USA Hackathon to Build New Security Integration (therepository.email)

→ WordCamp Canada 2026: Looking for New Co-Leaders (canada.wordcamp.org)

From WordPress Community

→ 2025 WordPress Youth Day, Nicaragua. Mission accomplished! (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Community Team Calls for Contributors to Rebuild WordCamp Tooling (therepository.email)

→ Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 22nd, 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Recognising contributors work: discussion notes and potential opportunities (make.wordpress.org)

→ WordPress Campus Connect Cartago COVAO 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ 10 Years of Reviewing WordPress Themes: A Journey Through Code, Community, and Contribution (kafleg.com.np)

→ The PressConf Story: How Raquel Manriquez Launched the Best WordPress Business Conference (publishpress.com)

→ Shape Contributor Day at WordCamp Asia 2026 — Share Your Ideas! (asia.wordcamp.org)

→ From Steering Wheel to Stage: My Drive to WordCamp Bengaluru 2025 with Tata Punch 🚗 (makarandmane.com)

→ Blocktober Wraps Up as Telex Inspires a Wave of WordPress Experimentation (therepository.email)

Conclusion

WordPress 6.9 is coming December 2, legal battles are intensifying, and important conversations about community sustainability are happening right now.

Testing the beta, understanding the trademark landscape, and supporting WordCamp organizers are all ways to strengthen the ecosystem.

Got thoughts on any of these stories? Hit reply, I’d love to hear from you.

Nishat, WPMore

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

P.S. — If these stories resonated with you, forward this to someone who needs to hear them. And if you have a story about why you’re still here, hit reply and tell us. We read every one.

Welcome to this week’s WP More newsletter issue 29, many new events, and issues are arrived after I last wrote the previous issue.

Let’s dive in —

In this Issue:

• WordCamp Asia Needs More Local Voices

• WooCommerce Embraces the AI Shopping Revolution

• Matt Mullenweg Opens Up About Leadership and Lawsuits

• WordPress Community Faces Trust Challenge After Fund Misappropriation

• YouTube Creators Bridge WordPress to the Next Generation

WordCamp Asia Needs More Local Voices

The WordPress community in Asia-Pacific is calling for change. Despite the region contributing 42% of WordPress core contributors and hosting nearly 40% of global WordCamps, local speaker representation at WordCamp Asia remains disappointingly low. WordCamp Asia 2024 featured only 29% APAC speakers, improving to 38% in 2025—well short of the organizers’ 60% target and the WordPress Handbook’s recommended 80%.

The justification that Asia needs speakers from other regions doesn’t hold water when you consider that Asian speakers rarely appear at US or European WordCamps, and livestreams work perfectly well for accessing global content. With Mumbai hosting the 2026 event from April 9-11, organizers have an opportunity to showcase the stories, innovations, and experiences from a region that’s genuinely driving WordPress forward.

Read the full blog on wpapac.com here.

As the community pushes for better representation, attention turns to how WordPress itself is preparing for an AI-powered future.

WooCommerce Embraces the AI Shopping Revolution

WooCommerce is positioning itself at the forefront of “agentic commerce”—a future where AI assistants handle shopping tasks autonomously. Starting with WooCommerce 10.3 this month, store owners gain access to the new MCP (Model Context Protocol) that lets AI tools like Claude directly manage products and orders. This isn’t just about backend efficiency; it’s about preparing for customers who’ll never visit your actual website.

The vision extends beyond store management (The Repository). WooCommerce is testing solutions with Google and Stripe to enable AI agents to discover products and complete secure transactions on behalf of users. Built on WordPress’s open-source foundation and the new Abilities API, these tools ensure the entire ecosystem—not just WooCommerce—can adapt to AI-driven shopping behaviors.

Read the full blog on WooCommerce.com here.

While WooCommerce charts its AI course, the WordPress community continues processing the fallout from a challenging year.

Matt Mullenweg Opens Up About Leadership and Lawsuits

In a revealing Crossword interview, Matt Mullenweg addressed the elephant in the room: his controversial “WordPress.org belongs to me personally” comment and the WP Engine conflict that’s divided the community. When pressed about the stress his decisions placed on contributors, including fears of being banned, Mullenweg stood firm, calling it necessary pruning—though he did offer an apology to those caught in the crossfire.

His biggest takeaway from the year? The American legal system’s capacity to be “weaponized” through expensive discovery processes. While hosts Jonathan Wold and Luke Carbis hoped for deeper reflection on community impact, Mullenweg focused on litigation lessons and pointed to WordPress 6.9’s success as validation. He also surprised many by questioning whether the REST API should have been included in core, suggesting GraphQL might have been better.

Read the full report on The Repository here.

Speaking of community impact, recent events have tested the very foundation of trust that WordPress events are built upon.

WordPress Community Faces Trust Challenge After Fund Misappropriation

WordPress Community Support revealed that a 2024 WordCamp organizer misappropriated approximately $734 in surplus funds for personal use. The individual, who managed funds locally rather than through WPCS, failed to respond to multiple recovery attempts and repayment plan offers. As a result, they’ve been permanently banned from WordPress events and their .org account, with a legal report filed with local authorities.

In response, WPCS will now distribute Global Sponsorship Grants in smaller payments—initial deposits first, then additional funds as attendance numbers clarify. Matt Mullenweg pushed back on this change, urging the program not to “punish all organizers for one bad actor” and to maintain default trust. The incident highlights the delicate balance between trust and accountability in community-run events.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress 6.8.3 Security Release Patches Data Exposure and XSS Vulnerabilities

• Ollie’s Menu Designer Lands on WordPress.org, Praised as “Game Changer”

• Fidélitas University Hosts First WordPress Campus Connect in Latin America as Credits Program Expands

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

From financial accountability to creative influence, the WordPress ecosystem relies on diverse voices to thrive.

YouTube Creators Bridge WordPress to the Next Generation

At a recent “Campfire Chat,” prominent WordPress YouTubers discussed their crucial role in shaping the ecosystem’s future. With individual creators often reaching more viewers in a day than official WordPress channels manage in weeks, personalities like Jamie Marsen (180K subscribers) are becoming the primary educators for new users. The panel emphasized authenticity over corporate messaging—viewers connect with real people sharing genuine experiences, not polished brand content.

The creators see themselves as bridges between WordPress and the 5 billion people consuming video content online. Their mission? Sell the open-source vision to Gen Z by emphasizing data ownership and platform independence. They’re advocating for free training days at WordCamps and university outreach to capture younger users where they are—on video platforms, not in documentation.

On other WordPress News

→ What’s new in Gutenberg 21.7? (24 September) (make.wordpress.org)

→ The wpaccessibility.org Knowledge Base is ready to contribute (make.wordpress.org)

→ Nominations for Hosting Team Reps 2026 is open now (make.wordpress.org)

→ Introducing: Test Team Reps for 2025 – 2026 (make.wordpress.org)

→ The Test Handbook Overhaul (make.wordpress.org)

→ Shopify unviels their new WordPress plugin (Shopify.com)

From WordPress Community

→ Good Chaos: A WordPress Plugin Discovery Experiment (iconic.io)

→ “Wildly unethical” — Sam shared additional thoughts about Fueled’s latest round of layoffs and public statements (delta.blog)

→ The WP World Launches AI-Powered Multilingual Messaging for the WordPress Community (therepository.email)

→ changelogWP is now accepting premium plugins changelog, submit yours (changelogwp.com)

What’s Your Thought?

From community governance challenges to AI-powered commerce, WordPress continues evolving through both controversy and innovation.

What’s your take on these developments? Hit reply and share your thoughts, or forward this to someone who needs to stay in the loop.

—

Nishat, WP More

Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook

Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

P.S. — If these stories resonated with you, forward this to someone who needs to hear them. And if you have a story about why you’re still here, hit reply and tell us. We read every one.

It’s been 126 days since I last sent a newsletter issue. Lots of things happened in these days. I will start curating the WordPress community news again every week, expect to get a minimum of 2 emails every month from me.

Thank you to those who subscribed in the meantime.

Welcome to this month’s WPMore newsletter issue 28,

WordPress is buzzing with activity this week. From exciting new features in the upcoming 6.9 release to heated debates about funding and community sustainability, a lot is happening that affects every WordPress user. Let’s dive into what’s shaping the platform and community you rely on.

In this Issue:

• WordPress 6.9 brings hidden blocks, simplified editing, and expanded command palette features

• Drupal founder argues governments should fund open source projects like public infrastructure

• WordCamp 2026 schedule creates a coordination nightmare with three flagship events in 4.5 months

• Nick Hamze’s post reignites the debate about WordPress losing its “cool factor” to newer platforms

• WordPress Foundation seeks mentors for university student contribution program

WordPress 6.9 Brings Hidden Blocks and Simplified Editing

WordPress 6.9 is shaping up to be a significant release, with several features designed to make your editing experience smoother. The ability to hide blocks is nearly ready, giving you better control over what appears in your content. The command palette is expanding beyond the editor to work across your entire dashboard, making it faster to navigate your site’s admin area.

Block commenting is getting refined with bug fixes and improved accessibility, while new experimental blocks like accordion, breadcrumbs, and tabs are being tested. Perhaps most interesting is the work on simplified site editing, which aims to reduce the overwhelming nature of the current site editor through either toggle modes or making patterns content-focused by default.

Read Anny Maccarthy’s detailed blog “Exploring work in progress for WordPress 6.9 v2” here to dive deep into the details.

Open Source Needs Government Funding, Drupal Founder Argues

Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal, is making waves with his call for governments to fund open source projects like public infrastructure. His argument centers on a striking statistic: replacing the most widely used open source software would cost $8.8 trillion, yet 96% of that value depends on just 5% of contributors.

Buytaert points out that governments worldwide rely heavily on open source software but contribute little back. The European Commission runs over 100 Drupal sites, France operates more than 1,000, yet most provide minimal upstream support. He proposes that governments track the health of critical projects, commit to long-term funding, and require vendor contributions in procurement contracts.

• A small group of maintainers supports infrastructure used by millions

• Government agencies use open source extensively but rarely contribute back

• Public funding could stabilize critical projects at relatively low cost

This debate has direct implications for WordPress users, as the platform faces similar sustainability challenges with its vast ecosystem of plugins and themes.

Read Dries Buytaert’s Blog “Funding Open Source like public infrastructure” Here.

WordCamp 2026 Schedule Creates Coordination Nightmare

The WordPress community is grappling with a scheduling problem that could impact everyone who attends conferences or works for companies that sponsor them. All three flagship WordCamps—Asia, Europe, and US—are crammed into just 4.5 months in 2026, creating logistical headaches for organizers, sponsors, and attendees.

Taco Verdonschot breaks down why this matters: organizing a flagship WordCamp takes 9-12 months of work, major venues need to be booked years in advance, and the compressed schedule puts enormous pressure on everyone involved. WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix during August presents additional challenges with extreme heat and vacation season timing.

The financial impact is significant too. Companies that normally sponsor all three events may have to choose just one or two, potentially leaving organizers scrambling for funding. Individual attendees face the prospect of spending thousands of dollars in a few months if they want to attend multiple events.

• Tight scheduling makes planning exponentially harder for volunteers

• Sponsors may skip events due to budget and logistics constraints

• Summer timing in Phoenix could reduce attendance significantly

This scheduling squeeze highlights the growing pains of WordPress’s global community and the need for better long-term planning.

Read Taco Verdonschot’s “WordPress’ flagship WordCamp strategy is a mess, and 2026 will be hell” blog Here.

WordPress’s “Cool Factor” Problem Gets Fresh Attention

WordPress’s “Cool Factor” Problem Gets Fresh Attention

Nick Hamze has reignited discussion about WordPress’s image problem with a post arguing the platform has “lost the cool kids” to newer tools like Webflow and Framer. His critique focuses on perception rather than technical capability, noting that while WordPress powers much of the web, it’s often seen as “legacy” in design circles.

The post struck a nerve, earning a repost from Matt Mullenweg and drawing responses from across the community. Mike McAlister from Ollie even offered to redesign WordPress.org to give it a more modern, confident feel. Joost de Valk from Yoast agreed with the assessment but argued the project needs an empowered marketing team and better product direction.

Read Nick Hamze’s “Why WordPress Lost the Cool Kids (And How to Win Them Back)” blog Here.

Read Joost de Valk’s “Should WordPress have a product and a marketing team?” blog here.

Read the full report on The Repository Here.

Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:

• WordPress Project Launches New Experimental Core Program Team

• Court Dismisses Antitrust and Extortion Claims in WP Engine v Automattic, Allows Other Counts to Proceed

• WordPress Campus Connect Quickly Growing With Global Events, Student Clubs and Scholarships

• WP Includes Is Helping Women Level Up Their Careers in WordPress — and Applications Are Now Open

Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.

WordPress Foundation Seeks Mentors for Student Program

The WordPress Foundation is looking for experienced community members to mentor university students through its WordPress Credits program. This educational initiative connects students with real-world open source contribution opportunities over 13-18 weeks, requiring mentors to commit 2 hours per week.

Mentors will guide up to 5 students each, helping them navigate WordPress contribution processes and develop professional skills. The program aims to bridge the gap between academic learning and practical experience while building the next generation of WordPress contributors.

The foundation is building a global pool of mentors to match with students as more universities join the program. Currently, only a limited number of institutions participate, but expansion is planned.

• Commitment is 2 hours per week for 13-18 weeks

• Mentors guide students through real contribution projects

• Program helps develop the next wave of WordPress contributors

This mentorship opportunity represents a chance to give back to the community while helping shape WordPress’s future through new talent development.

Apply Here.

On other WordPress News

→ The stepping away of a team member (make.wordpress.org)

→ Two-Factor Authentication is Required for All People With the Capabilities to Publish Here, on make/core (make.wordpress.org)

→ Ryan Logan and Derek Ashauer launched changelogwp.com to serve as the #1 resource for changelogs within the WordPress ecosystem. (changelogwp.com)

→ Announcing the Winners of the Summer Photo Contest (events.wordpress.org)

→ Summary, Dev Chat, September 24, 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ Core-AI Contributor Check-in September, 24 2025 (make.wordpress.org)

→ The 5 Best Things About WordCamp US 2025 (wordpress.com)

→ Core Committer Meeting notes from WordCamp US 2025

→ WordPress Security Stats 2025 – Melapress Security Survey Results (melapress.com)

→ New FAIR 1.0 Release Brings Decentralized Package Management to WordPress (therepository.email)

→ Enqueue Reveals Speaker Line-Up With Focus on AI, Performance, and the Future of WordPress (therepository.email)

→ Fueled Layoffs Spark Tension After Former Employee Pre-Empts Announcement (therepository.email)

→ WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 will be held on October 15-16, featuring 24 talks over 24 hours. (2025.wpaccessibility.day)

From WordPress Community

→ WordCamp Organizer Guide: Lessons I Learned (The Hard Way) (leokoo.com)

→ Something Has to Change with WordPress. FAIR is a Great Start. (carriedils.com)

→ The $8.8 Trillion Wake-Up Call: Notes from Open Source Summit NA 2025 (rogerwilliamsmedia.com)

→ Planes & Determination: A Disabled Traveler’s Journey Through Chaos (underrepresentedintech.com)

→ Why Sponsoring WordPress Content Creators is a Win for Your Brand (thewpminute.com)

→ The web isn’t URL-shaped anymore (jonoalderson.com)

→ Why Plugin, Theme & Addon Authors Should Join A Vulnerability Disclosure Program (wpbakery.com)

→ HeroPress at WordCamp US 2025! (heropress.com)

→ PODCAST:“Are there WordPress Echo Chambers” with Imran Siddiq (youtube.com)

→ It’s Always About Authenticity (remkusdevries.com)

→ Rich Tabor argues “WordPress doesn’t need a traditional marketing team.” (X.com)

What’s Your Thought?

Whether it’s technical improvements, funding sustainability, or community coordination, the decisions made now will shape WordPress for years to come. What do you think about these developments?

Hit reply and share your thoughts.

Nishat, WPMore

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Hey there,

I'll be honest.

I almost didn't know how to start this newsletter. WPMore exists to bring you the stories that matter in WordPress, the ones that go beyond plugin updates and hosting deals to show you what's really happening in our community. And lately, what's been happening has been... a lot.

We've watched legal battles play out in public. We've seen longtime contributors banned without explanation. We've wondered if the community we've invested years of our lives in would survive intact. There were moments when writing about WordPress felt less like celebrating a platform and more like documenting a breakup.

But then something funny happened as I put together these stories. In Basel, I found organizers who refused to let controversy derail WordCamp Europe. In Bangladesh and beyond, I discovered women stepping into leadership roles for the first time. In Arizona, I saw business owners choosing vulnerability over posturing. And in one developer's painful account of being banned, I found a reminder that our community's strength isn't in its perfection—it's in our willingness to keep showing up for each other.

These aren't feel-good stories manufactured to make us forget the hard stuff. They're real accounts of real people navigating real problems. And somehow, that makes them more hopeful than any corporate PR statement ever could.

WordCamp Europe 2025: How Basel Became a Symbol of Community Strength

WordCamp Europe is happening June 5-7 in Basel, Switzerland, and honestly, the organizers deserve a medal just for keeping it together this year. Lead organizers Laura Sacco, Steve Mosby, and Uros Tasic managed a 90-person organizing team through one of the most turbulent periods in WordPress history.

The numbers tell part of the story: around 2,000 attendees are expected, which is better than anyone dared hope when planning began. Switzerland's reputation for high costs initially worried organizers, but they've worked hard to make the event accessible. Free tram travel comes with your Basel Card, you can bike in from France or Germany (literally across the border), and there are plenty of budget-friendly food options beyond the tourist traps.

What impressed me most was how the team handled the WP Engine-Automattic dispute. They held three town hall meetings—unrecorded, judgment-free spaces where organizers could voice concerns. "We're not here to pick sides," Uros explained. "We're here to organize a community event." When team members felt uncomfortable continuing, leaders made it clear they could step back without consequences.

The speaker lineup reflects deliberate choices around inclusion—something that took years of learning from past criticism. "This is the first year I can remember where we haven't had complaints about inclusion," Laura noted. They've also built in more networking breaks because, as Steve put it, "the most valuable part of WordCamp is the people."

For those still on the fence about attending: visa issues have been challenging (Switzerland isn't in the EU), but the team issued over 200 invitation letters to help. And the next location is already being planned with affordability and visa accessibility as top priorities.

Read the full interview with WordCamp Europe organisers here at The Repository

Edit: but actually Switzerland IS in the Schengen area, which is the same for ALL countries in it, same rules, same requirements, and not more difficult than with any other Schengen country (EU + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland)

The local team received the endorsement of the Swiss Confederation, as shown on the WordCamp Europe website. The number of visa letters sent by the Attendees team is similar to that of previous years.

What It's Really Like to Be Banned from WordPress.org

Chris Reynolds discovered he was banned from WordPress.org on January 6th. No email, no notification, no explanation—just suddenly locked out of an account he'd held for 17 years. His story offers a rare inside look at what happened to dozens of community members during the height of the WP Engine controversy.

The ban appeared to stem from adding a clown face emoji to one of Matt Mullenweg's Slack posts. Chris explains the context: during COVID, he and his partner used that emoji to react to wild, unpredictable situations—not as a personal attack, but more like "things are getting out of hand." Without conversation or context, the reaction was apparently interpreted as hostile.

The practical consequences were serious. When Chris's Progress Bar plugin received a vulnerability disclosure through Patchstack's bug bounty program, he couldn't push the fix to WordPress.org where over 1,000 users had downloaded it. He could only update it on GitHub and Packagist, leaving repository users vulnerable. This highlighted a concerning precedent—earlier, Matt had taken control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin over a similar security issue.

The personal impact ran deeper. "I've never felt less like a valued member of the WordPress community than when my account was blocked with no justification," Chris wrote in his blog. It led him to DrupalCon Atlanta, where he found a surprisingly welcoming community facing similar challenges but handling them differently.

Chris was among 32 people whose bans were lifted last week—again, without communication or explanation. He's relieved but still processing the whiplash. His experience raises important questions about due process and communication in our community leadership.

Read Chris’s full blog here.

Share

Read the scope from The Repository: WordPress Leadership Reinstates 32 Banned WordPress.org Accounts, Launches Formal Review — Project leadership is reviewing WordPress.org and WordPress Slack bans following months of tension, with dozens of reinstatements already made and more under evaluation.

Read also — The real impact of a WordPress ban (progressplanner.com)

A different perspective on WordPress ban — Toxic Users: The Unforgiven and the Danger of Unbanning (halfelf.org)

Women in WordPress: A Global Movement Takes Root

Sometimes the best initiatives start with simple conversations. When Aditya Kane shared his sister's idea for an all-women WordPress meetup in Mumbai, it sparked something bigger. Pooja Derashri took that concept global, and the result was over 25 International Women's Day events across the WordPress community.

The logistics were challenging. Pooja personally reached out to 30-40 WordPress communities worldwide, many of which had never organized women-led events before. Some struggled to find female speakers or volunteers. But the persistence paid off, creating a powerful network of events from Ajmer to Nicaragua to Madrid.

The impact went beyond single-day celebrations. In Nicaragua, the event "was entirely led and organized by women, most of whom had never led a community event before." WP LATAM trained four new organizers who can now run events in their local communities. WP Bhopal held sessions in both Hindi and English for better accessibility, drawing everyone from students to entrepreneurs to a fifth-grade schoolgirl.

What struck me most was how these events created lasting change. As WP Pune organizers put it: "Our hope is that this event will inspire even more women to step into the spotlight, whether by organizing sessions, speaking at conferences, or leading teams in the tech industry."

This wasn't just about International Women's Day—it was about reshaping what leadership looks like in WordPress communities. When we create space for new voices to lead, we don't just run better events; we build stronger communities.

Read Puja Derashri’s full official recap here.

PressConf: Where Showing Up Still Matters

Sometimes the most important conversations happen when the cameras are off. PressConf wrapped up last weekend in Tempe, Arizona, and by all accounts, it was exactly what the WordPress business community needed—a chance to reconnect, be vulnerable, and remember why this all matters.

The numbers tell part of the story: 140 people, no recordings, and an atmosphere more like a retreat than a typical conference. Organizer Raquel Manriquez and her team created something special at the Tempe Mission Palms, the same venue that housed PressNomics for years.

The emotional openness surprised some attendees, especially international visitors not accustomed to American-style vulnerability in business settings. Miriam Schwab from Elementor delivered what many called the most powerful session, sharing deeply personal stories about balancing career, family, and the ongoing impact of war in Israel. Her talk ran 30 minutes over, but nobody left.

Read Rae Morey’s full PressConf here at The Repository

More PressConf recap blog —

→ Pressconf reflections (binatethoughts.com)

→ Business is personal (progressplanner.com)

Also Read: The WP Community Collective’s field report on PressConf

The WordPress Price Shock: How Soaring Costs Are Squeezing Millions of Website Owners

Your monthly WordPress expenses just doubled—and you're not alone. Across the globe, millions of website owners are facing a harsh new reality: the tools that power nearly half the internet are becoming increasingly expensive, and fast.

From WP Rocket's staggering 162% price jump to Bricks Builder's eye-watering 302% increase, the WordPress ecosystem is experiencing unprecedented price inflation that's leaving users scrambling for alternatives. But here's what makes this crisis particularly brutal—while Silicon Valley startups might shrug off these increases, small business owners in developing nations are getting hit with a devastating double punch: massive price hikes combined with weakening local currencies.

If you've been wondering why your favorite WordPress plugins suddenly cost more than your monthly rent, or if you're a developer watching clients abandon projects due to ballooning costs, this deep dive reveals exactly what's happening—and more importantly, what we can do about it. The numbers don't lie, and the impact is bigger than you think.

Read Gaurav Tiwari’s full deep dive on WordPress companies price hike

On other WordPress News

→ Post Status Acquires WP Speakers (poststatus.com) — Michelle Frechette’s long standing community driven project with 500+ WP speakers profiles found a new home.

→ Matt Mullenweg Settles Caregiver Lawsuits Days Before Trial (therepository.email) — Claims of wage theft, discrimination, retaliation, and defamation brought by two former caregivers against WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg have quietly settled after a nearly three-year legal battle.

→ WordPress Market Share, Statistics, and More (wordpress.com) — this article explores the platform’s market share in detail, as well as its versatility, reasons for success, and what keeps it ahead of the curve two decades after it launched.

→ WordPress Sites Cost Up to 44% Less Than Proprietary CMS Platforms, WP Engine Report Finds (therepository.email) — WP Engine’s new report puts a price tag on CMS decisions, claiming WordPress cuts website costs by up to 44%, as business leaders face longer buying cycles.

→ Mary Hubbard Moves to Rebuild Trust After WordPress.org Bans (therepository.email) — In a new Make WordPress post, Executive Director Mary Hubbard suggests moderation reforms, such as an appeals process, clearer Slack guidelines, and rotating roles, following months of community uncertainty over WordPress.org bans.

→ Announcing WordCamp Volunteer Badges on WordPress.org Profiles (make.wordpress.org) — Now, Wordcamp volunteers will get Badges for their contribution in WordPress community.

→ Second Plaintiff to Join Class Action Against Automattic, Mullenweg Over WP Engine Dispute (therepository.email) — Ryan Keller, who is suing over WP Engine’s temporary blocked access to WordPress.org, plans to expand his proposed class action and respond to Automattic’s push to dismiss.

From WordPress Community

→ Not everything needs AI. But WordPress needs AI-ready infrastructure (progressplanner.com) — Joost de Valk goes deep talking about why WordPress stand in a good place to build AI-ready infrastructure.

→ Freemius: Growing Beyond WordPress (thewpminute.com) — In this episode of the WP Minute+ Podcast, Matt welcomes Vova Feldman, the founder and CEO of Freemius, to discuss how the company is expanding beyond its roots in the WordPress ecosystem.

→ WordPress.org Plugin Submissions Surge 87% Amid Rise in AI Tools (therepository.email) — With plugin submissions up 87% and AI tools playing a bigger role in development, the WordPress Plugin Review Team is evolving its processes to keep pace — without compromising plugin or review quality.

→ New Social Icons for WordPress (make.wordpress.org) — WordPress.org now covers X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, TikTok, YouTube, and Tumblr.

→ How to disable and lock Gutenberg blocks (kinsta.com) — Find different ways to block Gutenberg blocks when working on client site.

→ The 3 C’s of Becoming a WordPress Professional (thewpminute.com) — after years of working with WordPress businesses of all sizes, Matt found that real professionalism comes down to three simple but powerful principles

→ Top WordPress technologies to learn in 2025: Trends and expert opinions (gravitykit.com) — WordPress experts share their tech stacks, and thoghts on what skills you should learn now.

→ Seven Tasks to a Custom Block Theme: Anders Norén’s Weekend Workflow (gutenbergtimes.com) — Over a single weekend, Anders Norén built Pulitzer, a new block theme, from the ground up. In this post, you’ll learn about Anders’ process.

→ WP Perspectives Issue 24: 2025 the Year of the Page Builder (webtng.com) — Page builders are seeing a resurgence in 2025, checkout David McCan’s this post to learn more.

→ The unintended consequences of making SEO “for everyone” (joost.blog) — Joost talks about the unintended consequences of making Yoast.

Here's What I Keep Coming Back To

I keep thinking about something Uros from the WordCamp Europe team said: "We didn't have big hopes at the start, but now we believe again."

That sentence has stuck with me for days. Not because it's particularly profound, but because it's so damn honest. Most of us didn't have big hopes at the start of this year either. How could we? Every week brought new drama, new uncertainty, new reasons to wonder if WordPress was worth our continued investment.

But here we are, still building. Still organizing events. Still writing code. Still showing up for each other in Slack channels and GitHub issues and conference hallways. Not because everything is perfect—it's not—but because something about this community keeps pulling us back.

Maybe it's the memory of that first WordCamp where strangers became friends. Maybe it's the satisfaction of solving a tricky problem with custom post types. Maybe it's just the stubborn belief that the web should be something we can all contribute to, not just consume.

Whatever it is, it's stronger than the noise. Stronger than the controversies. Stronger than the disappointments.

Chris Reynolds, after months of being inexplicably banned, wrote: "I'm still here, so that's a start." That's not resignation—it's resolve. And it's everywhere in these stories.

We're still here. We're still building. We're still WordPress.

That's not nothing. That's everything.

Talk soon,

Nishat, WPMore

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Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community

P.S. — If these stories resonated with you, forward this to someone who needs to hear them. And if you have a story about why you're still here, hit reply and tell us. We read every one.