WordPress

Big Changes, Fights & What’s Next

With the Automattic vs. WP Engine battle dominating headlines on the tail finish of the 12 months, it’s straightforward to overlook that 2024 was an enormous one for WordPress even with out all of the drama. 

On this WordPress 2024 Recap, we glance again over the 12 months that was, highlighting the main releases, developments, and information surrounding the net’s hottest Content material Administration System. 

WordPress Recap 2024

January – Liberating Knowledge, Bettering Efficiency 

2024 arrived with an air of celebration surrounding the WordPress neighborhood, and it was all due to Taylor Swift. 

Simply days earlier than the New 12 months, the pop megastar had been named Time Journal’s Individual of the 12 months, prompting a staggering 100K requests per second to her WordPress-powered web site. 

Swiftie or not, there was no denying this spoke volumes in regards to the CMS’s scalability and skill to deal with large site visitors volumes. 

Nonetheless, WordPress has by no means been a platform to relaxation on its laurels, and there was tons extra in retailer for January, together with: 

  • The WordPress Knowledge Liberation Venture – Formally introduced by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg on January 12, the Knowledge Liberation Venture was designed to provide customers extra management over their website knowledge and make it simpler emigrate to and from WordPress. 
WP 2024 RECAP

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Part 1 kicked off with a name for clear, sensible WordPress migration tutorials. At time of writing (January 2025), the challenge is now in Part 3, with the event of a browser extension which ‘liberates your knowledge any web site, together with social media, closed web page builders, and design instruments like Figma’

  • Official Efficiency Plugins Launched – Virtually two years after the discharge of their Efficiency Lab the Official WordPress Core Efficiency Staff launched two new plugins designed to enhance web page load speeds.

    On January 24, the staff introduced Auto-sizes for Lazy-Loaded Photographs, which additional enhanced person’s capability to hurry up lazy-loaded photos. This perform was later included into WordPress 6.7 in November, and additional improved in WordPress 6.71.

    The staff additionally launched Hypothesis Guidelines, which makes use of the Hypothesis Guidelines API to provide a person’s browser hints in regards to the pages they may click on on, permitting the browser to pre-fetch sure components. 

February – Block Editor Enhance, WooCommerce 8.6 Launched

The excellent news continued in February with the outcomes from the annual WordPress user and developer survey revealing an uptake in Gutenberg block editor utilization and familiarity. 

In different February highlights: 

  • WooCommerce 8.6 launched – After a slight delay, the most recent model of WooCommerce was launched on February 16. This launched a number of well-received options, together with order attribution monitoring and larger integration with the block editor. 

March 

March was purported to be the month that we noticed WordPress 6.5 launched. Nonetheless, the primary main replace of the 12 months was put on hold attributable to disagreements over a brand new function that might have compelled some web site house owners to make use of a further plugin with a purpose to stay useful. 

Nonetheless, there was quite a bit happening whereas we waited for six.5’s arrival: 

WordCamp Asia 2024 – Over 2,000 WordPress builders and fans flocked to Taipei, Taiwan over the weekend of March 7 – 9 for Asia’s biggest WordPress community event.

WP 2024 RECAP

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Highlights included shows from Human Made CGO Noel Tock on the way forward for WordPress, accessibility advocate Anne-Mieke Bovelettand’s speak on countering developer and supervisor arguments towards accessibility, and  a Q&A with Matt Mullenweg himself. 

  • New Bluehost / Automattic Internet hosting Partnership Introduced – Bluehost has lengthy had a good relationship with WordPress. It was the primary webhosting supplier to be formally really useful by WordPress.org. On March 7, the corporate introduced a brand new partnership with one among Automattic’s manufacturers, WP Cloud, to ‘usher in a brand new period of WordPress internet hosting with a brand new service known as Bluehost Cloud

April – WordPress 6.5 Launched, Report Highlights Frequent Safety Errors

With spring in full bloom, April introduced two large bulletins to the WordPress neighborhood: 

WordPress 6.5 Lastly Launched – WordPress 6.5 was launched on April 2nd.

WP 2024 RECAP

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Code-named ‘Regina,’ 2024’s first main replace introduced new adjustments and enhancements together with the brand new font-library that had been on the coronary heart of March’s delays, block editor enhancements, and the brand new Interactivity API.

Might – WordPress Studio and Playground Launched 

Might was a giant month. Not solely was WordPress version 6.5.2 launched to enhance upon April’s model 6.5, however we additionally obtained two model new merchandise: 

WordPress Desktop Studio for Home windows  – In late Might, the WordPress Desktop Studio that had been launched for MacOS gadgets the earlier month was formally made out there for desktop.

WP 2024 RECAP

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The free Studio app permits builders to create and share websites in an area atmosphere.

  • WordPress Playground – Giving website creators extra instruments to discover and experiment, WordPress Playground was launched to a lot pleasure, making it straightforward to throw up a sandbox WordPress atmosphere in a single click on. 

June – WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.6 Launch Candidate Launched

The largest WordPress occasion of the summer time got here stay from Italy as town of Turin hosted WordCamp Europe 2024.

WP 2024 RECAP

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Held from June 13 – 15, the second of the three main flagship WordCamp occasions (the others being Asia and US) noticed shows from the likes of WordPress Playground creator, Adam Zieliński and search engine optimization knowledgeable Isaline Muelhauser.

Matt Mullenweg was additionally in attendance, delivering the ‘WordPress Summer time Replace’ because the occasion’s ultimate keynote presentation. 

WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Keynote Presentation

Elsewhere in June: 

  • WordPress 6.6 RC1 Launched – The primary launch candidate for WordPress 6.6 was made out there on June 25. This allowed customers to check the brand new model on a staging or native atmosphere earlier than it was formally launched later that summer time. 

July – WordPress 6.6 Launched

Weeks after the discharge candidate turned out there, the total model of WordPress 6.6 was formally launched on June 16. 

WP 2024 RECAP

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As we famous in our WordPress 6.6 preview printed the week earlier than its launch, 2024’s second main replace launched extra design choices to dam themes, roll-backs for automated updates, and a much-needed capability to customise content material inside synced patterns on totally different pages. 

August – Gutenberg 19 Launched

The massive summer time updates continued as August 14 heralded the arrival of Gutenberg 19, the most recent improve to the WordPress block editor. 

The brand new launch featured two experimental options, together with the flexibility to attach blocks to customized fields with a purpose to enhance the enhancing expertise. This was later built-in into WordPress core with the November launch of 6.7. 

The opposite experimental function added a Fast Edit function within the Aspect Editor – Pages interface. 

Different updates introduced in by Gutenberg 19 included a simplified Knowledge Views interface and handbook zoom-out capabilities.

September – The ‘WordPress Drama’ Begins 

As summer time gave method to fall, all eyes have been on the upcoming WordCamp US occasion in Portland, Oregon. 

Going down from September 17 – 20, WordCamp 2024’s expert speakers included the likes of Disney’s Alexandra Guffey, AgentWP creator James LePage, and CNN Brazil Technical Lead João Carvalho.

Regardless of the wealth of data, insights, and experiences shared by all of the taking part audio system, it was Matt Mullenweg who dominated the headlines popping out of the occasion. 

Taking to the stage on the ultimate day of the occasion, Mullenweg shocked the WordPress neighborhood through the use of his keynote deal with to take goal at WordCamp sponsor WP Engine and formally ‘go nuclear’ on the internet hosting firm. 

The fallout turned so messy and complex that we began our personal WordPress Drama Live Blog to maintain monitor of all the main points. 

If you would like the abridged model, right here it’s: 

Mullenweg criticized WP Engine for its contributions to the core WordPress challenge, noting that they have been disproportionately low for a corporation that had made a lot cash from WordPress. 

Quickly, nonetheless, it emerged that on the coronary heart of the difficulty was a disagreement round WordPress emblems and applicable licensing. 

As you’ll see under, experiences of lawsuits, counter-suits, and hijacked plugins will proceed for the remainder of 2024. 

October – The Drama Intensifies, Customers Get Tighter Safety 

October began on a vivid observe for WordPress. 

On October 1st, WordPress.org launched stricter account safety measures for plugin and theme authors, together with obligatory Two-Issue Authentication and SVN passwords.

WP 2024 RECAP

The transfer was largely met with a constructive response by the WordPress neighborhood. Nonetheless, the identical couldn’t be stated for a number of the strikes made within the ongoing ‘WordPress Drama’ between Mullenweg, his firm Automattic, and WP Engine. 

A few of the greater headlines popping out of this story included: 

  • WP Engine Sued Automattic for ‘Extortion’ – Weeks after Mullenweg blocked WP Engine from accessing WordPress, the corporate retaliated with a federal lawsuit towards each Automattic and Mullenweg himself. 
  • Automattic Launched a WP Engine Tracker – A web site was set as much as monitor the variety of prospects leaving WP Engine. The location was subsequently blocked by main Content material Supply Community (CDN) Cloudflare for ‘suspected phishing.’

November – WP 6.7 Launched, ACF ‘Hijacked’

With a lot happening you’d be forgiven for forgetting that WordPress 6.7 was formally launched on November twelfth. 

As it’s possible you’ll recall from our report on WordPress 6.7’s new features and updates, the ultimate main replace of the 12 months gave us the official Twenty Twenty-5 theme, long-overdue assist for HEIC recordsdata, and block enhancing enhancements amongst different notable enhancements. 

Additionally in November: 

  • Automattic ‘clones’ Superior Customized Fields – Simply whenever you thought the drama had died down, Automattic took over the favored Superior Customized Fields’ plugin developed by WP Engine, making a clone of the plugin and releasing it as ‘Safe Customized Fields.’

    This solely intensified the backlash towards Automattic and Matt Mullenweg, who have been accused of ‘hijacking’ the plugin, undermining belief within the plugin ecosystem, and inflicting issues for builders whose purchasers relied on that plugin. 

December – Injunctions Granted, Companies Paused 

Because the 12 months got here to an in depth, Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of The Phrase Tackle in Tokyo, Japan. 

State of the Word 2024

In his first large public speech because the WordCamp incident, Mullenweg used his platform to not additional escalate the drama, however moderately to reward the success of WordPress over the previous 12 months and have a good time the contributors who made it occur. 

But that was by far the one large WordPress story we’d see in 2024.

There was additionally: 
Matt Mullenweg Paused WordPress Registrations – Every week after his presentation in Japan, Mullenweg made the controversial transfer to hit the pause button on a number of essential companies, together with new WordPress.org account registrations, and new plugin, theme, and picture listing submissions.

WP 2024 RECAP

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The transfer was broadly criticized, with Yoast Co-Founder Joost de Valk and members of the WP neighborhood calling for a change in management. 

It additionally had far-reaching penalties. Since customers want a WordPress.org account to purchase WordCamp tickets, new customers hoping to get tickets for occasions within the early a part of 2025 have been prohibited from doing so. that means that folks couldn’t purchase tickets to imminent WordCamp occasions as a result of customers want a WordPress

2025 – What Lies Forward for the Way forward for WordPress?

2024 was a 12 months the place pleasure and controversy engulfed the WordPress neighborhood in equal measure. 

With three new main updates and enhancements to each efficiency and safety, there have been actually many causes to have a good time. Nonetheless, as fall turned winter and the entire scenario now unanimously known as ‘The WordPress’ drama took middle stage, most of the neighborhood left 2024 within the rear view mirror with severe questions on the way forward for WordPress. 

Now that 2025 is firmly upon us, it’s honest to say that we don’t but have the solutions to those questions. 

The authorized battle continues and Matt Mullenweg’s actions proceed to divide the very neighborhood he helped create. The excellent news, is that whereas all this is happening, new updates will proceed to roll out and members of the neighborhood will proceed to develop and evolve the platform so many people know and love 

If there’s one factor we do know for certain, it’s that 2025 goes to be a really attention-grabbing 12 months for WordPress, and we at WPLift can be right here to deliver you all the most recent information and developments. 

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