WP Weekly 96 – Thinking

A lot of WordPress folks went into the thinking mode on why WordPress is losing the market share! Also included in this issue, Thrive Automator plugin is going free, and new features added to the free version of GroundHogg and Code Snippets plugins. Also, a few new launches and discovering underrated WordPress plugins.


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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖

  • Product Updates… Elementor Pro (3.7.0) has added notes feature to work collaboratively within the Elementor interface and here is Imran Siddiq’s video explaining the notes feature without saying a single word! Also, the Tutor LMS 2.0.4 plugin has added improvements to email notifications for new lessons, quizzes, and assignments – among other changes.
  • New Launches… Sridhar Katakam and David Browne have launched a new membership website, the Bricks Labs featuring free and paid tutorials for Bricks Builder users. Also, Andrew Palmer has released a GDPR Friendly Fonts plugin that lets you use Google Fonts locally and avoid GDPR issues.
  • Automation on WordPress… from Monday, May 16, 2022, the Thrive Automator plugin will be available for free (and also exiting the beta phase). Also, Uncanny Automator 4.0 has added support for Facebook groups enabling WordPress websites to post photos and messages on Facebook groups of your choice.

Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥

  1. WP Ecosystem… Justin Tadlock is leaving the WP Tavern writing team to pursue other life goals like farming (and cats – why not!). Also, WPSiteSync- the content syncing plugin from folks behind products like DesktopServer has shut down its commercial extensions and made it all available for free at GitHub.
  2. Free Version Updates… the free version of Groundhogg 2.6.3 has added the feature to create custom reports allowing better insights about your audience and performance. Also, the free version of the Code Snippets plugin version 3.0.0 added a lot of features including a new snippet type column, HTML content snippets – the pro version of this plugin is launching soon!
  3. Learning Blocks… let’s see how you can create a scrollable image gallery block on your WordPress website, another useful tutorial by Munir Kamal at the GutenbergHub website.

Quick Bits 👍

  • Kinsta has increased prices of hosting plans for all customers.
  • Raunak shared 5 underrated plugins, which one did you know?
  • Milestone: FluentCRM is now powering 20,000+ businesses.
  • WordPress 6.0 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is available for testing.
  • See winners of WordPress Bug Hunt 2021 contest by Patchstack.
  • Cuteness Alert: Here is Galito, WordCamp Europe 2022 Wapuu!

WordPress going down? Well…

Making waves this week was Joost de Valk’s observation of WordPress losing (close to 0.4%) market share for the first time. WP Tavern went further into reasons like Gutenberg, Full Site Editing, performance, or complexity. The community members like Joe Casabona elaborated on how this is related to iPod’s discontinuation and Johnny Nguyen focussed on the ‘not so easy’ aspect of WordPress.

In my opinion, WordPress is in a state of a big change because of Gutenberg and ‘Full Site Editing’ and hence a little negative corner gets sanded to shine like the sun. I won’t be surprised if these ‘usage’ numbers are back to the positive / increasing territory very soon in the coming months! Time to build the next website using WordPress (of course), right?


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💖 The WP Awards 2026

Nominations ends this week, Submit Nomination of own or your favorite WordPress products or services.

Upcoming Events 💬

Flagship WordCamps
April 09 - 11, 2027: WordCamp Asia 2027, Penang, Malaysia.
May 27 - 29, 2027: WordCamp Europe 2027, Málaga, Spain.
Not yet announced: WordCamp US 2027.

Offline Events for WordPress
October 16, 2026: WP Suomi 2026, for Nordic WP enthusiasts, Oulu, Finland.
October 27, 2026: PressConf EU 2026, in Barcelona, Spain.
November 11, 2026: CloudFest Americas, in Miami, Florida, USA.

Upcoming WordCamps
September 18, 2026: WordCamp Belgrade 2026, Belgrade, Serbia.
September 18, 2026: WordCamp Bretagne 2026, Rennes, Brittany, France.
October 03, 2026: WordCamp Rajasthan 2026, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
November 05, 2026: WordCamp Canada 2026, Vancouver, Canada.
November 12, 2026: WordCamp Netherlands 2026, Netherlands.
November 13, 2026: WordCamp Pisa 2026, Pisa, Italy.

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