Page Builders are still going strong, be it Divi adding 33K+ users in 2024 and Beaver Builder releasing a big update removing DIV wrappers. Also, in this issue, check the winners of Hackathon Awards and what is coming in WordPress 6.8 release.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- Beaver Builder… 2.9v is a big update that removes wrapper divs from basic modules for more optimized code, new multi-layer background field, ability to use Beaver modules within block editor, and use container modules like ‘Box’ as top-level layout elements, no need to add it in a row.
- Divi’s 2024 Review… the team at Elegant Themes (Divi) published 2024 year in review with some interesting stats like: 33,500 new users were added in 2024 (1M+ total users now), 10M blog visits in the past year with all time total of 162M blog visitors.
- SnipVault… Mark Ashton has launched the SnipVault plugin to store, manage, and deploy custom code snippets across all your WordPress projects. It comes with the integrated file browser, cli interface, and SQL query interface.
New: SVG Block & Bricks Dashboard Plugin
Kadence SVG Block… the team at Kadence has added a new Vector Graphic Block, which allows you to add SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) images anywhere on your Kadence powered website.
EasyDash for Bricks… a free plugin that allows you to customize WordPress dashboard like any other page using the Bricks Builder. You can also display different dashboard templates based on user roles.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- Core WordPress… WordPress 6.8 Beta 3 is now available for testing which includes three editor updates. The final release of WordPress 6.8 is scheduled for April 15, 2025. Also, check the Source of Truth roundup for all things in the WordPress 6.8 release, at the Gutenberg Times website.
- Plugin Review Stats… Francisco Torres shared stats from the plugin review team. Plugins requested : 234, Plugins rejected : 135, Plugins closed : 136, Plugins approved : 121, and total plugins in the queue (new and pending) are 1502.
- Biz Rebranding… M. Ataur Rahman shared (LinkedIn) about rebranding XpeedStudio to Roxnor. Moving forward this new brand will be home for products like Wpmet, GetGenie, Yosuite, ElementsKit, GutenKit, and more.
- Call for WC Europe 2027 City… WordCamp Europe has opened the call for host city for WordCamp Europe 2027 a little early to allow more time for preparation. You can submit until Monday 2 June 2025, and decision will be made by the end of September 2025.
- Another Event for WC EU folks… If you are attending WordCamp Europe 2025, then do check a side event happening after day 2 of the main event. Alt Ctrl Org – For the love of WordPress, will happen on Friday evening from 18:00 till 21:00 on June 6, 2025.
Updates: Coupon Affiliates, Fluent Form, FigPress
Coupon Affiliates… 6.0.0v update has introduced Affiliate Portal, which is a standalone full-screen interface for your affiliates, and a new alternative to the regular affiliate dashboard page.
Fluent Forms… 6.0.0v has added payment fields for free users with the Stripe payment gateway (1.5% markup fee). The Pro version has a new Save & Resume button for conversational forms.
FigPress… 0.2v has added support to gradients – backgrounds and texts and to relative position feature. Also, Tooltips in settings and account management.
Quick Bits 👍
- New look OSS Capital site powered by WordPress + Blocks.
- Vote for WordPress Polyglots Team Representatives 2025.
- Note WP 6.8 changes to the .screen-reader-text class.
- Matt Mullenweg on ‘Automattic Operating System‘ term.
- Taco Verdonschot explains ‘Free software does not exist’.
- Let’s Learn
- Know Enterprise WordPress? Test knowledge with a quiz.
- Silvan Hagen on additional Block Styles for child themes.
- Nick & Ryan: How to Build WordPress Blocks with Cursor AI.
- Scaling to large WooCommerce stores with 100K+ products.
- People of WordPress
- WordPress Remembers passing of Harry Jackson in 2025.
- Junko Nukaga is now sponsored (Links X), thanks to Kinsta.
CloudFest 2025: Winners of Hackathon Awards
The overall winner and ‘Breaking Barriers Award’ went to the Accessible Infographics project called visua11y. Anne-Mieke Bovelett and Nina Jameson led this project, which addresses real world issue of making infographics accessible!
The ‘Social Media Master Award’ for WP-CLI as an MCP Host. Pascal Birchler created this to address the lack of seamless integration of AI capabilities with the WordPress development workflow.
Study: Performance Comparison of Page Builders
Kyle Van Deusen tested 150+ real agency sites to see which page builders actually perform best. The study reveals for the best performance with minimal effort, Generate Blocks and Oxygen Builder are the best choices. While Bricks, Kadence, and Divi showed the biggest swings in performance – depending on the user.
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