It is a season of reports highlighting various aspects of the WordPress ecosystem, like reports on WordPress Themes, Page Builders, and WordPress Agencies. Also, tracking new updates for WooCommerce, upcoming WordPress 7.1 with a new custom post type, and many new plugin releases.
New from CloudLinux & WebPros: the State of WordPress Agencies. 210 WordPress agencies told how they really operate. 90% of those running 100+ sites use self-managed VPS or dedicated servers. Read the 2026 report.
Unblock removes the limits of the WordPress editor. Style anything, add behavior, feed it data, with a built‑in AI assistant, all inside the editor.
FluentCart combines performance, flexibility, and control in one powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. Easily sell physical or digital products, hybrid product listings, subscriptions, memberships, and more.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- BuddyNext Launched… Varun Dubey and team from Wbcom Designs have launched BuddyNext, promising to be the Community OS for WordPress. It allows you to create a community space with the engine at the core running the feed, spaces, members, and messaging. Plus, there is an ecosystem of apps for features like: forums, courses, jobboard, marketplace, and more.
- Admin Notices Shame… Austin Ginder has introduced the hall of shame for WordPress admin notices on a dedicated website called dismissed fyi. “We catalog the worst offenders – license beggars, version naggers, telemetry opt-ins, and the ones that hijack every single screen and pin each to the exact line of code that does it”.
- FluentCart + Advanced Variations… 1.5.0v has introduced the advanced variations feature for products within the core for free. It promises to make it easy to build, price, and sell multi-attribute products on your FluentCart powered online stories. There is no need for additional addons or pro upgrades for using this feature.
- New AllFeedback… the team at ThemeGrill has launched a new AllFeedback plugin (free repo link) which allows you to collect real customer feedback directly on your WordPress site. It comes with ready-made templates for NPS surveys, bug reports, feature requests, and the analytics dashboard provides detailed info on session funnels, completion rates, and device breakdowns.
New Free Plugins: HTML Editor, Last Update, AI Priority
Jamie’s Visual HTML Editor… Jamie Marsland shared (Links X) about releasing a free Jamie’s Visual HTML Editor plugin in the repository which enhances the core Custom HTML block. You can paste in any HTML in WordPress, and let the editor change the copy and images without touching the markup.
Local Last Update… Topher DeRosia has released a free Local Last Update plugin in the repository. It adds a ‘Last Updated’ column to the Plugins admin screen, showing the last time you hit the update button for that plugin.
Priority Manager for AI Connectors… Chris Reynolds shared (LinkedIn) about releasing jazzs3quence Priority Manager for AI Connectors plugin in the repository. This plugin looks at all the installed and activated AI Connectors on your site and lets you prioritize which LLM to use for which (high level) capability.
New AI Features: Novamira, Etch, & Ollie Pro
Novamira Pro + Beaver Builder… 1.4.0v has added Beaver Builder specialization, allowing your AI client to build and edit Beaver Builder pages from start to finish, working in the builder’s own rows, columns, and modules.
Etch + AI Connector… Kevin Geary shared a preview (YouTube) of the Etch Connector feature, which allows you to connect any IDE or harness and use any model to build directly in Etch. It also supports multi-project workflows for hyper-efficiency and data migration.
Ollie Pro + AI Tools… WordPress 7.0 with AI infrastructure in the core, Ollie Pro now features a new set of AI Tools to do more and quickly. Like the Writing Prompt block for writing and editing content, and the Design Prompt block for generating designs on demand with AI powers.
Web Buzz: Levamo, Softaculous, WP Umbrella, & AreaWP
Levamo + Hourly Backups… Levamo Hosting users now have an hourly backup option for more backup instances of their websites. This is ideal for fast changing websites like online stores, membership communities, LMS sites, directories, job boards, and more.
Softaculous + Code with AI… the team at Softaculous has launched Code with AI, a natively integrated, agentic AI assistant. This would enable developers, agencies, and hosting customers to build, debug, and manage applications using AI directly within their hosting environment.
WP Umbrella + New Dashboard… Aurelio Volle shared (LinkedIn) about new dashboard changes for WP Umbrella users. A quick action menu to apply an update or patch a security flaw in one click, without leaving the screen. Also, select any group of sites and run bulk actions across all of them at once.
AreaWP + Modern Docker Stack… v3 brings a new Docker-powered WaaS (WordPress-as-a-Service) platform built from the ground up that promises to make launching and managing WordPress sites faster and more powerful. Built on Docker bring isolated containers for every site, no direct admin needed. Also, All-in-one panel with Docker, users, billing, sites, and backups in one place.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- Om Malik Passed Away… one of the earliest adopters of WordPress, Om Malik has passed away at 59yrs, “after a long health journey with his heart”. Matt Mullenweg remembers Om, “Om and I were an odd couple. We met online through forums and email because Om was one of the earliest adopters of WordPress. We finally met in person in 2004 when I was 20 and he was 38”.
- Automattic Wins Privilege Fight… Rae Morey shared the latest update on the legal flight between Automattic and WP Engine. “Automattic has won its bid to claw back Slack messages from a private channel where CEO Matt Mullenweg and senior executives discussed trademark enforcement strategy against WP Engine, roughly two months before the public conflict began”.
- Contributor Dashboard Changes… customizable contributor ladder feature is now available in the WordPress Contributor Dashboard. The dashboard now has four views: Wrapped, Ladder, Cohorts, and About – promising to make it easier to see contributors growth and engagement with the project over time.
- Studio Code Now on Desktop… Studio Code, your agentic WordPress expert in the terminal, is now available in the WordPress Studio desktop app on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Studio Code replaces the V1 of the AI assistant in the desktop app. With Studio Code you can spin up new sites, run performance audits, generate new pages, content, and more.
- AI Plugin + WP 7.1… Jason Adams shared about new things coming in the AI Plugin for WordPress 7.1 release. Like introducing streaming, adding support for embeddings, backward-compatible fixes and other enhancements.
- AI Leaders Program… around 40 students from Illinois and Louisiana graduated from the first cohort of AI Leaders program, which is backed by Automattic and the WordPress Foundation. Prospective employers and agencies will attend a graduation party in Chicago to meet the students, and more job placements are in motion.
WordPress Core Updates & Buzz
Now that WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” has been released, it is a good time to look back at the developers recap for important features and what is coming next that would require compatibility adjustments for your themes and plugins.
- New wp_knowledge custom post type in core for WP 7.1
- Hiding Classic block from the inserter in WordPress 7.1
- Call for testing for client-side media processing is open.
- Collaborative editing feature outreach effort for WP 7.1
- WP 7.1 to see React 19 upgrade changes in WordPress.
WooCommerce Buzz: New Update & Features
WooCommerce Release… 10.9.0v of WooCommerce is now available for download. This update brings performance improvements for checkout and dashboard, admin screens get UI polish, and the new transactional email logging feature.
Shopper Lists in WooCommerce… WooCommerce 10.9v will introduce two experimental shopper-list features for logged-in shoppers: Save for Later and Wishlists. Test these features and share your feedback to refine them.
Updates: Oxygen, WP Extended, Amelia, GSheetConnector
Oxygen + New Features… 6.1v is out with many new features like multi-element selection, variable fonts, conditional Oxygen classes, component visibility controls, multiple class entry, PHP 8.4 support, faster builder previews, and updates across Breakdance Elements for Oxygen 6 and Breakdance Forms for Oxygen 6.
WP Extended + Public Preview Links… 3.2.7v has introduced Public Preview Links feature, allowing you to generate publicly accessible preview links for draft, pending, scheduled, and private posts – enabling reviewers to view unpublished content without logging in.
Amelia + IvyForms… online booking functionality powered by Amelia can leverage detailed forms with custom fields created with IvyForms. This IvyForms and Amelia integration makes conditional forms and data collection during booking easier.
GSheetConnector + Redesigned UI… the team has recently launched a completely redesigned UI for both GSheetConnector for Elementor Forms and GSheetConnector for WooCommerce, promising to make Google Sheets integrations faster and more intuitive for WordPress users.
Optimization Buzz: FlyingPress & WP Rocket
FlyingPress + Redis Object Caching… 5.6v has introduced Redis object caching, which can be enabled from the FlyingPress dashboard. Redis stores results of database queries in memory, help reduce database load, & better response times.
WP Rocket Built-in CDN.. 3.22v introduced built-in RocketCDN for WP Rocket license holders at no extra cost. RocketCDN is already configured and works directly inside WP Rocket with no bandwidth limits – promising an extra speed bump.
Quick Bits 👍
- Me doing a quick video chat (LinkedIn) about WordPress at WCEU.
- Official WP swag store Mercantile site has a new look design.
- WPBakery Theme Integration plan pricing drop from €299 to €69.
- The WPCC, State of the Community survey extended till July 17.
- Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship open for WordCamp US 2026.
- Digging Numbers
- Why big plugins are losing installs (Links X), by Pavel Ciorici.
- Site with 10K plugins perform better (Links X) than 2 plugins site.
- MAXBURST audit 200+ sites in 45 minutes with Pressable MCP.
- Maria Ansari on how WPBeginner site lost 99% of Google traffic.
- Let’s Learn
- Three small AI tricks that cut my code review time, by Anh Tran.
- How WordPress Plugins show up in AI Search, by WP Mayor.
- Check basic website speed checklist for 2026, by Volodymyr Chui.
- Procedure to dynamically load template parts in block themes.
- How headless WordPress works with Next .js on the front-end.
- Insights & Thoughts
- Detailed efforts to market a WordPress plugin, by Amber Hinds.
- ‘Is AI killing WordPress?’ Alexander Gilmanov shares (LinkedIn).
- Well, who’s left to build WordPress? Jean Galea digs into changes.
- Why agencies get AI in WordPress all wrong, by Kevin Champlin.
- WordPress on YouTube
- WordPress is dead, long live WordPress, at PHP Annotated.
- The one rule for using classes in Bricks Builder, by Dave Foy.
- ‘Reviewed 1000+ Woo Plugins’, here is why they fail to scale.
- How Kraków got selected for WC Europe 2026, by Jimmy.
The State of WordPress Themes in 2026
Pavel Ciorici has published the State of WordPress Themes with an analysis of 14,800 WordPress .org themes. Out of 15K themes in the WordPress .org directory, only five non-default block themes have crossed 100,000 active installs.
The top 20 themes account for 61.7% of all active installs across the entire ecosystem, and close to 6,500 themes have not received an update in two or more years. Fewer than 80 themes have surpassed 10,000 active installs.
WordPress Page Builder Market Share 2026
Casey Burridge over at GravityKit focused on page builders WordPress sites in their WordPress market share study. It concluded: Elementor reaches 32.7% of WordPress sites, WordPress Block Editor 20.6%, WPBakery 8.5%, and Divi 5.7%.
Bricks turned out to be the fastest growing page builder on year-on-year, followed by WordPress Site Editor, Elementor, WordPress Block Editor, and then most page builders showed negative growth indicators.
The State of WordPress Agencies in 2026
The team at CloudLinux has published the State of WordPress Agencies in 2026 report with data from a global survey of 210 WordPress agencies and freelancers. Most agencies are solo operators or small teams (78%), and yet many manage dozens or hundreds of client sites.
37% of agencies describe performance work as significant, heavy, or overwhelming, slightly heavier than security at 28%. Nine in ten agencies are already using AI tools somewhere in their workflow.
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