A week ago the WordPress 7.0 launch seemed to be on track, but the release candidate phase has prompted some significant second thoughts.

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Program transcript

Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.

In this episode, you’ll find the information from March 30 to April 5, 2026.

WordPress 7.0 will not ship on April 9 as planned. On March 31, an announcement went out that is rarely seen in the project’s history: the release is being delayed after already entering the Release Candidate phase. It’s an unusual decision, and it deserves a detailed explanation.

The root of the problem is the real-time collaboration database layer.

Real-time collaboration is one of the most ambitious features in WordPress 7.0. For multiple users to edit the same post simultaneously, the system needs to store two types of information: changes to the document content, and presence data — who is editing and where each person’s cursor is.

From early in the cycle there was debate about whether a dedicated database table was needed to manage this information. The proposal existed but was put on hold before the RC phase due to time constraints and an insufficiently mature design. Instead, a provisional solution was adopted: storing document changes in postmeta and presence data in transients, with special handling to avoid excessive cache invalidations.

That solution worked technically, but Matt Mullenweg expressed a preference for taking the time to properly design the custom table from scratch, rather than shipping with a compromise that would be difficult to change later. His argument is that the data architecture for a feature as central as real-time collaboration needs to stand the test of time, and it deserves more deliberation than it received.

Additionally, a broader consideration emerged in recent weeks: beyond human collaboration, the sync system may need to support wider use cases, such as synchronization between an AI agent and the editor, or between different editing contexts. That expands the scope of the problem and reinforces the need to get the underlying primitives right from the start.

The release team published a follow-up post outlining the concrete implications of the pause, with several key points.

The WordPress 7.1 development branch is closed to new commits until further notice to avoid conflicts during work on the 7.0 branch. Any change applied to the 7.0 branch requires approval from two separate committers, with a more rigorous process than usual. The only permitted exceptions are bug fixes introduced during the current cycle, improvements to build tools and tests, and changes specifically related to the stability of real-time collaboration and the AI Connectors screen.

New prerelease builds are on hold until April 17. The updated full schedule will be published no later than April 22. On versioning, the team has decided that upcoming prereleases will be named RC3, RC4, and so on — even though the project is technically in a state closer to beta. Switching back to beta labels would cause issues with PHP’s version_compare function, which would not recognize beta 7 as newer than release candidate 2, potentially breaking automatic updates.

During the pause, the team recommends using nightly builds generated from the 7.0 branch for continued testing.

Also announced was an issue that will affect many plugin developers during the transition period. Plugins that use classic meta boxes — those that submit data on post save via the save_post hook — are not compatible with real-time collaboration. When WordPress detects meta boxes on a post, collaboration is automatically disabled for that entire post.

The reason is that meta boxes operate outside Gutenberg’s data system and therefore cannot participate in change synchronization between collaborators. The WordPress 7.0 period is a window of opportunity for developers of those plugins to migrate to modern block editor APIs.

The delay is a deliberate and well-reasoned decision to avoid compromising the architecture of a feature with the potential to substantially change how WordPress is used at a professional level. But we won’t know more until April 22.

The Core team has published documentation for those who want to go beyond the default real-time collaboration setup in WordPress 7.0.

By default, synchronization between collaborators works via HTTP polling: the editor queries the server at regular intervals to check for changes. It’s a solution that works on any WordPress install without requiring additional infrastructure, but it has limitations in terms of latency and server load when many collaborators are active.

WordPress 7.0 allows replacing that mechanism with a custom one via the sync.providers filter on the client side. This opens the door to using WebSockets or other real-time transports that provide instant updates and only consume resources when actual changes occur.

The Training team has launched the Facilitator Training Program, a free and open initiative to prepare people who want to teach WordPress to others. There is no application process and no prior credentials required. It is designed for university educators, community organizers, freelancers, developers, or anyone who knows WordPress and wants to share that knowledge in a structured way.

The program has three components: self-guided courses on Learn WordPress, facilitation guides with detailed agendas for two- or three-day workshops, and a general handbook orienting facilitators on how to make the most of the program. The first course is already available and covers WordPress educational programs — WordPress Credits, Campus Connect, and Student Clubs — with 9 modules and 41 lessons.

The idea behind the program is to build a distributed network of facilitators who can bring WordPress training to their communities independently, without depending on a central team. As the WordPress credentials ecosystem grows, facilitators who complete the relevant courses will be able to have that experience professionally recognized.

The Community team has published a proposal to explore organizing a new Community Summit in 2027 or 2028, alongside one of the flagship WordCamps. The last one was held in 2023 in the United States, and the idea is for the next one to take place in Asia or Europe to give those regions greater representation.

The Community Summit is a more intimate, focused working space where contributors from different teams gather to discuss the issues affecting the project in depth, make decisions, and align efforts. Previous editions in 2012, 2014, 2017, and 2023 demonstrate that this kind of gathering has a real impact on the direction of the project.

And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.

Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!