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The Future of WordPress: What to Expect (Our Predictions)

Are you curious about the future of WordPress?

With the first 20 years of WordPress history behind us, the platform is already powering 43% of websites. Over the years, WordPress has continued to grow and evolve to meet the changing needs of website owners. But what can we expect in the future?

In this article, we will talk about the future of WordPress and what you can expect.

The Future of WordPress: What to Expect

What Improvements Can We Expect From WordPress in the Future?

WordPress was launched in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Now that there are over 20 years of WordPress history behind us, you may be wondering what’s coming next.

The future of WordPress is important because it is the content management system (CMS) behind 43% of all websites, including big-name brands like Sony, CNN, Time Magazine, and Disney.

You can expect WordPress to stay modern and relevant and become even easier to use. WordPress is designed to be simple and adaptable, and WordPress developers are already looking a long way down the road and have a detailed roadmap.

In fact, at a recent WordCamp, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg shared that he expects WordPress to be still going strong a century from now.

I could see WordPress being around—not just around, but core to the fabric of the web—100 years from now, and I would love to attend a WordCamp Asia in my 80s.

Matt MullenwegMatt Mullenweg, WordPress Co-founder, WordCamp Asia 2023

With that being said, let’s take a look at what to expect in the future of WordPress. You can use the links below to jump to the sections you are most interested in:

  1. Continued Popularity of WordPress
  2. The Growth of WordPress for eCommerce
  3. More Artificial Intelligence in WordPress
  4. Easy Collaboration on Multi-Author Blogs
  5. Multilingual Support in WordPress Core
  6. WordPress Legacy Websites, Products, and Companies
  7. FAQs About the Future of WordPress

1. Continued Popularity of WordPress

WordPress is very popular. It currently powers 43% of all websites, which translates to 810 million websites in total. This number has also grown a lot when you consider that WordPress was used to build only 29% of websites in 2018.

Besides that, WordPress holds nearly 65% of the global CMS market share. The following chart shows every content management system with more than 1% usage. Nothing comes close to WordPress.

CMS Market Share

These statistics haven’t gone unnoticed. WordPress has been chosen by the most successful companies in the world. In fact, 38% of the top 10,000 websites are powered by WordPress, including big-name brands like Disney, Sony, Facebook, and more.

As you can see, WordPress currently dominates the website market, and this trend will continue in the future.

WordPress market share numbers have been steady for some time, and other CMS options have also remained steady without large spikes of growth. We expect WordPress will remain popular well into the future.

We can be confident because WordPress is built by a community and doesn’t rely on a single company for its success.

The WordPress community is made up of developers, designers, and WordPress enthusiasts who contribute to its core development, plugin creation, and theme design.

As WordPress evolves, so will the community that supports it. This will make sure that the platform remains a powerful and accessible tool for individuals, businesses, and organizations.

Why not become an active part of the WordPress community? You can get started by simply attending WordCamp or a local meetup. To learn more, see our guide on how you can get involved with the WordPress project.

2. The Growth of WordPress for eCommerce

eCommerce is a rapidly growing industry, and the availability of WordPress eCommerce plugins makes WordPress an excellent choice if you are starting an online store.

There are currently more than 5 million websites powered by the WooCommerce plugin. It has a market share of around 39% among eCommerce solutions, above Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and others.

WooCommerce Market Position

That makes WooCommerce the most popular eCommerce platform right now, and its market share has had an upward trend over time. This means we can expect more people to keep using it into the future.

Of course, WooCommerce isn’t the only eCommerce solution for WordPress. If you don’t need a full-blown online store, then you can choose a different eCommerce plugin like Easy Digital Downloads or WP Simple Pay.

Overall, we expect to see faster adoption of WordPress for eCommerce in the future. It’s clear that while WordPress is maintaining its position as a leading website builder, it is also expanding its eCommerce market share.

3. More Artificial Intelligence in WordPress

Matt Mullenweg spoke about artificial intelligence during his AMA (Ask Me Anything) at WordCamp Asia 2023. He sees the potential of AI technologies and encourages people to embrace them to create software, websites, and web content.

But he also recognizes the current limitations. He warns that artificial intelligence is still very young and has a lot of room for improvement. We are also not sure how the economic implications of AI will play out in the future.

So you can expect artificial intelligence to be added to the WordPress core eventually, but not until it’s ready.

In the meantime, you can take advantage of WordPress plugins that use AI. For example, All in One SEO (AIOSEO) has a ChatGPT integration that helps you make SEO post titles and meta descriptions.

AI-generated SEO titles from AIOSEO ChatGPT integration

Right now, you can also use AI to help you:

In the future, we expect artificial intelligence plugins to become even smarter, giving us better AI website builders, new content tools, more intelligent chatbots, and advanced automated workflows.

4. Easy Collaboration on Multi-Author Blogs

WordPress is about to become more collaborative, adding features needed by multi-author blogs and eLearning sites. This is part of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which is in the planning stage as we write.

For example, WordPress will allow multiple authors to work on the same article at the same time. Think of the experience you have using Google Docs but from your WordPress dashboard.

Authors and editors will be able to write notes to each other and suggest potential edits. You will be able to annotate specific blocks or sections of content and take part in threaded discussions right inside the WordPress content editor.

Website owners will also be able to create editorial workflows for their content team and plan upcoming content on a calendar. Content approval workflows will make sure that specific users or roles will need to review and accept posts before they can be published.

Life is going to become much smoother on multi-author blogs.

5. Multilingual Support in WordPress Core

Since WordPress is used on 43% of the world’s websites, these sites and their content need to be accessible to a global audience. And that means WordPress needs to provide support for multiple languages.

Multilingual websites serve the same content in many different languages. You can allow users to choose their preferred language using a dropdown link, or you can automatically change the website’s language based on the visitor’s geographic location.

Multilingual world map

Currently, you need to use multilingual plugins to achieve this. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to install and configure these plugins, and they may have some impact on WordPress performance.

Another problem is that the developers need to maintain each plugin independently, support their users, and keep adding more languages. That’s a lot of work, and it makes sense for multilingual WordPress to become a centralized effort within WordPress core.

That’s the goal of Gutenberg Phase 4, which will launch in 2024 or 2025. It will start to add much-needed multilingual features to the WordPress core.

To start with, WordPress will enable you to manually translate your content into languages of your choice and allow visitors to read the content in a language they can understand.

In time, as the technology improves, WordPress will be able to translate your content on the fly so that it will be automatically available to anyone who reads a supported language.

This will make your content accessible to a global audience, significantly improving your reach and bringing more traffic to your website.

It will also continue to make WordPress even more relevant and popular as we move into the future, as it will be available to everyone, no matter what language they speak.

6. WordPress Legacy Websites, Products, and Companies

As we said at the beginning of this article, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg is looking 100 years into the future as he considers where WordPress is heading.

He suspects that website owners may also have long-term goals for their online projects.

For example, business owners may want to keep permanent documentation of their company’s history. Families might be anxious not to lose valuable photographs and stories. Website owners may also value a permanent online home that adapts to the needs of the future.

As a result, WordPress.com is offering a 100-year “legacy” plan that you can purchase with a single payment. It includes domain name registration and web hosting for the next century.

This will allow users to maintain their online histories without worrying about what will happen when they are gone. Legacy plans can also inspire businesses to think in the extended long term, beyond a typical 5 or 10-year plan.

While WordPress.com isn’t the same as self-hosted WordPress.org, this move toward long-term website hosting plans could signal changes within the overall WordPress ecosystem.

This new plan can set an example for top WordPress hosting providers and plugin developers. They may be inspired to think about marketing their products for very long-term use and building a “legacy”.

It could also change the way that WordPress companies think about their long-term goals. Offering internships and job opportunities to employees’ children and grandchildren could be a more sustainable way to grow a business over time.

FAQs About the Future of WordPress

Before we finish this article, let’s answer a few questions we are regularly asked by our readers about the future of WordPress.

Is WordPress still relevant?

WordPress is now over 20 years old, and new competitors pop up every year. For this reason, some people ask whether WordPress is still relevant.

Since WordPress powers 43% of all websites, it’s more relevant than ever. We hope this article has shown you that it will go on being relevant for decades to come.

We clearly outline why WordPress is relevant and why you should choose it in our guide on the most important reasons to use WordPress.

Is WordPress dying?

With all of its success, some people question how long WordPress can stay on top. There are many rumors that WordPress may die out and stop being popular.

However, when you look at the facts, these rumors are simply not true. There are absolutely no signs that WordPress is dying or its loyal users are about to abandon it.

We have written a detailed guide on the state of WordPress and clearly answered ‘No’ to the question: Is WordPress Dying?

Is WordPress that bad?

You may have heard a tech consultant or a YouTube influencer claim that WordPress is bad.

You might ask, ‘If WordPress is really that bad, then why is it so popular? Why do nearly half of all websites on the web use it?’ The fact is, it’s not bad at all.

That’s why we wrote a detailed guide called Is WordPress Really That Bad? We take a look at common reasons people claim WordPress is bad to help you make the right decision.

What is the future of WordPress careers?

If you are thinking about getting a career in WordPress, then you may be wondering about job security. Will WordPress jobs still be around in the future?

The good news is that the demand for WordPress professionals remains high due to the platform’s popularity and constant growth. Plus, there are lots of WordPress careers for individuals with a wide range of skill sets.

You can learn how to make a living with WordPress in our complete guide to WordPress career options.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn about the future of WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on important reasons why you should use WordPress for your website or our expert picks of the best AI chatbot software for your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post The Future of WordPress: What to Expect (Our Predictions) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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What’s Coming in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.3 Beta arrived a few days ago and is expected to be released on August 8th, 2023. This will be the second major release of 2023 and will come with significant new features and improvements.

We have closely monitored the development and tried new features on our test sites.

In this article, we will look into what features are coming in WordPress 6.3 with details and screenshots.

What to expect from WordPress 6.3 with new features and improvements

Note: You can try out the beta version on your computer or a staging environment by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Please keep in mind that some of the features in the beta may not make it into the final release.

Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.3:

Site Editor Enhancements in 6.3

The site editor in WordPress came out of beta in 6.2. The upcoming 6.3 will improve the site editor with several new features and enhancements to improve user experience.

New Navigation in Site Editor

WordPress 6.2 introduced a new navigator to the site editor. This allowed users to choose the template or template part they wanted to edit.

WordPress 6.3 will bring improvements to this navigator, allowing users to select not just template or template parts but also pages, styles, patterns, and navigation menus.

Site editor navigation

The search icon will open the command tool (more on this later), where you can look for the area you want to edit.

You can also quickly open your site in a new tab by clicking the ‘View Site’ button. The button only appears when you take your mouse to the site title and the search area.

Manage Patterns in Site Editor

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce a new and intuitive way to manage patterns. You can view all your patterns inside the site editor.

Patterns in site editor

Clicking on ‘Patterns’ will show the patterns available on your site in categorized sections.

These will include both synced and unsynced patterns that you can use.

Patterns library in site editor

Unsynced patterns are standalone patterns that can be inserted at any time. After adding them, you can make changes, and those changes will not affect the original pattern.

Synced patterns can be used across your WordPress website. Changing them will affect the original pattern. They behave like reusable blocks, so all your reusable blocks will also appear here and now be called ‘Synced Patterns’.

At any time, you can click on the ‘+’ button in the Patterns menu to create a new pattern.

Create a new pattern in site editor

You can also manage your custom patterns by clicking on ‘Manage all of my patterns’ in the sidebar.

This will allow you to edit and manage your custom-made patterns and reusable blocks.

Manage patterns

Quickly Edit Pages

The site editor will now allow you to easily select ‘Pages’ from the editor navigation menu.

Edit pages in site editor

Clicking on this will also show you the pages you edited most recently, enabling you to quickly resume edits on a page you have been working on.

You can also click the ‘+’ button in the navigation menu to quickly create a new page and immediately edit it in the site editor.

Create or edit pages in the site editor

Preview Block Themes in Site Editor

When installing classic themes, you can already preview them without activating them on your site. This allows you to preview a WordPress theme without changing your live site.

WordPress 6.3 will also allow users to preview block themes inside the editor. This will help users test-drive a theme before activating it on their sites.

Live preview block themes

Note: This is an experimental feature that didn’t work well during beta testing on our test sites.

Style Revisions to Easily Undo Changes

WordPress makes it super easy to undo changes to posts and pages using a feature called Revisions.

The same feature will now be available for site editor styles. It will allow you to see the changes you made to your theme styles and undo them if needed.

Simply select a style or block that you want to edit in the Styles panel. Click on the ‘Revisions’ button and then select ‘Revision history’.

Style revisions

This will show you all the changes made to the style of the selected item.

You can then switch between different versions and click the ‘Apply’ button to undo a change and revert to a previous state.

Browse revisions

The New Command Tool in WordPress 6.3

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce the new command tool. It will allow users to perform actions quickly using the keyboard.

Command tool in site editor

Simply press the CTRL + K or Command + K keys on your keyboard. This will bring up the command tool, where you can simply start typing to search.

It will then show you matching templates, template parts, patterns, blocks, posts and pages, and more. Selecting an item from the results will open it in the site editor.

Block Editor Improvements

WordPress 6.3 will also bring several new features and improvements to the block editor.

Footnote and Details Blocks

WordPress 6.3 will ship with two new blocks called Footnote and Details.

Footnote Block

Before, the block editor had no easy way to add footnotes to a post. Users had to create footnotes or use a third-party plugin.

With WordPress 6.3, users can simply select the ‘Footnote’ option using the three-dot menu in the toolbar.

Adding footnotes in WordPress 6.3

Details Block

Have you ever wanted a way for users to click on some text to reveal more information? The Details block lets you do just that.

Simply add the Details block and provide the text that will be visible to the users.

Using Details block

Below that, you can add the content you want to hide inside the hidden block.

This content could be text, images, media, and more.

Preview Details block

The Details block could be a handy replacement for accordions, which are commonly used to add FAQs or information in a compact style.

Improved Padding and Margin Controls

WordPress 6.3 will also introduce improved padding and margin controls.

Previously, if you unlinked padding and margin controls, they took up a lot of space in the right column.

In WordPress 6.3, padding and margin controls will be more compact and easy to use.

Compact padding and margin controls

Better Handling of Image Aspect Ratio

WordPress 6.3 will allow users to choose the aspect ratio for an image. This will enable users to easily select the image size while maintaining the aspect ratio.

This ensures that the images will look good in all sizes.

Image aspect ratio

Color and Layout Support for Cover Block

The Cover block will get improvements in WordPress 6.3.

Users can now choose its layout options, similar to the Group block.

Cover layout

The Cover block will now support duotone filters.

Users will also find more design options for text inside the Cover block.

Cover block duotone and colors

Link control is the tool used by the block editor to add links. WordPress 6.3 will make some adjustments to improve it further.

New link control

Users can create a new page directly using the ‘Create Page’ button within the link control tool.

The toggle to open a link in a new tab is also unavailable when adding a link. However, you can edit a link and find the option tucked away inside the ‘Advanced’ setting.

Open link in new tab

Under the Hood Changes

There are also a ton of changes in WordPress 6.3 intended for developers. Here are some of the new features that you will find in the update:

  • Improved emoji loader to reduce the time spent on loading the emoji script. (#58472)
  • Defer and async support added to the WP Scripts API. (#12009)
  • Fetch priority support added for images. (#58235)
  • Skipping lazy loading for images outside the loop in classic themes. (#58211)
  • Attempt rollback for failed plugin and theme updates. (#51857)
  • Merge get_posts() and get_pages(). (#12821)


We hope this article helped you get a sneak peek into what’s coming in WordPress 6.3.

Comment below to let us know what features you find interesting and what you’d like to see in a future WordPress release!

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What’s Coming in WordPress 6.3 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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What’s Coming in WordPress 6.2 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 6.2 Beta arrived a few days ago and it is expected to be released on March 28th, 2023. It will be the second major release of 2023 and will come with significant new features and improvements.

We have been closely monitoring the development and trying out new features on our test sites.

In this article, we’ll give you a sneak peek into what features are coming in WordPress 6.2 with details and screenshots.

What new features are coming in WordPress 6.2

Note: You can try out the beta version on your computer or on a staging environment by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Please keep in mind that some of the features in the beta may not make it into the final release.

Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.2:

  1. Full Site Editor Comes Out of Beta
  2. Browse and Choose Templates to Edit
  3. Add Custom CSS to Your Theme or Specific Blocks
  4. New and Improved Navigation Menus
  5. Colors to Indicate Template Parts Being Edited
  6. See Styles for All Blocks in The Style Book
  7. Copy and Paste Block Styles
  8. Classic Widgets Import as Template Parts in Block Themes
  9. Separate Sub Panels for Block Settings and Styles
  10. A New Distraction-Free Mode is Introduced
  11. Improved Pattern Insertion with New Categories
  12. Miscellaneous Changes
  13. Under The Hood Changes

Full Site Editor Comes Out of Beta

The new full site editor feature in WordPress will come out of beta with the final release of WordPress 6.2.

Site editor comes out of beta

This completes a significant part of the WordPress development roadmap.

The site editor feature is now stable for the community to create block-based themes and experiment with their own WordPress websites, plugins, or themes.

Note: Full site editor is available with block themes that support this feature. You can try it out even if you are using the older classic editor with a block-enabled theme.

Browse and Choose Templates to Edit

Previously the Site Editor loaded the Home template of your theme by default. This left many beginners wondering which template or template part they needed to edit.

With WordPress 6.2, the site editor will load the template preview window first. From here, you can browse different templates and see a preview of what it looks like.

Template browser

Then you can simply click on the Edit button to start working on the selected template.

Once you are done editing the template, don’t forget to click on the Save button to make your changes go live.

After that, you can click on the WordPress logo in the upper-left corner of the screen to bring back the template browser sidebar.

Site editor navigation

Now if you need to edit a different template, then you can choose it from here. Otherwise, you can simply click on the WordPress logo again and exit the Site Editor.

Add Custom CSS to Your Theme or Specific Blocks

In the last few WordPress releases, the site editor hid the ‘Theme Customizer‘ which made it difficult for users to add custom CSS to their themes.

WordPress 6.2 will allow users to switch to the Styles panel and select Custom CSS from the menu.

Custom CSS in site editor

From here, users will be able to save Custom CSS that applies to their entire theme.

What if you wanted to save custom CSS that only applied to a specific block?

WordPress 6.2 will also allow you to add custom CSS for specific blocks. From the Style panel, click on the Blocks menu.

Block styles

On the next screen, you will see a list of blocks. Simply click on the block where you want to apply your custom CSS.

Under the block styles, click on the Additional CSS tab.

Block styles custom CSS

If you want to conditionally add CSS or keep your custom styles outside of theme specific settings, then we recommend using the free WPCode plugin.

New and Improved Navigation Menus

Adding navigation menus in the full site editor has been a bit difficult for users. WordPress 6.2 will try to solve this by improving the way users can create and manage menus while using the site editor.

First, instead of editing the menu items inline, you can now add, remove, and edit menu items in a subpanel under the Navigation block.

Managing menu items in block panel

From here, you can add a new menu item by clicking on the Add Block (+) button. You can also just drag and drop menu items to rearrange them.

Want to create a new blank menu or reload an older one? Simply click on the three-dot menu and then choose a menu you created earlier or create a new one.

Manage menus

Colors to Indicate Template Parts Being Edited

WordPress 6.2 will also highlight the template part that you are editing, and that changes will be made on a side-wide, global scale.

The element will be bordered in a color and have a template part icon attached.

Template part editing in site editor

This will help users realize that instead of editing the specific page or post, they are now editing a template part and this change will affect other pages on their site as well.

See Styles for All Blocks in The Style Book

The site editor in WordPress 6.2 will ship with a ‘Style Book.’ Simply switch to the Styles panel and then click on the style book icon.

This will show you all the blocks, and how they are styled in your theme.

Style book shows all block styles at one place

You can locate a block much more quickly this way, and then click to edit it directly.

After that, you can change its appearance and style and customize it to your own requirements.

Edit block directly from style book

Copy and Paste Block Styles

Now that editing block styles and appearance has become so much easier, there is a need to easily copy and paste these styles.

WordPress 6.2 will allow you to simply copy block styles by clicking on block options and then selecting ‘Copy Styles’.

Copy styles

After that, you can click to edit a different block and select ‘Paste styles’ from the block options.

Your browser will ask for permission to allow your website to view the contents of the clipboard. You need to click ‘Allow’ to continue.

Paste styles

Classic Widgets Import as Template Parts in Block Themes

Users with classic widget themes lost their legacy widgets when they switched to a block theme. WordPress 6.2 will provide a nice fallback to that by converting legacy widgets into special Template Parts when switching themes.

You’ll need to enter the site editor and edit the template where you want to import the widgets. After that, create a new template part by clicking on the Add New Block button (+).

Import classic widgets in block themes

From the template part settings panel, click on the Advanced tab to expand it and you’ll find the option to import a widget area from your previous theme.

Separate Sub Panels for Block Settings and Styles

With WordPress 6.2, the editor will show two sub-panels for a block. One for the block settings and the other one for styles.

This will help users understand where they need to look if they want to change the appearance of a block.

Sub panel for Styles

A New Distraction-Free Mode is Introduced

Historically, WordPress has always provided options to hide the formatting buttons and toolbars on the post editor screen.

However, WordPress 5.4 made the editor full-screen by default. This allowed users to have a much cleaner writing interface, but there was no distraction-free mode.

WordPress 6.2 will remedy that and will come with a completely clean and calm distraction-free mode. Users will be able to choose it from the editor settings.

Launch distraction free mode

Once chosen, the distraction-free mode hides all editor control elements.

As you can see below, toolbars, side panels, and the top bar are nowhere to be seen.

Distraction free editor in WordPress 6.2

Improved Pattern Insertion with New Categories

WordPress 6.2 will simplify the Pattern Insertion panel. Instead of showing previews and a drop-down menu of categories, it will show the categories first.

Pattern insertion

There are two new categories of Patterns added for the Header and Footer sections.

Clicking on a category will show you the available patterns that you can use.

Browse patterns in a category

You can then just click to insert a pattern into your template and start editing it.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to use patterns in WordPress.

Miscellaneous Changes

Download Link For Media Files – The media screen will now show a Download File link in the list view.

Download file link in the Media Library

Openverse Integration to Add Free Images – Openverse offers royalty-free open-source images.

With WordPress 6.2, users will be able to find and add those images from Add New panel.

Openverse Integration

New Icon for the Settings Panel – The icon to display the settings panel previously used a gear icon.

It is now represented with a panels icon.

Settings icon

Under The Hood Changes

There are a ton of changes in WordPress 6.2 intended for developers. Here are some of the changes that you will find in the update:

  • Faster updates by moving directories instead of copying them. (Details)
  • A new switch_to_user_locale() function is introduced. (Details)
  • Create autosave revisions only when content is changed. (Details)
  • Add a style variation tag to themes that use style variations. (Details)

Overall WordPress 6.2 beta 1 includes 292 enhancements, 354 bug fixes for the editor, and more than 195 tickets for the WordPress 6.2 core.

We hope this article provided you with a glimpse of what’s coming in WordPress 6.2.

Comment below to let us know what features you find interesting and what you’d look to see in a future WordPress release!

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What’s Coming in WordPress 6.2 (Features and Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.