Say thanks and learn more about our podcast sponsor Omnisend. I’m sure we’re all glad that year of WordPress is behind us. WordCamp US 2024 marked the start of a transformative era for the culture of WordPressers—a situation that thrust the community and the greater ecosystem into a tailspin with widespread uncertainty and instability across various sectors. As of this writing, we’re still unsure how the lawsuit between Matt Mullenweg/Automattic vs WP Engine will fully play out. While we witness the dust settle and find our new normal, here are the ways I think WordPress will change over the year 2025. 1. Automattic continues to rip off the band-aid I think we can all agree that since the inception of Gutenberg, there hasn’t been a major “Wow!” moment for WordPress. Usability has improved, and some cool concepts have shipped, but nothing showstopping has graced our wp-admin dashboards. It’s a two-sided coin, really: A stable tool for publishing? Yep.Buzzworthy or exciting for the outside world—including our closed-source competitors? Nope.Automattic needs to stay relevant, charm investors, and keep building cool stuff. That’s hard enough for any product company—let alone an open-source product company. It boils down to marketing and awareness, which WordPress has always struggled with. Even if Gutenberg was welcomed with open arms, excitement for building with blocks and using WordPress for your next website project was still necessary. I believe that for Matt/Automattic to steer the ship back to relevancy, he needed to pull this entire operation back under full control. Lines needed to be drawn—and they certainly were in 2024. I noticed a “different” tone when Mullenweg appeared on WP Product Talk earlier in 2024. The change was coming back then. Did I think it would be the ‘scorched Earth nuclear‘ approach we witnessed? No. You wouldn’t be wrong if you argued that Mullenweg has been trending in this direction for years, but it seemed like 2024 was filled with far too many distractions: a flailing Tumblr acquisition or spending tens of millions on messenger apps. What about focusing on WordPress? I’ve predicted that, in the future, we’ll visit WordPress.org and find: “The best way to experience WordPress is at WordPress.com or by hosting WordPress powered by Jetpack.” And then somewhere far below that H1, you’ll find in small text: “Click here to download WordPress for free.” In the short term, ripping off the band-aid to let the world know Matt’s in charge is one step closer to that reality. One step closer and fewer distractions for Mullenweg—perhaps less community involvement, and much more of the mothership in control in 2025. 2. Community -> Communities The WordPress community as we knew it is not coming back. You’re either for or against Automattic, using the project or spinning up your own fork, meme’ing us on X, or you’ve already quit the whole thing and are riding off into the sunset on a new CMS. I’m still left wondering: What Would Josepha Do? There have been two public opportunities for Mary Hubbard, the new Executive Director of WordPress, to share her plans for the community. Both appearances that left me with more questions than answers. On a live stream with Mullenweg, Hubbard mentioned not wanting to be a “Josepha 2.0.” Totally understandable! No one wants to be a 2.0 of their predecessor. However, the North Star held by the previous ED was shining bright with the desire to help WordPress thrive. “Help WordPress thrive.” A call to action we could all rally around. In the State of the Word 2024, Hubbard opened with: “I am deeply passionate about defending and celebrating WordPress.” And this is where—I believe—the community begins to fracture. Is WordPress truly under attack from external forces (specifically private equity), or is it just suffocating from within? On paper, PE consuming more of WordPress isn’t a good thing. From what I’ve witnessed in the traditional tech space, they don’t care much for community investment either. The playbook is to grow the asset, sell the asset, and keep the revolving door of the portfolio moving. However, I don’t agree with Matt/Automattic turning the community into cannon fodder—something that has done more damage in a fiscal quarter than if Silver Lake sold WP Engine to Wix. We, the community, could have been the biggest advocates for Mullenweg’s change, but instead, we were tossed aside (and continued to be badgered) regardless of tenure or contribution. This is why we’ll see more micro-communities pop up around WordPress through 2025. People fall out of love with WordPress as a “place to be,” and WordPress just gets tossed into the toolbox alongside Mailchimp and Google Apps. Transforming the experience from an open-source project backed by a global community into a free website builder by Automattic. Over 2025, WordPress will go from one big community to a decentralized collection of users who care less about the mission of open source and more about building their websites. 3. Playground is the future for WordPress As sure as the iPhone gets 10% better year after year, so does the software of WordPress. So yes, that’s part of this prediction: WordPress, the software, does get better—but probably not by all that much. Playground will start to set an important stage for WordPress—one that I think is needed for the long-term survivability (and interest) of the project. To stay competitive, relevant, and easily accessible, the Playground will take center stage. Here’s why: As I explored other software in 2024, specifically other CMS apps, no other website allowed me to try their software hands-on in the browser without installing or registering, like WordPress can. Even if you argue that WordPress is monolithic, uses old technologies, and generally can’t get out of its own way, I don’t see any other tech stack solving the complete stack like WordPress does—website builder, theme layer, drag-and-drop design, publishing, plugins, an ecosystem, etc. It’s a real lightbulb moment when you put that power instantly into the hands of someone looking to learn, build, or publish online without friction. Playground allows you to build out a custom WordPress instance, save the blueprint...
