Call for testing: WordPress 7.0 Beta

WordPress 7.0 Beta is now available for testing on VIP. This is the first release part of the WordPress 7.0 development cycle and can now be deployed to all non-production WordPress environments.

The current target for the final release is April 9, 2026

What’s new in WordPress 7.0

WordPress 7.0 is a milestone release with a big push into collaboration, AI infrastructure, and an enhanced editing experience. Here’s a preview of what’s coming–keep in mind that features might get dropped or be added until the final release on April 9:

Real-time Collaboration

Available on VIP since January, Real-Time Collaboration will be integrated into WordPress Core with 7.0. It allows multiple users to edit the same post or page simultaneously, with data syncing, block-level notes and live updates.

Developer features

  • WP AI Client: a provider-agnostic API giving plugins and themes a standardized way to call AI models through a consistent interface. No AI providers are bundled, and no AI calls are made by default.
  • Abilities & Workflows API improvements: hybrid abilities, client-side filtering and search, an improved command palette, and a new Abilities Explorer admin screen.
  • PHP-only block registration, no JavaScript required.
  • Block Bindings for custom dynamic blocks: pattern override support now extends to custom dynamic blocks for building flexible, data-driven content patterns.
  • Custom CSS per block instance.
  • Client-side media processing: media is now processed in the browser before uploading, speeding up media handling and reducing server-side overhead.

Admin experience

WordPress 7.0 ships with a fresh default color scheme and cleaner dashboard styles. These CSS-level changes bring the WordPress Admin experience closer to the Site Editor’s modern look while keeping the interface familiar.

Editing experience

  • Visual revisions: revisions now appear inline within the editor, allowing side-by-side visual comparisons
  • Pattern editing: new Spotlight mode (to isolate content within patterns and notes) and Isolated Editor mode (for editing synced patterns, template parts, and navigation).
  • Viewport-based block visibility: show or hide individual blocks based on screen size.
  • Font Library for all themes.
  • New blocks: Icons block, Breadcrumbs block (with support for archives, 404s, search pages, and pagination).
  • Block updates: Cover Block with video embed backgrounds, responsive controls for the Grid Block, Gallery Block with lightbox support, Navigation Block with customizable overlays, block variations for the Heading Block.

How to test the upgrade on a local environment

The quickest way to test locally is to use the VIP Local Development Environment.

To update an existing environment:

vip dev-env update -w=7.0 --slug=mytestsite

To create a new one:

vip dev-env create -w=7.0 --slug=mytestsite

How to test the upgrade on a VIP Platform environment

You can update your non-production environments by running the trunk version of WordPress from within the Software Management section of the VIP Dashboard or by running the vip config software update command with VIP-CLI.

For example:

vip @mytestsite.develop config software update wordpress trunk

Introducing the Advanced Professional WordPress Developer Certification

We’re excited to share a brand new opportunity for developers in the WordPress ecosystem. Without a standardized benchmark, evaluating team capabilities and assessing candidates for complex, mission-critical applications often relies on subjective measures and uncertain outcomes.

The Advanced Professional WordPress Developer Certification changes that.

A new industry standard for enterprise WordPress

As the first certification designed specifically for enterprise-level WordPress development, this credential provides an objective, trusted measure of developer expertise in the areas that matter most: scalability, performance optimization, advanced security, complex debugging, system architecture, and disaster recovery.

Why it matters

Validate expertise objectively

Move beyond subjective assessments. This certification provides assurance that developers possess enterprise-grade skills, giving you confidence in their ability to handle your most demanding projects.

Reduce risk and improve outcomes

Certified developers bring proven knowledge of security best practices, performance optimization, and disaster recovery—directly reducing vulnerabilities and downtime that can significantly impact your organization.

Attract and retain top talent

Supporting professional development demonstrates your commitment to team growth. Developers value employers who invest in their advancement, improving retention while making your organization more attractive to high-caliber candidates.

About the certification

  • Name: Advanced Professional WordPress Developer
  • Length: 120 minutes
  • Registration Fee: $250 USD
  • Format: Multiple-choice and multiple-response
  • Delivery: Online-proctored or in-person at a test center
  • Validity: 3 years

The exam verifies skills in writing well-architected, maintainable code that supports scalability, performance, and security across diverse implementations. It measures advanced competency across eight key domains: WordPress Core, Custom Development, Security, Performance, Change Management, Debugging, Scalability and Architecture, and Disaster Recovery.

Platform-agnostic design

The certification is intentionally platform-agnostic, ensuring its relevance for WordPress professionals regardless of hosting environment or technical stack. Experience with the WordPress VIP platform is not required.

Get started today

Learn more and schedule your exam today at learn.wpvip.com/certification!

MySQL Update from 8.0.40 to 8.4.8

Between March 3 and March 17, we will be updating the version of MySQL running on non-production environments from 8.0.40 to 8.4.8, followed by a two-week period for testing and validation before the production rollout.

The upgrades for production environments will start on April 1, 2026, and will be complete by the end of April, ensuring all environments are running MySQL 8.4.8 ahead of the MySQL 8.0 end‑of‑life date on April 30, 2026.

What should I expect?

The MySQL upgrade is not expected to impact site availability or stability, and no action is required from WordPress VIP customers. All environments will be upgraded within the timelines described above, and the overall schedule for these updates cannot be changed.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket, and we’ll be glad to assist.

New Feature Release: Defensive Mode

Your sites face constant pressure from bots, credential stuffing, and DDoS attacks. Traditional rate limiting blocks legitimate users during traffic spikes while sophisticated bots slip through by distributing requests across larger networks.

Defensive Mode solves this by raising the computational cost of each request for attackers without degrading the experience for real visitors. It’s now generally available for all VIP customers.

What Is Defensive Mode

Defensive Mode adds an extra layer of protection against malicious traffic by detecting suspicious activity at the edge and issuing proof-of-work challenges to visitors. When your site experiences a traffic spike that exceeds normal patterns, Defensive Mode activates and requires browsers to complete a lightweight computational task before accessing content.

For legitimate visitors, this process happens in the background and completes within seconds. For automated bots and attack scripts, the computational cost becomes prohibitive, effectively filtering out malicious traffic before it can impact site performance or stability.

Why It Matters

Enterprise sites are frequent targets for credential stuffing, content scraping, and volumetric attacks. Traditional rate limiting can block legitimate users during traffic spikes, while allowing sophisticated bots that distribute requests across many IP addresses.

Defensive Mode addresses this gap by raising the cost of each request for attackers without degrading the experience for real visitors. Because VIP manages your entire infrastructure from edge to application, Defensive Mode activates based on actual application health metrics, such as PHP worker utilization or Node.js request concurrency, rather than just traffic volume. This means smarter, more targeted protection that activates when your application is actually under stress.

What’s Included

  • Automatic activation: Triggers automatically when connection thresholds are exceeded
  • Challenge type options: Background proof-of-work or interactive verification
  • Traffic analytics: View challenged, passed, and blocked request metrics over time

Get Started

You can access Defensive Mode in the VIP Dashboard under Application → Environment → Security Controls → Defensive Mode. The feature operates at the environment level, so you can configure production and staging independently. To enable Defensive Mode, toggle it to “On” and select your preferred challenge type. We recommend starting with background proof-of-work for minimal visitor friction and a high threshold. For detailed configuration options and best practices, see the Defensive Mode documentation.

A note on API integrations: If your site uses authenticated API requests, those requests should continue to work normally. However, unauthenticated API calls may be challenged during high-traffic periods. Review your integration patterns if you experience any issues.

If you have any questions related to this feature release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

WordPress 6.9.1 Maintenance Release

This minor release includes fixes for 49 bugs throughout Core and the Block Editor, addressing issues affecting multiple areas of WordPress including the block editor, mail, and classic themes. For a full list of bug fixes, please refer to the release candidate announcement.

WordPress 6.9.1 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major version of WordPress will be 7.0; it is scheduled for release on 9 April 2026.

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: Jetpack 15.5

Jetpack 15.5 is available now for testing and the download link is available here

Jetpack 15.5 will be deployed to VIP on Tuesday, February 17, 2026*. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 17:00 UTC (1:00PM ET).

*This deployment date and time are subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

A full list of changes is available in the commit log.

What is being added or changed?

Note: This requires a minimum of WordPress 6.8

Enhancements

  • Add Jetpack Protect details page for users without the dedicated Jetpack Protect plugin.
  • Command Palette: Add site switcher command to quickly switch between WordPress.com connected sites.
  • Forms:
    • Add form editor.
    • Add ref attribute support for the form block.
    • Add single forms screen.
    • Allow merging two options together with backspace.
    • Display star and heart rating icons on form submission confirmation page.
    • Make form webhooks generally available.
  • IDC: Add revalidation of IDC.
  • Instant Search: Show WooCommerce product filters in filter widget.
  • Likes: Display a notice to block theme users explaining they can add the Like block directly in the site editor instead of enabling the legacy feature.
  • Social: Mark new connections as shared by default for privileged users.

Bug fixes

  • AI Assistant: Fix markdown rendering in feedback sidebar to properly display bold text, lists, and other formatting.
  • AI Search: Prevent AI Search from disappearing when returning certain responses.
  • Contact Form: Fix checkbox field value not being properly output in the classic editor form builder.
  • Copy Post: Copy Gutenberg Footnotes block content when duplicating posts.
  • Forms: Fix date exports.
  • Forms: Improve VoiceOver for form submissions.
  • Google Fonts: Prevent Gutenberg 22.4+ from printing all registered fonts.
  • Shortcode: Fix broken YouTube URL on the classic editor.
  • Site Switcher: Fix partial keyword matching so typing ‘swit’ shows ‘Switch to…’ results in the command palette.
  • Slideshow: Ensure slideshows do not stretch to parent container width on mobile if no list height is set.
  • UI: Prevent social modals in editor from stretching too wide on large screens.

What do I need to do?

We recommend the below:

  1. Installing the release on your non-production sites using these instructions.
  2. Running through the testing flows outlined in the Jetpack Testing Guide.

As you’re testing, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Check your browser’s JavaScript console and see if there are any errors reported by Jetpack there.
  • Use Query Monitor to help make PHP notices and warnings more noticeable and report anything you see.

Questions?

If you have any questions, related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

End-of-life for Node.js v20

Node.js v20 reaches end-of-life on April 30, 2026. After that date, Node.js v20 will no longer receive security patches and will be removed from the VIP software management tool.

VIP will automatically update non-production environments to Node.js v22 on April 24, while all production environments will be updated on April 30, 2026. We recommend upgrading proactively to maintain full control over testing and timing.

What you need to do

Updating takes 5–10 minutes per environment with zero downtime. Here’s the recommended process:

  1. Test locally first. This testing should include a fresh reinstallation of dependencies, as the behavior of npm install can differ between Node.js major versions. Versions are backward compatible, but reinstalling dependencies helps surface version-specific changes.
  2. Update a non-production environment. In the VIP Dashboard, navigate to Code > Software Versions and select your new Node.js version. Your application will rebuild and deploy automatically with no downtime.
  3. Deploy to production. Once you’ve verified everything works as expected, update your production environment the same way.

Read the Node.js version management guide and our Software Versions documentation for detailed instructions.

Important dates

  • April 24, 2026: all non-production environments running Node.js v20 will be automatically updated to Node.js v22.
  • April 30, 2026: any remaining production environments running Node.js v20 will be automatically updated to Node.js v22.

If you have any questions about the update, contact our Support team and we’ll be happy to assist.