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#261 – FAIR Co-Founders Steps Back, DIVI 5 Launched, New WP-Vanguard, Builderius Sense

Issue #261   |   March 3, 2026   |   Reading time: 19 mins

Hello!

We hope you and your loved ones are safe and well.

This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the FAIR co-founders stepping back, the release of WordPress 7.0 beta 2, the launch of DIVI 5 and Oxygen 6, new projects, and more.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

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See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

They are stepping back after efforts to obtain the financial and structural support needed for the project from hosting companies and other major ecosystem players did not materialise.

📰  WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

One of the main additions in this release is the new Connectors UI dashboard page. The release also includes more than 70 updates and fixes across the Editor and Core since Beta 1.

🔧 TIP OF THE WEEK
Disable Lazy Load for LCP Images Only

Do NOT disable lazy load globally.

Disable only for:

  • hero/banner image
  • first slide

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

After being announced on November 10, 2022, Divi 5 has finally been released, nearly four years after its first announcement.

  • WordCamp Asia announced the sixth round of speakers: The newly introduced speakers are Fellyph Cintra (Automattic), Kazuko Kaneuchi ( Wapuu’s Mom), Sreeja Vijayan (Phases India Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd), and Stephen Dumba (WordPress Community Uganda). The schedule has also been published, and applications to submit Side Events are now live.
  • State of WordPress Security In 2026: The report by Pathcstack in partnership with Monrax reports a sharp rise in vulnerabilities, with 11,334 new issues discovered in 2025 a 42% increase from 2024. Premium components were especially at risk, with 76% of their vulnerabilities exploitable, and Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs) three times higher than free plugins.
  • Agency Growth Insights by Kinsta: This takes users behind the scenes with four WordPress agency leaders as they share candid lessons from building and scaling their businesses. From mistakes that shaped their success to finding the right niche and leveraging AI effectively, these stories reveal what really works and what doesn’t when growing a WordPress agency.
  • Hostinger reports fourth straight year of 50 percent growth: Hostinger reached €275.4 million in revenue in 2025, growing 51% year-over-year, while expanding its customer base 35% to 4.6 million businesses across 150+ countries.
  • First look at Tutor LMS 4.0:The upcoming release introduces a learner-first redesign, a simplified and centralized learner experience, a reimagined quiz experience, a new Kids Mode, and more. The version is expected to launch at the end of March.
  • Oxygen 6.0 released with complete rewrite: Oxygen 6.0 has officially launched after a year-long testing cycle that included five beta releases and a Release Candidate (RC1). The release is a complete rebuild, rewritten from the ground up with a new codebase designed to support future development and improved performance.
  • SureCart Product Reviews feature released: The feature allows users to collect and display feedback for individual products without third-party tools or extra plugins.
  • New lead capture pop-up for Document Library Pro: The feature lets site owners collect email addresses before users download documents.
  • MainWP v6 released: The update introduces Light/Dark Mode support, faster batch site management, customizable change tracking, AI assistant integration via MCP & Abilities API, new Google Search Console Integration, and improved Google Analytics Integration.
  • Groundworx Tabs & Accordion 1.1.2 released: The release introduces a revamped active color system using the Interactivity API, adds a new option to extend trigger styles across panels, and includes fixes for RTL icons and multi-accordion behavior.
  • WB Polls v4.6.0 now live: This version adds a new Surveys MVP, star rating and yes/no poll types, an Activity Polls dashboard tab, and much more.
  • Builderius Sense now live: This is an AI assistant built directly into the Builderius builder that connects to Claude via MCP, understands your current template and project structure, and helps you build, edit, and experiment across layout, dynamic data, and framework-level CSS using natural language.
  • ToggleWP v1.0 beta now live: Early adopter pricing is available until 31 March 2026 with 14 day free trial.
  • AI Link Genius feature releasing soon: An upcoming AI-powered internal linking solution built by Rank Math, and users can now sign up for early access.
  • walkie.sh v1.4.0 released: The update brings a new web UI,  join/leave announcements, persistent messages per walkie instance, and so on.
  • All new Voiceprint: A plugin for Claude, developed by James Kemp, that builds a comprehensive voice profile from your actual writing, then generates a personalized writer skill that produces content in your authentic voice.
  • Tsk.run: Lightweight, file-based project tracker CLI developed by Vikas Singhal.
  • Miles moves closer to public launch: Andy Peatling said that as Miles is getting closer to public launch, he would love to chat with people working at WordPress hosting companies.
  • New milestone for CardPress: Donini shared that CardPress now has over 32,000+ users and is growing. He is looking forward to the community’s support to keep the project alive, evolving, and independent.
  • A new experiment to curate the featured plugins list on WP.org: As part of an experiment to curate the featured plugins list, Nick Hamze pushed a change impacting 37 million WordPress sites. Regarding this change, Sybre Waaijer raised several questions about transparency and process. He asked where the selection criteria and scripts were published and whether other developers could review or contribute, who the Plugin Admins are, and so on.
  • Elliot Richmond partners up with WordPress.com: The partnership will run through the end of 2026, with Elliott publishing a series of YouTube videos focused on WordPress.com, on how to use it, how to set up a website, and so on.
  • Muhammad Yeasin receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community: Muhammad Yeasin, a valued member of the WordPress Community Team is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care fund.
  • Gutenberg reaches 10000 PRs as Aki Hamano hits a personal milestone: Aki Hamano celebrates a personal milestone as Gutenberg surpasses 10000 merged pull requests while he reaches 1000 merged contributions himself.
  • Where Can I Watch and BurnRate by Tom McFarlin: Where Can I Watch iOS app is now available, letting you see which streaming services have your favorite movies and TV shows. The web app was released earlier. BurnRate, is a macOS menu bar app that lets Claude Code users quickly check their model usage without interrupting their workflow.
🚀 NEW PROJECTS
“No plugin to install. No code on your server. No performance hit. You paste your site URL, and you get a security grade in seconds.“

Varun Dubey about creating the WP Vanguard.
  • WP Vanguard: A WordPress security scanner by Varun Dubey that works entirely externally with no plugin required.
  • SaveTo Wishlist Pro: A WooCommerce wishlist plugin by Josh Kohlbach and his team from Rymera with features such as wishlist analytics, price drop alerts, back-in-stock notification, and more. As part of the launch, SaveTo Wishlist Pro is being offered at 50% off. The free version is also available on the plugin repository.
  • BeatLab: A music education WordPress theme for instructors, academies, and studios offering online and in-person music courses.
  • Two new plugins by Per Soderlind: AI Provider for Azure OpenAI provides Azure OpenAI integration for the WordPress AI Client, enabling text generation, image generation, embedding generation, and text-to-speech using Azure’s hosted OpenAI models. WP Loupe is a search enhancement plugin for WordPress that builds a fast, typo-tolerant index and exposes a developer-friendly API so you can build your own search UI.
  • WP-MCP and WordPress Manager for Raycast: Both are developed by Gaurav Tiwari, and WP-MCP is a TypeScript MCP server that exposes any WordPress site’s REST API as MCP tools. Hand-crafted tools for core endpoints plus auto-discovery of custom plugin endpoints (WooCommerce, ACF, Yoast, any plugin). WordPress Manager for Raycast allows you to manage your WordPress site directly from Raycast.
  • AI Provider for Grok: Created by Aslam Doctor, this is an AI Provider for Grok for the WP AI Client SDK. Works as both a Composer package and a WordPress plugin.
  • PootlePhotos: A free WordPress photo app by Jamie Marsland that lets users drag and drop images, includes an AI auto-naming option, and automatically publishes them as posts.
  • Novamira: Built by the team at DYNAMIC·OOO, this is an MCP server that gives AI agents full access to WordPress through PHP execution and filesystem operations.
  • Modern Fields: A new custom fields plugin developed by Max.
  • ABC Cron: A new cron health monitoring plugin and ABC Bits have opened up early access now.
  • Acorn AI: An Acorn package that wraps laravel/ai and adds first-class integration with the WordPress Abilities API.
  • LearnKit: An upcoming LMS plugin by James Welbes with WooCommerce integration, now available for alpha testing.
  • Block Zapper: A container block that allows you to group other blocks and reset their custom properties with a single click.
  • WordPress Interactivity API Helper: A new extension developed by Ryan Welcher for Visual Code Studio, that adds intelligent autocomplete and validation for WordPress Interactivity API directives in VSCode.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

  • In this episode of Seriously, Bud?, Bud Kraus talks with Ben Sibley about his journey in the WordPress ecosystem, from building and selling Compete Themes to creating Independent Analytics, a privacy-focused analytics platform.
  • Robert Abela welcomes Kevin Beaver, independent security consultant and founder of Principle Logic, on this episode of Melapress Live Show, to unpack the human side of cybersecurity and why most security failures aren’t purely technical problems.
  • In this Live Website Remediation session, Amber Hinds and Brian improved the accessibility of Brian’s podcast site, webmasters.fm, identifying issues with automated and manual tools, explaining their impact on users with disabilities, and showing how to resolve them.
  • On WP Tavern Jukebox, Jonathan Desrosiers discusses WordPress sustainability, community engagement, and release strategies.
  • Rodolfo Melogli shared his honest take on the slow adoption of the WooCommerce Checkout Block, despite it being the default for new stores since 2023.
  • Nicol Wistreich shared the story of Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, and reflects on his early contributions, his collaboration with Matt Mullenweg, and more.
  • Matt Medeiros delves into the new Connectors pages in WordPress 7.0 beta 2, showing how the feature works.
  • Automattic shared how a two-week, hands-on AI training program for employees is already shaping real tools, workflows, and contributions.
  • Matt Cromwell argues that WordPress isn’t declining but entering a new phase shaped by AI, competition, and education.
  • Brian Coords shares why Agent Skills feels like a smarter way to guide coding agents compared to traditional agents.md files.
  • David McCan explained why he removed Kadence Blocks from his website after years of relying on them.
  • Mark Benzakein looks back on MainWP’s steady progress in 2025, with core updates, new extensions, and community contributions strengthening the platform and setting a strong foundation for 2026.
  • Carl Alexander recapped his 2025 as a year shaped by personal challenges while making important progress with Ymir.
  • Ziv Geurts recaps Web.fwrd 2026, highlighting Elementor version 4 with its Atomic foundation and scalable Components, the AI-powered Angie Code for custom development, the unified Elementor One subscription, and so on.
  • Mark Zahra shared how working with AI taught him the importance of giving clear and specific briefs.

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!

EXCLUSIVE DEALS
  • 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
  • 10% off on monthly & annual plans at SureTriggers (Coupon Code- WPCONTENT10)
  • Up to 84% off at Hostinger (Code NYSALE for an extra 10% off)
  • 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)
MORE DEALS

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by awesome WordPress Companies 🦸‍♂️🙌

ProfilePress – Create membership sites & sell subscriptions on WordPress Check it out  →

Create a career page and start recruiting talents in a few minutes Check it out  →

Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇

Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi Step Back from FAIR as Project Shifts Focus to TYPO3

Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi, co-founders of FAIR, announced that they are stepping back from the FAIR…

Read more

Divi 5 Launches with Core Rewrite and New Builder API

After being announced on November 10, 2022, Divi 5 has finally been released, nearly four years after its…

Read more

Oxygen 6.0 Released With Complete Rewrite

Oxygen 6.0 has officially launched after a year-long testing cycle that included five beta releases and a Release…

Read more

SudoWP Initiative Launched to Secure Abandoned WordPress Plugins

SudoWP is a community-focused initiative that takes over abandoned WordPress plugins to secure and maintain them. The project…

Read more

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

Issue #261   |   March 3, 2026   |   Reading time: 19 mins

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by ProfilePress, and WP Job Openings

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