WordPress 7.0 will no longer include real-time collaboration after the feature was removed from the release following a decision by Matt Mullenweg, who pointed to concerns about its readiness ahead of WordPress 7.0’s scheduled May 20, 2026, release.
Initially, WordPress 7.0 was scheduled to be released on April 9, 2026, during Contributor Day at WordCamp Asia 2026, but was later moved to allow further refinement of real-time collaboration.
Concerns over the current implementation
In the #feature-realtime-collaboration Slack channel, Matt Mullenweg said he was no longer confident about shipping real-time collaboration in WordPress core, pointing to several concerns, “ I would say I’m not confident with RTC being in core at this point. I’m fine taking the heat for pulling it out, but the surface area, race conditions, server load, memory efficiency, and the bugs that keep popping up in fuzz tests / etc don’t give me a lot of confidence on our current approach being the robust one we want to support.”
Mullenweg also pointed to the ongoing WP Engine legal proceedings and depositions as an added burden, “ there’s also the added burden right now of the WP Engine lawfare and depositions being a time DoS for critical people, perhaps without that in the background we could have gotten to a better place by now, but I don’t think with the current deposition schedule and all the faff around discovery we’re able to support this feature”
Following the decision, Anne McCarthy said coordination would begin to remove the feature from the release and update related marketing materials. Peter Wilson also voiced support for the decision, saying, “ I’ve been on the fence for the last week so I think it’s a good call.”
Aaron Jorbin opened a ticket to track the work required to remove the feature’s code from WordPress core.
Initial delay of WordPress 7.0 Release
The initial decision to extend the release date came after Matt Mullenweg posted in the #core-committers channel that the project should return to beta releases to get the new tables right before moving back into release candidates, “ Given the scope and status of 7.0, I think we should go back to beta releases, get the new tables right, lock in everything we want for 7.0, and then start RCs again. Date-driven is still our default, but for this milestone release we want to target extreme stability and exciting updates, especially as AI-accelerated development is increasing people’s expectations for software.”
In a follow-up message, on the #7.0 Release Leads Slack channel, Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura shared additional context on the proposed database table changes for real-time collaboration, adding that the expected delay for WordPress 7.0 at the time was around three to four weeks.
It was only recently that WordPress called on hosts to test the real-time collaboration feature ahead of the May 4 deadline. Following the announcement of real-time collaboration not shipping with WordPress 7.0, Anne McCarthy published a summary of the real-time collaboration performance data across various hosting environments.
Community Response
Rayhan Arif suggested that real-time collaboration may be better suited as a standalone plugin rather than a feature included in WordPress core, “ , I’m leaning more toward the idea of not having it in WordPress Core. Most general WordPress users are unlikely to use the feature regularly. It could instead live as a separate plugin under the WordPress org profile for those who truly need it. “
Andrew Hoyer also argued that real-time collaboration would be better suited as a plugin, “ I think this should be a plugin that extends the core functionality for those who want it.”
Katie Keith described the move as more of a delay than a change in direction, “ This looks significant, but I think it’s a delay rather than an actual change of direction or strategy.”
Justin Ferriman also supported move saying, “ That feature always came across as a bit tone deaf. This was the right decision.”