The WP Community Collective has launched the State of the Community survey, a first-of-its-kind initiative inviting members of the WordPress ecosystem to share their perspectives on the open source project, its future, and related factors, including AI, open source sustainability, and community participation.
The launch of the survey coincided with WordPress’s 23rd anniversary, with responses remaining open through June 28, 2026.
Why the Survey Was Launched
The WP Community Collective said the WordPress ecosystem has undergone wide-ranging changes in recent years, both within the project itself and across the broader technology industry. While people across the community may have seen or experienced the effects of those shifts firsthand, the organization said there is still no shared understanding of their overall impact on the ecosystem or the future of the WordPress open source project.
The organization said the survey is intended to help address that gap in understanding, stating, “ The State of the Community survey is intended to change that, by giving the people in the WordPress community the data they need to understand and plan for the future.”
Speaking about the importance of understanding community perspectives, Sé Reed, CEO of The WP Community Collective, said:
The WordPress community is not hypothetical. It is a real community, made up of real people navigating real challenges in the real world. If we want to effectively support and sustain that community, we have to ask the people in it what is important to them. And then we have to listen.
Inside the State of the Community Survey
The anonymous survey, which takes approximately 10–20 minutes to complete, includes questions about how participants engage with the WordPress open source project, the type of work they do within the ecosystem, and whether WordPress affects their income.
It also asks respondents about their overall sentiment toward the project, whether those views have changed over the past 24 months, and how they feel about the future of WordPress. Additional topics include community participation, contributor experiences, event participation, project leadership and governance, experiences with hostility or dismissiveness within the community, and the current and future impact of artificial intelligence.
Participants are also invited to share additional comments about WordPress, open source, and the tech industry, with the option to decide whether those responses may be publicly cited or published.
The survey is available in six languages — English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Hindi, and Portuguese. The WP Community Collective intends for the initiative to be repeated annually using a consistent methodology, with its design informed by the GitHub Open Source Survey as well as standard academic instruments for measuring human perception and well-being.
The results from the survey will be published in a public report that provides a broader view of how people across the WordPress ecosystem feel about the project and the changes affecting it.
The launch of the survey follows several recent developments and initiatives from The WP Community Collective. The organization formally announced its nonprofit incorporation in 2024, appointed a new board of directors earlier this year, and launched a 2025 Contributor Day Table Lead Appreciation Campaign in partnership with GoDaddy. The organization also received a separate $500,000 donation from GoDaddy last year.
The responses will be published in a public report that summarises the findings while also helping provide insight into broader community trends and how contributors, organizations, and project leaders can better support the WordPress ecosystem and the people behind it.