The Future of WordPress & What’s in There for You?
According to a few stats on the internet, there are approximately 1.5 billion websites worldwide, and WordPress powers 38% of all! You can calculate the rest. We can say that WordPress has achieved everything, but WordPress has other ideas. WordPress is still developing. Here, we will discuss the current developments and the future of WordPress.
WordPress has been going through an evolution process for a few years. It started in 2017 when WordPress CEO Matt Mullenweg announced the release of WordPress Gutenberg Editor. Since then, WordPress has been going through a lot of observed changes.
Recently, as part of the evolution process, WordPress has gotten rid of its legendary Classic editor and replaced it with the brand new Gutenberg block editor. It was quite a bold move, considering the possible future of WordPress. Still, WordPress didn’t hesitate and made it happen.
Over time, all the changes and developments WordPress is going through leave us with a big question.
What is the Future of WordPress?
Well, we don’t know what is going on inside the mind of Matt Mullenweg. Thus, we can try to assume the probable future of WordPress according to the statements made by WordPress officials and the recent official moves from WordPress, including the recently released WordPress 5.5.
Here, we tried to focus on the different sectors of WordPress. Though WordPress works as a whole, the smaller parts together complete the most prominent Content Management System on this planet. Let’s look into the facts that are going to impact on the future of WordPress.
Future of The WordPress Gutenberg:
Whenever I talk about the WordPress Gutenberg editor, it reminds me of the passage of time between the WordPress classic editor and the WordPress Gutenberg editor. We were fond of the classic editor because it was easier to function rather than coding for every single option. And then WordPress released the Gutenberg editor.
We found Gutenberg to be a revolution. According to WordPress’s authority, they hold high hope for this block editor. Perhaps, that’s why they’ve made it the default WordPress editor in WordPress 5.00.
In 2020, the WordPress world is different from the time we started. Now, there is the Gutenberg Editor, great WordPress Page Builders Like Elementor, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, and thousands of WordPress plugins and WordPress themes. In the future, these numbers are going to increase.
The WordPress Gutenberg Editor is in its 2nd phase of development out of 4 phases. I like Gutenberg as a whole. As a whole, I mean the overall vision of the WordPress Gutenberg Editor. Including features like Full Site Editing, Block Editing Theme, Multilingual, etc. With all these features, I do believe that the future of WordPress is in safe hands. Let’s wait for it!
The 4 phases of Gutenberg Development:
Gutenberg Phase 1:
Gutenberg phase 1 had a target to make editing easier for the users. It focuses particularly on non-technical users. Here the WordPress introduces the Gutenberg block editor with the ability to use content blocks. Beforehand, users had to use codes to create content and add images.
Gutenberg phase 1 was successfully brought to the Gutenberg block editor with the release of WordPress 5.0 in December 2018.
Gutenberg Phase 2:
Right now, WordPress Gutenberg editor’s development is going through Phase 2. In the Gutenberg phase 2, WordPress desires to provide a full site customization feature using the content blocks. Besides, a collection of advanced blocks can be used to edit an entire web page.
A significant number of users have been complaining about the WordPress editing limitations. In this phase, WordPress solves it. Besides, several advanced blocks, navigation blocks, and WordPress themes that recognize blocks will also be released with Gutenberg Phase 2 by December 2021.
Here, one thing we can indeed say that the future of WordPress revolutionizes in the Gutenberg phase 2 development. Users can directly have authority and control over their WordPress web pages rather than third-party Page Builders.
Gutenberg Phase 3:
The future of WordPress has taken a completely new path with the development of the Gutenberg editor, and it will reflect extensively in the 3rd phase of development.
WordPress authorities have announced to introduce multi-author collaboration. Such features didn’t exist in WordPress, and admins suffered from working on the same website at a time. Perhaps, that’s why WordPress has decided to solve this issue in the Gutenberg phase 3 development, which will begin in January 2022.
Gutenberg Phase 4:
In the last phase of Gutenberg development, WordPress intends to provide multilingual support for WordPress users. Here, multilingual support means WordPress will officially help you to translate your site into your language.
As a result, you won’t have to use any 3rd party translation plugins or lingual plugins to offer your WordPress website in multiple languages. So, the entire translation thing becomes official and very natural. You don’t need to worry about the lingual support anymore. WordPress has projected to complete this phase by 2022 or beyond.
The Future of WordPress CMS
For most web users, WordPress is a great CMS. While I also consider WordPress to be a perfect CMS for standard purposes, the question remains. Is WordPress an enterprise CMS or not?
Here, this question is complicated to answer, acknowledging some facts. However, in the future of WordPress CMS, there is plenty of room for improvement.
For example, we can talk about multi-site management. Some companies have got multiple websites to take care of. If they can manage it from the same interface, that is the best user experience for them. WordPress has got a multiple site management tool. But the problem is it requires the editing of the file systems in raw PHP to get started. WordPress can make it simpler in future updates.
On the other hand, WordPress doesn’t have its analytics tools. Users mostly depend on the 3rd party plugins to get the analytics data. For a CMS like WordPress can go for analytics tools of their own. For a prominent CMS like WordPress, it should have its own analytical tool.
The WordPress Development
WordPress development is one of the most natural web development methods ever created. The credit goes to the simple and user-centric page building system. Not to mention the latest Gutenberg block editor and the revolution in WordPress development.
However, some users think that they are getting limited web development opportunities from WordPress. Those users believe that WordPress is not allowing them to build a website or web page from scratch.
In most cases, users get the basic framework and not get limited to some prebuilt theme templates. Well, it is the part we also agree with you and the other users.
As the WordPress authority is planning big with the Gutenberg block editor, there should be someplace for the developers who want to build a website from scratch.
WordPress is also thinking about releasing an application in the future that will boost the entire process. That’s a great idea, considering the current aspects of WordPress.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting is getting popular day by day. The future of WordPress hosting seems to hold great potential. Indeed it’s because of the superior usability of WordPress CMS.
Nowadays, WordPress is the most popular web platform, and it’s getting more famous with time. Well, it clearly states that the future of WordPress development is bright, considering the steps WordPress is taking.
The Future of WordPress Themes
Another big concern regarding the future of WordPress is how all these developments will impact the future market of WordPress themes. There are possible replacements of WordPress themes on the way. It may not be an alternative or a replacement actually, but maybe a different approach.
At this moment, the Gutenberg Block editor has the authority over the contents rather than the entire website. For example, you can’t change the header, footer, or style of a page using the Gutenberg Block editor. Till now, this is a big gap to fill in for WordPress.
However, it is evident that WordPress will add blocks for the header, footer, or other parts of the website. Well, this is not something very new. Different WordPress page builder software like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, etc., has been doing this for quite a long time.
Although I can not guarantee, I can only assume that these theme blocks will create a significant impact on the future of WordPress themes. Maybe there will be themes with Gutenberg blog support.
WordPress Plugins of the Future
WordPress started as a simple blogging website, and over the years, it has become an all-purpose Content Management System. In this transition, WordPress plugins have played the master role. Likewise, the plugin market has also grown at the same rate.
Similarly, the growing WordPress plugin market will play a remarkable role in the future of WordPress. WordPress users are demanding more and more features from the developers. Vice versa, the WordPress developers are trying to provide more features in the premium version and earn more. As a result, the premium WordPress plugins market is expanding exponentially.
On the other hand, a simple plugin is not uncomplicated anymore. Over the years, developers have added hundreds of features, often thousands. Nowadays, a WordPress plugin has become like a mini platform with enormous features. It clearly shows that the day in the future of WordPress is not so far when most WordPress plugins will be like mini platforms.
The Fastest WordPress Post Layout Plugin: Guten Post Layout
What I think about the future of WordPress:
Well, none of us is an astrologer! Moreover, most of us are just ordinary IT guys who have been working with WordPress for years. Over the years, we have witnessed so many changes in WordPress CMS. As I’ve been through all the changes, I will try to discuss my expectations and assumptions about the future of WordPress.
The first thing to appear in our mind while thinking about WordPress is the Gutenberg Editor. The possibilities for WordPress introduced in the editor are immense. Unlike many other page builders, the Gutenberg editor is fast. We have talked so much about the Gutenberg Editor in this post. Let’s focus on other things.
WordPress Plugins are getting very popular, and also, the number of features added to a plugin is utterly impressive. Users want diversity. Hence using different plugins is getting popular.
WordPress has introduced a backdoor to update the plugins and the themes in WordPress 5.5 automatically. It seems like a handy feature for the users who don’t want to update all the plugins and themes one after one. Besides, users who don’t want automatic updates can keep automatic updates turned off.
Features like lazyload, automatic update, and sitemap have been launched in WordPress 5.5. These WordPress dedicated features are saving users from using more 3rd party plugins.
Bottomline
The way WordPress is planning their future and organizing the features for the users is highly appreciable. As WordPress enthusiasts, we welcome those changes and look forward to the future of WordPress.
This write-up includes the team’s assumptions and a summary we made gathering pieces of information from all over the internet. But we really want to know your thoughts on the future of WordPress.
Let’s discuss the way you see the changes WordPress is making. Please, share your valuable thoughts on the future of WordPress in the comment section.
