The WP Minute+

I’m sure we’re all glad that year of WordPress is behind us.

WordCamp US 2024 marked the start of a transformative era for the culture of WordPressers—a situation that thrust the community and the greater ecosystem into a tailspin with widespread uncertainty and instability across various sectors.

As of this writing, we’re still unsure how the lawsuit between Matt Mullenweg/Automattic vs WP Engine will fully play out. While we witness the dust settle and find our new normal, here are the ways I think WordPress will change over the year 2025.

I think we can all agree that since the inception of Gutenberg, there hasn’t been a major “Wow!” moment for WordPress.

Usability has improved, and some cool concepts have shipped, but nothing showstopping has graced our wp-admin dashboards. It’s a two-sided coin, really:

Automattic needs to stay relevant, charm investors, and keep building cool stuff.

That’s hard enough for any product company—let alone an open-source product company. It boils down to marketing and awareness, which WordPress has always struggled with.

Even if Gutenberg was welcomed with open arms, excitement for building with blocks and using WordPress for your next website project was still necessary.

I believe that for Matt/Automattic to steer the ship back to relevancy, he needed to pull this entire operation back under full control. Lines needed to be drawn—and they certainly were in 2024.

I noticed a “different” tone when Mullenweg appeared on WP Product Talk earlier in 2024. The change was coming back then. Did I think it would be the ‘scorched Earth nuclear‘ approach we witnessed? No.

You wouldn’t be wrong if you argued that Mullenweg has been trending in this direction for years, but it seemed like 2024 was filled with far too many distractions: a flailing Tumblr acquisition or spending tens of millions on messenger apps.

What about focusing on WordPress?

I’ve predicted that, in the future, we’ll visit WordPress.org and find: “The best way to experience WordPress is at WordPress.com or by hosting WordPress powered by Jetpack.” And then somewhere far below that H1, you’ll find in small text: “Click here to download WordPress for free.”

In the short term, ripping off the band-aid to let the world know Matt’s in charge is one step closer to that reality. One step closer and fewer distractions for Mullenweg—perhaps less community involvement, and much more of the mothership in control in 2025.

The WordPress community as we knew it is not coming back.

You’re either for or against Automattic, using the project or spinning up your own fork, meme’ing us on X, or you’ve already quit the whole thing and are riding off into the sunset on a new CMS.

I’m still left wondering: What Would Josepha Do?

There have been two public opportunities for Mary Hubbard, the new Executive Director of WordPress, to share her plans for the community. Both appearances that left me with more questions than answers.

On a live stream with Mullenweg, Hubbard mentioned not wanting to be a “Josepha 2.0.” Totally understandable! No one wants to be a 2.0 of their predecessor. However, the North Star held by the previous ED was shining bright with the desire to help WordPress thrive.

“Help WordPress thrive.” A call to action we could all rally around.

In the State of the Word 2024, Hubbard opened with: “I am deeply passionate about defending and celebrating WordPress.” And this is where—I believe—the community begins to fracture.

Is WordPress truly under attack from external forces (specifically private equity), or is it just suffocating from within?

On paper, PE consuming more of WordPress isn’t a good thing. From what I’ve witnessed in the traditional tech space, they don’t care much for community investment either. The playbook is to grow the asset, sell the asset, and keep the revolving door of the portfolio moving.

However, I don’t agree with Matt/Automattic turning the community into cannon fodder—something that has done more damage in a fiscal quarter than if Silver Lake sold WP Engine to Wix.

We, the community, could have been the biggest advocates for Mullenweg’s change, but instead, we were tossed aside (and continued to be badgered) regardless of tenure or contribution.

This is why we’ll see more micro-communities pop up around WordPress through 2025. People fall out of love with WordPress as a “place to be,” and WordPress just gets tossed into the toolbox alongside Mailchimp and Google Apps.

Transforming the experience from an open-source project backed by a global community into a free website builder by Automattic.

Over 2025, WordPress will go from one big community to a decentralized collection of users who care less about the mission of open source and more about building their websites.

As sure as the iPhone gets 10% better year after year, so does the software of WordPress.

So yes, that’s part of this prediction: WordPress, the software, does get better—but probably not by all that much.

Playground will start to set an important stage for WordPress—one that I think is needed for the long-term survivability (and interest) of the project. To stay competitive, relevant, and easily accessible, the Playground will take center stage. Here’s why:

As I explored other software in 2024, specifically other CMS apps, no other website allowed me to try their software hands-on in the browser without installing or registering, like WordPress can.

Even if you argue that WordPress is monolithic, uses old technologies, and generally can’t get out of its own way, I don’t see any other tech stack solving the complete stack like WordPress does—website builder, theme layer, drag-and-drop design, publishing, plugins, an ecosystem, etc.

It’s a real lightbulb moment when you put that power instantly into the hands of someone looking to learn, build, or publish online without friction.

Playground allows you to build out a custom WordPress instance, save the blueprint, and then (theoretically) deploy to your hosting provider. Most important of all, it lets you learn how the web and the software work—all thanks to doing it in the browser.

Most developers are already running their own Docker variants for local development, with deployment workflows wired up so deeply on their laptops they forget what directory their shell scripts are in. But for the average user to play with WordPress without risk or cost is a tremendous boon.

In 2025, look for Playground to play a critical role in capturing new users for the platform.

Automattic has a lot of products.

Just look at a portion of the lineup that doesn’t directly impact WordPress: Simplenote, Longreads, Tumblr, Cloudup, Beeper, Pocket Casts, Day One—the list goes on. Yes, I’m sure the case can be made that it fits the a8c culture, but how does it directly make WordPress a better product or experience?

While the band-aid is still being torn off this whole thing, now is the time for Automattic to get hyper-focused on the CMS most of us have a vested interest in. I predict Mullenweg will evaluate whether or not he needs these accessory products to still don the Automattic footer badge.

If my predictions are correct, cutting the distractions at Automattic makes the most business sense.

Matt has signaled to the community and to investors that he’s taking this 20+ year-old project under control. The call for focus was heard, and it’s time to execute.

If we are to believe that Automattic is the sole defender of WordPress, then all resources should go into defending WordPress. Make a better product and double down on that effort.

Reassign the iOS/Android teams within Automattic to the Studio team, bridge the Studio native app to the Playground web-based app, then tie Playground into WordPress.com or Pressable hosting. There’s your flywheel.

An end-to-end WordPress design, development, education, and deployment workflow— but it doesn’t happen with all the extra product overhead hanging around.

In 2025, Automattic closes out a lot of products they don’t need and doubles down on WordPress.

Okay, remember, I’m still trying to make sense of this mess: AI threatens WordPress, and Mullenweg’s John Connor came back to tell him, “If you don’t burn this all down now and take control, you’re screwed!” End scene.

Having gone all in on some AI experimentation last year, I can confidently say that building for the web is changing rapidly, right before our eyes.

Most AI building tools plugged into WordPress are merely parlor tricks. Once users start prompting ChatGPT to build the software they want and it’s hosted in the cloud, the landscape of web development changes dramatically.

At that point, every piece of software is under threat, and so is WordPress’s coveted ~45% of the web. Let’s be clear, that’s not something I’m rooting for, but it looks like the path we’re on.

It’s not all doom and gloom for WordPress, though.

My time with AI has also given me a new appreciation for the software. Sure, I can spin up a blog—built bespoke—using whatever JS framework ChatGPT suggests that day, but it’s not a sustainable way to develop software.

Even if you prompted your AI overlord to “build a WordPress clone,” who’s taking care of the bugs? The security patches? Future iterations of cool features? Not me. Probably not you. It was built, you used it for a while, and then it landed in the digital trash heap.

When WP loses market share to “unknown” AI apps in future charts, it makes up for it when someone chooses WordPress because humans made it, it’s a complete package, and it’s being cared for by Automattic.

AI isn’t doing that for you… yet.

In 2025, look for Automattic to release its first version of building WordPress with AI—whatever that ends up being. Hint: It might start in the Playground.

The 2024 WordPress timeline left us with a lot of uncertainty, but I do believe now is the best time for you to invest here.

There are many of us who still want to see WordPress thrive, even if the hallways to the community look a little different these days.

WordPress is still the foundation of so many livelihoods. Giving back to the project and challenging the status quo will be at a premium—remaining extremely important. And while you might have to get comfortable with a new normal, those who find fresh ways to invest here will see a return on their commitment.