WordPress News Roundup November 2018: WordPress 5.0 Reaches Release Candidate as Gutenberg Passes 1 Million Installs

November 2018 was a month of moving dates and rising pressure. WordPress 5.0 went through three more betas, saw its release date pushed from November 19 to November 27 and then left open, and finally reached release candidate status over the US Thanksgiving holiday. By the time RC2 arrived on November 30, the Gutenberg plugin had passed a million active installations.

The project also launched HelpHub, its new home for user documentation, and set a firm end date for official Classic Editor support. Security researchers, meanwhile, were tracking attacks against a GDPR plugin installed on many thousands of sites.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

• WPBeginner Growth Accelerator invests in CaseProof and Formidable Forms (November 6): Syed Balkhi’s new fund announced its first round, taking stakes in CaseProof, the maker of MemberPress, and in Formidable Forms.

Beyond that, companies were focused squarely on shipping Gutenberg-compatible updates before 5.0 landed.

WordPress Core Updates

• Beta 3, 4 and 5: Beta 3 arrived on November 5, Beta 4 on November 13 and Beta 5 on November 16, the last adding permalink editing to the document sidebar.
• Release date moves: On November 9 the target moved from November 19 to November 27, and later in the month the team said the final date would depend on feedback from the release candidates.
• RC1 (November 23) and RC2 (November 30): The first release candidate shipped over the US Thanksgiving holiday despite last-minute objections from some contributors, followed by RC2 on the last day of the month.
• Classic Editor through 2021: On November 7, the project confirmed that the Classic Editor plugin would be officially supported until December 31, 2021, and said the team was considering including it with upgrades to 5.0.
• Listening sessions and FAQ: Matt Mullenweg held one-to-one office hours with community members and published an extended Gutenberg FAQ.
• Mobile apps: The mobile team said a beta of the block editor in the WordPress apps was expected in February 2019.

Other WordPress News

• HelpHub goes live: The long-running project to move user documentation off the Codex reached a milestone as HelpHub became the official home of WordPress Support.
• Spanish translation record: The Spanish community, with more than 2,500 contributors, translated more of the project than ever, including core, WordPress.org, the mobile apps and the top 120 plugins.
• Mullenweg at WordCamp Portland: In a Q&A at the end of WordCamp Portland on November 3, Matt Mullenweg addressed the controversies around Gutenberg directly.
• WordCamp ticket cap rises: Maximum WordCamp ticket prices were set to rise to $25 per day in 2019.
• Kim Parsell scholarship: Nidhi Jain was named the 2018 recipient of the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship, which supports a woman contributor attending WordCamp US for the first time.
• Figma and WordPress: Figma donated an organizational membership to the WordPress project to improve design collaboration.
• WPCampus audit fundraising: WPCampus sought to raise $30,000 for an independent accessibility audit of Gutenberg.
• Quarterly updates: Contributor teams posted their Q3 2018 update.
• WordCamp Europe 2020: Organizers opened a call for host cities.
• Theme and plugin readiness: Authors of popular WordPress.org themes rolled out Gutenberg compatibility updates, Automattic promised full support in its free themes including Storefront, and plugins such as NextGEN Gallery and Jetpack 6.8 added block editor support ahead of 5.0.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• WP GDPR Compliance exploited: On November 8, Wordfence reported that a privilege escalation flaw in the WP GDPR Compliance plugin was being exploited in the wild, letting unauthenticated attackers change site options and create administrator accounts. The plugin was patched, but many sites were compromised before updating.
• AMP for WP campaign: On November 20, Wordfence described an XSS injection campaign exploiting the recently fixed AMP for WP plugin, which had returned to the directory with a patch in mid-November.
• Lesson of the month: Both incidents involved plugins sold on compliance or performance benefits, a reminder that every added plugin is also added attack surface.

Industry Trends and Insights

• Release timing under scrutiny: The decision to push toward a release just before WordCamp US and the holiday season drew criticism from agencies worried about supporting clients through a major change in December.
• A million testers: Gutenberg passing one million active installs showed that, despite the debate, a large audience was already using the editor.
• Open source competitors: ExpressionEngine went open source after 16 years, and Drupal prepared its own Layout Builder, showing that other CMS projects were rethinking content editing too.
• Custom blocks for everyone: New tools such as Block Lab made it possible to build custom blocks without deep React knowledge, lowering the barrier for PHP-focused developers.

Theme of the Month: Storefront

WooCommerce’s official theme, Storefront, was among the Automattic themes promised full Gutenberg compatibility in November. For the very large number of stores built on it, that commitment meant store owners could plan for 5.0 with more confidence.

Plugin of the Month: Block Lab

Launched in November, Block Lab let developers define custom blocks through an admin interface and simple PHP templates. At a moment when many agencies feared they would need to retrain in React, it offered a practical bridge into the block editor.

Host of the Month: SiteGround

SiteGround, one of the hosts recommended on WordPress.org, offered WordPress-specific tooling such as staging and in-house caching. Staging environments were especially valuable in November, when site owners wanted to test the 5.0 release candidates before the final release.

Founder of the Month: Rachel Cherry

Rachel Cherry founded WPCampus, the community for people using WordPress in higher education. In November she led the effort to fund an independent accessibility audit of Gutenberg, turning a heated debate into a concrete plan to measure and fix problems.

Looking Ahead to December 2018

All signs point to WordPress 5.0 shipping in early December, possibly just before WordCamp US in Nashville, where Matt Mullenweg will deliver the State of the Word. PHP 7.3 is also due in December, and PHP 5.6 reaches end of life on December 31. Expect quick follow-up maintenance releases once the new editor reaches millions of sites.