Last Updated: December 2, 2025
- WordPress development is back in full motion, but the real question now is how it stacks up against tools like Wix, Shopify, and Webflow going into 2026.
- Gutenberg, full site editing, and block themes are no longer experiments; they are the core experience, which is great in some areas and still rough in others.
- Automattic and the broader WordPress project have pushed into AI, data portability, and performance, yet hosted competitors have not stood still either.
- If you build sites for a living, WordPress is still a strong choice, but not for every use case, and you need to be more intentional about when you pick it.
WordPress did pause some core contributions for a few months during the legal fight with WP Engine, but by now that moment is just one chapter in a longer story about direction, competition, and trust.
The better question is not whether the pause hurt; it is whether WordPress has turned that turbulence into a clear path forward, or whether it quietly lost ground while others doubled down on simplicity and AI.
Where WordPress Stands Now: Big Picture
If you zoom out, WordPress still powers a large chunk of the web, especially content-heavy and SEO-focused sites, but its growth pace is slower than it used to be.
Hosted builders like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and Webflow keep growing faster among first-time site owners who want something that works out of the box with as few decisions as possible.
| Platform | Strength in 2026 | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress.org | Flexibility, plugins, custom workflows, SEO control | Onboarding, maintenance, decision fatigue for beginners |
| WordPress.com | Managed hosting with WP power, growing AI tools | Limits vs self-hosted, confusing brand split |
| Wix | Fast launch, strong AI setup, visual editor | Less control for complex builds, export constraints |
| Shopify | Ecommerce-focused, strong app ecosystem, AI for stores | Content and non-store sites feel secondary |
| Webflow | Visual control for designers, clean code export | Learning curve, pricing for small projects |
WordPress has not collapsed, and it is not “dead,” but it has shifted from being the default choice for everything to being the smart choice for certain types of projects.
So if you are building a simple one-page site or a tiny local service page with no long-term content plan, a no-code SaaS builder often feels easier and faster than spinning up WordPress.
For multi-author sites, content-heavy blogs, membership communities, or complex ecommerce with custom logic, WordPress still gives you more control than almost anything else.
Looking Back: The Pause, The Lawsuit, And What Actually Changed
Automattic’s short pause on core contributions during the WP Engine dispute felt scary at the time, but with distance it looks more like a temporary wobble than a permanent shift.
Community contributors kept shipping patches, hosts carried on, and the core roadmap never fully stopped; it just slowed and got messier around communication.
Automattic vs WP Engine: Why It Mattered And What It Taught Everyone
The legal fight centered on licensing, trademarks, and how commercial WordPress hosting should work inside an open source ecosystem, and it forced a lot of people to think harder about who actually controls what.
Automattic paused some contributions while its legal team went to work, WP Engine pushed its own narrative, and the wider community watched with a mix of confusion and concern.
The real damage was not the pause itself; it was the feeling that something as big as WordPress could be slowed down by a fight between two companies that do not own the project outright.
Over time, the dust settled a bit, and the lesson was pretty clear: WordPress.org, WordPress.com, and Automattic are related, but not the same thing, and that nuance matters for long-term trust.
Hosts, agencies, and plugin developers started asking sharper questions about governance, funding, and what would happen if one big company pulled back from the project again.
Who Actually Drives WordPress Development?
This part is still misunderstood, even by people who have used WordPress for years.
There are really three layers you need to keep in mind.
- WordPress.org: The open source software, built by a global group of contributors, release leads, and teams like core, design, polyglots, etc.
- Automattic: A private company that contributes a lot of code and money, runs WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and more.
- Commercial ecosystem: Hosts, agencies, plugin and theme shops that profit from WordPress but do not “own” it.
Automattic has heavy influence because it funds people, leads projects, and sets a lot of the tone, but it does not fully control what goes into core in the way a closed SaaS company can control its product.
During the pause, non-Automattic contributors kept working, but the signal from the top looked shaky enough that many felt uneasy shipping big changes without clarity.
If you build your business on WordPress, the main takeaway is simple: do not assume Automattic is the same as the WordPress project, but also do not pretend its decisions are irrelevant.
Did Development Really Recover After The Pause?
Once Automattic resumed contributions, core releases started hitting their usual cadence again: a couple of major versions a year, plus security and maintenance releases in between.
The difference is not so much the raw number of releases, but where the energy is going now: collaboration tools, multilingual foundations, performance, and better block workflows.
| Year | Major Core Releases | Main Themes |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 6.0, 6.1 | Early full site editing, patterns, block themes stabilizing |
| 2023 | 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 | Site editor improvements, performance, design tools |
| 2024 | 6.5, 6.6 | Block library polish, revisions, more FSE maturity |
| 2025 | 6.7, 6.8, 6.9 | Collaboration groundwork, better workflows, AI-friendly hooks |
Some releases were mostly under-the-hood and not flashy, which can make it feel like “nothing is happening” if you only look at big UI changes or marketing pages.
But for developers and agencies, the pattern is clear enough: WordPress is trying to make blocks and the site editor stable enough that you can bet your workflow on them long-term.
Gutenberg, Full Site Editing, And The Real State Of The Editor
Gutenberg is no longer the “new” editor; it is simply how WordPress works, for better or worse.
We are deep into the multi-phase plan: content editing is stable, site editing is usable, and collaboration and multilingual features are the new frontier.
Where Gutenberg Is Now
Blocks power everything from paragraphs to menus to headers, and full site editing lets you control entire layouts through the Site Editor, not just posts and pages.
Patterns and synced patterns have matured into a real design system layer, so you can create reusable sections and update them in one place.
- Global styles let you tweak typography, colors, and spacing across an entire site.
- More core blocks are flexible enough that you do not always need a page builder.
- Revisions and history around templates and patterns are less scary than in the early days.
Is it perfect? Not really.
But it is miles ahead of the clunky early FSE versions that scared many agencies into freezing their stack.
Classic Editor, Page Builders, And Adoption Reality
The Classic Editor plugin still has millions of installs, and that alone tells you something: plenty of users either dislike blocks or feel they cannot risk changing their workflows yet.
At the same time, block themes and block-based workflows keep growing, especially for new sites instead of legacy ones.
| Editor / Approach | Who Tends To Use It | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Editor | Longtime site owners, editors with muscle memory | Predictable, simple, minimal training |
| Gutenberg blocks + FSE | New sites, agencies betting on core tools | Better performance, fewer plugins, modern layouts |
| Third-party page builders (Elementor, Bricks, etc.) | Design-focused agencies, freelancers | Visual control, templates, structured workflows |
If you are still expecting blocks to “kill” page builders, you are probably looking at it the wrong way; they now live side by side, and most agencies pick one stack and stick with it.
Competitor platforms used the earlier confusion around Gutenberg to pull in non-technical users with polished visual editors, but the gap is not as dramatic anymore, at least for people who live in WordPress every day.
The bigger issue is onboarding: hosted builders still do a better job of hiding complexity from someone who has never seen a CMS before.
What First-Time Users Experience In WordPress Today
If you spin up a new WordPress site now using a modern host, the first run feels very different from the classic “blank site and a weird sample post” days.
You usually see a guided setup, suggested themes or block patterns, and sometimes AI-assisted starter content right inside the onboarding flow.
- Default block themes like Twenty Twenty-Four and Twenty Twenty-Five focus on patterns, not custom code.
- The pattern directory makes it easier to drop in ready-made sections for hero areas, pricing, FAQs, and more.
- Some hosts layer their own onboarding on top with niche-specific templates for restaurants, coaches, SaaS, and so on.
Even with those improvements, the admin still feels busy and old-school to someone who comes from Wix or Shopify.
Menus, plugins, themes, tools, settings; it is a lot, and most beginners do not know which parts matter and which can be ignored for now.
AI In WordPress Vs Competitors: Hype Or Real Help?
AI is now baked into most website tools, and WordPress is part of that story, but not always in the same way as managed SaaS platforms.
Where Wix or Shopify position AI as the main entry point for building a site, WordPress tends to treat AI as something you plug in where it makes sense.
What Automattic And The WordPress Ecosystem Have Shipped With AI
Automattic moved from “we formed an AI team” to actually shipping usable features across its products and hosting stack.
You see AI pop up in content generation, pattern suggestions, support tooling, and even performance hints.
- Jetpack AI helps with drafting posts, rewriting copy, summarizing text, and generating structured content blocks without leaving the editor.
- WordPress.com adds AI prompts during setup and in its editor to suggest headings, outlines, and starter pages.
- WooCommerce tools help store owners generate product descriptions and sometimes meta data faster than typing from scratch.
- Third-party AI plugins integrate with popular LLMs to build chatbots, search, and email sequences on top of WordPress content.
On the core side, the focus is less about “AI inside WordPress” and more about giving plugin developers hooks to plug in AI in a predictable way for blocks, patterns, and workflows.
That feels less magical at first glance, but it fits how WordPress works: core stays lean, and the ecosystem fills in the AI options.
How That Compares To Wix, Shopify, And Others
Competitors went hard on AI as a selling point, and their on-rails model gives them an advantage for beginner flows.
They can guide a user through a tight wizard without the complexity of plugins, themes, and hosting choices.
- Wix leans on “answer a few questions and get a full layout,” with AI-selected design, sections, and content in one shot.
- Shopify offers AI for theme setup, product creation, customer emails, and store automation in a clearly branded way.
- Squarespace and Webflow ship assistants that suggest structures, layouts, and content tailored to your niche.
WordPress, by contrast, feels more like a toolbox than an assistant: you can assemble a powerful AI stack, but you need to pick the pieces and connect them.
This is a strength for agencies that want control, but it keeps the barrier higher for someone looking for “build my site for me with one prompt.”
If your client expects AI to build a nearly finished site from three sentences and a logo, a hosted builder still does that job more cleanly than a typical WordPress stack.
Is WordPress Leading Anywhere In AI?
Where WordPress starts to shine is at the intersection of AI and content libraries, because you are not locked into one vendor’s stack.
You can connect your site’s data to different models, host parts of that logic yourself, or integrate AI into very specific workflows in the editor, ecommerce, support, or membership areas.
For example, agencies are building custom AI helpers that:
- Generate content briefs based on existing posts and search data.
- Summarize comments and reviews, then feed insights back into product pages.
- Support editors by checking style guidelines and internal linking opportunities right inside Gutenberg.
That level of control is harder to achieve on closed platforms where you only get whatever AI tools the vendor ships.
If you care about data ownership, long-term portability, and custom flows, WordPress gives you more room to experiment with AI in a way that fits your stack, not just theirs.
Market Share, Data Liberation, And The Competitive Edge
There is a pattern that is easy to miss: WordPress is not chasing every trend at the same speed as hosted builders, but it is quietly doubling down on one thing that matters a lot over time.
That thing is portability.
Market Trends: Where WordPress Is Strong And Where It Is Losing
WordPress still dominates content-driven sites, blogs, and many small business sites, especially where SEO and flexibility matter.
But new creators who just want something live today are more likely to reach for SaaS tools, which shows in their growth trends.
- WordPress keeps a large share of the CMS market but is not growing like it did a decade ago.
- Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify continue to gain small business users who never touch PHP or hosting panels.
- Webflow and similar tools attract designers who care about clean front-end control without learning WordPress internals.
Instead of pretending that everyone will come back, WordPress leadership has leaned into something those platforms cannot easily offer: smooth exit paths.
The Data Liberation Project
One of the more interesting moves is the “Data Liberation” push, which aims to make it much easier to move content into WordPress from closed platforms.
The idea is simple: if Wix or Squarespace does not give you a clean export, WordPress tools will help you migrate your site with a few clicks.
- Migration tools pull in pages, posts, images, and basic structure where possible.
- They try to map designs to block patterns and themes so you do not start from nothing.
- Hosts and agencies can build on top of this to offer “switch to WordPress” packages.
Instead of fighting every SaaS builder head-on at day one, WordPress is quietly saying: “Start wherever you want, but when you feel boxed in, we will help you move.”
From an SEO and long-term content perspective, that matters a lot, because content locked into platforms with poor export options is a real risk for any serious business.
WordPress is betting that more mature sites will eventually need flexibility, ownership, and independence from one vendor’s roadmap.
Onboarding, Themes, And The 2026 Beginner Experience
One fair criticism is that WordPress talked for years about better onboarding without showing much, but the past couple of cycles have added real improvements.
They are not perfect, but they are actually noticeable.
- Modern default themes like Twenty Twenty-Four and Twenty Twenty-Five are more than demos; they are serious starting points built around patterns.
- Setup flows now encourage picking a style and layout first instead of dumping you into a generic blog page.
- A growing library of niche patterns and starter sites makes it easier to create something decent without design skills.
Many managed WordPress hosts add their own wizards on top, with niche-specific blueprints and plugin bundles, which can smooth out the first hour a lot.
Still, if you compare that to the guided walkthroughs in Wix or Shopify, WordPress feels like it is catching up, not leading, on pure ease-of-use for a total beginner.
Governance, Transparency, And Trust
The combination of the Automattic pause, the legal fight, and the fast-moving web world pushed more people to ask hard questions about how decisions get made.
There has been more public discussion around roadmaps, project priorities, and the split between WordPress.org and commercial interests.
Some of the responses:
- More detailed posts on make/core about upcoming phases like collaboration and multilingual support.
- Clearer framing of what is experimental versus stable inside Gutenberg and the site editor.
- More emphasis on “data liberation” and open standards as a strategic direction, not just a side project.
Is governance fully transparent and perfectly balanced? No, and I doubt it ever will be in a project this complex.
But for agencies and serious site owners, there is at least a stronger sense of what the big bets are: blocks, collaboration, multilingual, performance, AI hooks, and data portability.
Should You Still Choose WordPress In 2026?
This is where I think many people go wrong: they want a single answer for all situations, and that just does not exist anymore.
WordPress is still a great choice, but only if it lines up with your real constraints, not just what you used five years ago.
When WordPress Is A Strong Choice
If you care about long-term content, SEO, and flexibility, WordPress usually makes a lot of sense.
Same if you need workflows that are more complex than a typical drag-and-drop builder expects.
- Content-heavy sites: blogs, news, resources, documentation, and knowledge bases.
- Multi-author publishing with editorial workflows, roles, and custom post types.
- Stores with non-standard rules, integrations, or custom checkout flows.
- Membership, LMS, communities, or anything that mixes content, users, and payments.
- Projects where you care about owning your data and possibly migrating hosts or stacks later.
When You Should Seriously Consider Alternatives
If your priority is to launch something small as fast as possible with minimal decisions and you do not plan to extend it much, a hosted builder is usually easier.
There is no reason to force WordPress into every project just because it is familiar.
- One-page or very small brochure sites with no complex content model.
- Micro-stores with a handful of products and no special logic.
- Personal portfolios where visual polish matters more than deep customization.
- Projects where the owner refuses to touch updates, plugins, or anything technical, ever.
| Scenario | WordPress? | Alternative? |
|---|---|---|
| SEO-heavy blog with long-term content plan | Strong fit | Others possible, but less flexible |
| Launch a small site this afternoon with minimal effort | Can work, but not ideal | Wix / Squarespace often better |
| Standard ecommerce store without complex rules | Good, especially with WooCommerce | Shopify also a great fit |
| High-design marketing site built by designers | Good with the right stack | Webflow a strong alternative |
If you are an agency, the real competitive edge in 2026 is not “we use WordPress,” it is “we know when WordPress is the right tool and when it is not, and we can explain that clearly to clients.”
Using WordPress by default for everything can slow your projects down and actually weaken your pitch, because clients can tell when you are forcing a tool into the wrong job.
Being honest about tradeoffs might lose you a few quick jobs, but it builds far more trust with good clients who care about the long term.
What This Means For Your Next Move
If you are already deep in the WordPress world, the main takeaway is not panic; it is focus.
Blocks, full site editing, AI helpers, and data liberation are not just buzzwords; they are the areas where the project is actually investing time and energy.
For agencies, developers, and serious site owners, that means a few practical steps.
Nothing fancy, just the boring work that compounds over time.
Practical Steps If You Stay With WordPress
- Standardize your stack around modern block themes and a small, battle-tested set of plugins.
- Start moving legacy Classic Editor installs to blocks where it makes financial sense, not blindly.
- Experiment with AI tools inside WordPress for writing, briefs, and internal workflows before your clients bring their own messy solutions.
- Document your own onboarding flow so beginners face fewer choices and clearer paths, instead of the raw admin.
- Keep an eye on data liberation tools so you can confidently pitch migrations from closed platforms.
If you decide that a different platform fits a project better, that does not mean you are “leaving” WordPress; it just means you are treating it as one tool among many.
That mental shift alone can make your decisions calmer and more logical.
How To Think About WordPress Going Forward
WordPress is no longer the scrappy outsider it once was, but it is not a slow dinosaur either.
It sits in a middle space: flexible, messy, powerful, and occasionally frustrating.
Some competitors outpace it in polish and AI onboarding, while WordPress still wins on openness, extensibility, and long-term control.
Both realities can be true at the same time, and pretending otherwise just hurts your strategy.
If you approach WordPress as a stable core plus a rich ecosystem, not a one-click magic solution, it still has a strong future for serious web projects.
Your job is to match that reality with what your clients and projects actually need, instead of fighting yesterday’s battles about which CMS “wins” in some abstract way.
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