WordPress is continually under development. Currently, work is underway on Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project. The Gutenberg project is a reimagination of the way we manage content on the web. Its goal is to broaden access to web presence, which is a foundation of successful modern businesses. Phase 1 was the new block editor, which was released in WordPress 5.0, you can see that in action here. Throughout 2020 there is a focus on full site editing as we continue to progress through Phase 2.
For 2020 the project also has the following 7 priorities, as outlined in this post by project executive director Josepha Haden:
- Creating a block for navigation menus.
- Build a WordPress.org directory for discovering blocks, and a way to seamlessly install them.
- Provide a way for users to opt-in to automatic plugin and theme updates.
- Provide a way for themes to visually register content areas, and expose them in Gutenberg.
- Upgrade the widgets-editing areas and the Customizer to support blocks.
- Provide a way for users to opt-in to automatic updates of major Core releases.
- Form a Triage team to tackle our 6,500 open issues on Trac.
Want to get involved? Head on over to Make WordPress! We can always use more people to help translate, design, document, develop and market WordPress.
Currently planned releases
Here are the current planned releases, and links to their respective milestones in our issue tracker. Any projected dates are for discussion and planning purposes, and will be firmed up as we get closer to release.
| Version | Planned |
|---|---|
| 5.6 (Trac) | December 2020 |
| 5.7 | March 2021 |
| 5.8 | June 2021 |
| 5.9 | September 2021 |
| 6.0 | December 2021 |
For more information on the planned release schedule, please read the Make WordPress Core post about the tentative release calendar for 2020-2021.
The month prior to a release new features are frozen and the focus is entirely on ensuring the quality of the release by eliminating bugs and profiling the code for any performance issues.
You can see an overview of previous releases on our history page.
Long term roadmap
While Phase 2 of Gutenberg is expected to continue at least through 2020, there are already plans for Phase 3 and 4. During the State of the Word from WordCamp US 2019, Matt shared the following vision for phases in Gutenberg:
The Four Phases of Gutenberg
- Easier Editing — Already available in WordPress, with ongoing improvements
- Customization — Full Site editing, Block Patterns, Block Directory, Block based themes
- Collaboration — A more intuitive way to co-author content
- Multi-lingual — Core implementation for Multi-lingual sites