WP Weekly 232 - Energy - Faster Woo, Patterns in Folders, $800K Yearly

The WordPress energy was high at the recently concluded WordCamp Asia 2025. In this issue, check new plugin launches like Role Editor, Frontis Blocks, and WindPress. Also, WooCommerce gets faster, Studio expands with more storage, and layoffs in the WordPress space.

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• Faster WooCommerce… released on February 25, 2025, WooCommerce 9.7 comes with faster performance with 75% faster Block Editor and 99% fewer callbacks. Before: 4,550 callbacks, 2.47s and Now: 24 callbacks, 0.63s statistics for the comparison.
  
  
• Organize Patterns in Folders… Juan Aldasoro shared (Links X) starting in WordPress 6.8, you will be able to organize patterns into folders, making the managing patterns routine easier.
  
  
• Beaver Builder Services… the team at Beaver Builder launched new white label build services for agencies. However, this did not go well with a section of user base – as a result release post was updated with clarification and safeguards.
  
  
• For AI Generated Content… PassiveWP has introduced AI Articles features allowing you to generate content for affiliate marketing with AI powers. It has also added a Content Planner for you to get affiliate content ideas.
  
  

New Plugins: Roles, Media, Blocks, & WP + Tailwind

Role Editor Plugin… the team at Melapress has released a new free Melapress role editor plugin. It allows you to create custom user roles, easily backup / restore user role configurations, and allow / deny capabilities.

Media Sortable Filesize… Austin Passy has created a handy Media Sortable Filesize plugin (GitHub) that displays a new column showing file sizes allowing you to quickly find and delete unnecessary big sized media files.

Frontis Blocks… the team at WP Messiah has released a free block builder plugin, Frontis Blocks in the repository. It features many blocks for dynamic layouts and interactive sections for your content.

WindPress… use Tailwind CSS with WordPress with the WindPress plugin, which has been officially announced. It comes with the out of the box integration for the Block Editor, Bricks, Kadence, and coming soon for Elementor, Divi.

Page Builders Reboot: Oxygen & Builderius

Oxygen ‘Rebuilt’ Release… Oxygen Builder version 6 is a completely rebuilt from the ground up. It promises clean HTML and CSS with performance-first approach. The old Oxygen Classic will remain fully supported.

New Builderius… Builderius Site Builder is making a fresh start 1.0 Free version (beta), promising visual development with code level control. Check what all is new or download the free version from the WordPress repository.

1. Woo Editor Progress… James Kemp shared (Links X), “Work is currently paused on V3 as well because we’re unable to push dataviews and dataforms work upstream to WP. We’re exploring whether we break away from what WP is doing in order to make progress more quickly”. More info about the product editor.
   
   
2. Preview Sites with 2GB… WordPress .com has renamed Studio’s demo sites to preview sites and increased the storage capacity from 250 MB to 2 GB per preview site. Also, has removed the limit of one preview site per Studio site, allowing you to run 5 to 10 sites simultaneously.
   
   
3. WP Milestones… Nick Diego shared about his two plugins, Block Visibility and Icon Block, reaching the 30,000 installs milestone. Mirza Md Hasan shared about the 60,000+ active installs milestone for the Ultimate Addons for Contact Form 7 plugin.
   
   
4. More WP Milestones… Backuply plugin in the directory has crossed the 400K active WordPress installs milestone. Istiak Rayhan shared about the Tableberg plugin crossing the 1000+ installs milestone.
   
   
5. Company Milestones… Brainstorm Force, makers of Astra Theme and many Sure products, is celebrating its 16th year (Links X) anniversary. Courtesy of reviews from over 960 Kinsta customers, G2 has ranked Kinsta at the top for WordPress Hosting and 8th overall (Links X) for all hosting companies.
   
   
6. WordCamps Action… the call for organizers is open for WordCamp US 2025, scheduled for August 26–29th, 2025. Lua Salazar, has been announced this year’s recipient of the WordCamp Europe 2025 Diversity Scholarship.
   
   

New: PerfMatters, PersonalizeWP, WPFullPay, AutoPost

PerfMatters… 2.4.0v loads Dashicons and Elementor animation stylesheets via async for better performance. It has also added new built-in stylesheet exclusion for Bricks post-specific CSS.

PersonalizeWP… 2.8v has introduced Content Variations Block, which allows you to create multiple content variations within a single block with conditionals as per your requirements.

WP Full Pay… 8.1.0v makes accepting payments via Stripe easier with WP Full Pay plugin. New features include donation goals, form preview, new block for easy form embedding, and Stripe customer portal integration.

Autopost for X… 2.3.0v update brings an admin dashboard widget (GitHub) for easy access to API usage statistics. Also, this release bumps the minimum supported version from WordPress 5.7 to 6.5.

Quick Bits

• GeneratePress New Site Templates for electrician & landscaper.
• New Spectra Showcase to see cool websites made with Spectra.
• Good to Note: Oxygen Builder is now free for Breakdance users.
• Gravity SMTP integrations for ElasticEmail, MailerSend, SMTP2GO.
• Astra Starter Templates is removing support for Beaver Builder.
• Core Update: WordPress 6.8 Beta 1 is coming on March 4, 2025.
• Now track courses (Links X) completed on WordPress profile page.
  
  
• WP Community & People
• InfluenceWP has launched Community Space for WordPress users.
• A2 Hosting and Woo are new Global Sponsors for 2025 events.
• “Matt opens up about becoming an internet villain”, Youtube link.
• Felipe Santos now sponsored by Kinsta to work on WP project.
• Tomzur shared 4K+ disposable email domains used by scammers.
• Aaron Jorbin celebrates 15 years of his code in the WordPress core.
  
  

Business of WP: Revenue, Rebranding, Layoffs

WP Fusion Yearly Review… Jack Arturo shared many insights in the 2024 review of WP Fusion. “As of January 2025, WP Fusion powers 34,658 websites and generates about $800,000 / year in revenue”. Moving forward, focus will be on partnerships with other plugin companies.

Freemius Rebranding… popular among WordPress plugin developers, Freemius went for a full rebranding with all new logo, colors, dashboard interface, front end website layout, and dedicated landing pages for WordPress and SaaS creators.

StellarWP Layoffs… StellarWP did a small round of layoffs which accounted for roughly 5% of the organization. “This was ultimately about refining our structure to focus on the highest-impact work”. The most visible face of StellarWP, Michelle Frechette, position was (Links X) also eliminated in this process.

Buzz from WordCamp Asia 2025

• Matt’s ending note & QnA video from WordCamp Asia 2025.
• After WC Asia, Matt left to attend Maha Kumbh Mela, photo.
• Loud Cheer for next (LinkedIn) WordCamp Asia 2026 in India!
• ‘New Era & Uncertain Times’, WC 2025 Recap by Freemius.
• Lawrence’s recap of WC Asia 2025, high quality talks & vibe!
• Photos (Links X): Contributor Day, Day 1, Day 2, Google event.
  
  

P.S. This was my 3rd consecutive attendance at WordCamp Asia. The 2025 edition in Manila was an excellently organized event with more people, interactions, sponsors, and positive energy throughout. Personally, I am more excited as the next 2026 edition of WordCamp Asia is coming to India, see you all there!

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Upcoming Events

Flagship WordCamps
June 05, 2025: WordCamp Europe 2025, Basel, Switzerland.
August 26, 2025: WordCamp US 2025, Oregon, USA.

Online Events for WordPress
March 06, 2025: WP:25 Virtual Conference, by Human Made.
April 15, 2025: DE{CODE} 2025, for WP Builders & Innovators.

Offline Events for WordPress
March 17, 2025: CloudFest 2025, Europa-Park, Germany.
April 23, 2025: PressConf 2025, Tempe, Arizona, USA.
September 25, 2025: LoopConf 2025, London, UK.

More WordCamps
March 07, 2025: WordCamp Madrid 2025, Comunidad de Madrid, Spain.
March 21, 2025: WordCamp Nepal 2025, Kathmandu, Nepal.
April 26, 2025: WordCamp Málaga 2025, Torremolinos (Málaga).

May 17, 2025: WordCamp Johor Bahru 2025, Johor, Malaysia.
May 17, 2025: WordCamp Leipzig 2025, Leipzig, Germany.
May 23, 2025: WordCamp Logroño 2025, La Rioja, España.
June 27, 2025: WordCamp Kraków 2025, Kraków, Poland.
June 28, 2025: WordCamp Montclair 2025, Montclair, NJ, USA.

Business of WordPress database updated: 5 acquisitions in Jan 2025.

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By
Davinder Singh Kainth
A creative who Loves to Create Online Spaces powered by WordPress.

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