r/CloudwaysbyDO

After much delay, WordPress 7.0 is finally scheduled to be released on May 20, 2026.

One of the key and most anticipated features is the real-time collaboration feature. This means changes made by your team members will synchronize in real time, meaning multiple users can edit the same page without locking each other out.

Based on recent core development logs, we know there's an urgent push right now for web hosts to test collaborative editing by May 4th. The core team is also focusing on the Presence API Feature Plugin and integrating Gutenberg 23.0.

With WordPress 7.0 being the first major release of 2026, I want to know where everyone stands on the direction the release squad is taking:

• Are we actually excited about collaborative editing and the Presence API? Do you see your clients or teams using this, or does it feel unnecessary?
• What are your thoughts on the new Gutenberg updates?
• What features do you think are actually useful, and which ones just feel like bloat?

What do you think will be the best addition in 7.0 and what seems boring/not useful? Drop your thoughts below!

We often see agencies force clients into expensive Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 plans when all they need is a professional email address that works. The Cloudways Rackspace Email add-on is the middle ground, as many of you may know of may be already using. For $1/month, your clients get:

• 25GB Mailboxes for plenty of space for years of business communication.
• strict privacy which means no email scanning for ad targeting, your client's data remains private.
• a 1-click installation from the Cloudways dashboard.

We even provide premade templates in our DNS add-on to configure the MX records instantly. If your clients have trouble with Outlook or mobile sync, our team (and Rackspace's) is available 24/7/365 to help.

While this add-on is a professional solution that respects your client's budget while giving you one less thing to manage, some people may still choose to work with G-suite. Are you one of them? Are you using the Rackspace add-on and if yes, would you recommend it? Share your honest opinions below.

Hey devs,

With the WordPress 7.0 release (May 20, 2026) inching closer, I want to cut through the general UI updates and share a developer-specific breakdown of the API changes, new tools, and deprecations you need to prep for.

Here is what's actually changing in 7.0:

1. PHP Minimum Version Bump

WordPress 7.0 drops support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3. The new absolute minimum is PHP 7.4, with PHP 8.2+ recommended. If you maintain plugins or manage older client environments, get those updated now.

2. Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) Architecture & Blockers

RTC is the flagship feature, but it has some massive implications for how we build plugins:

• The architecture: It uses Yjs as the underlying CRDT engine with HTTP polling. Core actually delayed the 7.0 release to overhaul the database architecture—moving sync data away from post_meta (which was killing persistent post query caches) into a dedicated database table.
• The meta box warning: If you are still relying on add_meta_box(), beware: classic meta boxes will disable collaboration mode for that post. You'll need to migrate to register_post_meta() and PluginSidebar components to ensure compatibility with RTC.
• Custom transports: If you want to use WebSockets instead of HTTP polling, you can customize the transport using the new sync.providers filter.

3. Native AI Integrations (WP AI Client & Connectors API)

Core is shipping a standardized PHP library (WP AI Client) to interface with AI services like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Instead of writing direct API calls to specific LLMs in your plugins, you can use this abstraction layer, allowing users to swap providers without you rewriting your code. Alongside this, the new Connectors API handles credentials storage and provider selection at the platform level.

4. Interactivity API Deprecations & Block Scaffolding

• Deprecation alert: If you use the Interactivity API, state.navigation is now deprecated. You need to migrate to the new watch() function and server-side state.url population.
• Faster scaffolding: u/wordpress/create-block has a new interactive variant that generates client-side navigation out of the box (handling pagination, search parameters, etc.).
• Pattern overrides: Synced pattern overrides have been extended to support custom blocks, allowing per-instance content edits on blocks you've built.

5. Block Visibility Metadata Structure Change

Core is introducing viewport-based block visibility (show/hide on mobile, tablet, desktop) using CSS. Important: The blockVisibility metadata key is changing from a boolean to an object. If your custom code parses this metadata server-side, you need to update it to handle the object structure.

6. Long-Awaited theme.json Upgrades

Theme developers finally get pseudo-element support for buttons (:hover, :focus, :focus-visible, :active) directly in theme.json. No more injecting custom CSS just to handle interactive states! You can also now style the active/current menu item for Navigation Links directly via theme.json.

7. Build Tooling Upgrade (esbuild)

If you use u[/]wordpress[/]scripts for your build pipeline, take note: u[/]wordpress[/]build has been introduced which replaces the Webpack/Babel pipeline with a significantly faster esbuild-based engine. It also auto-generates PHP registration files directly from your package.json.

8. WordPress Playground MCP Server

For the AI tooling nerds: Playground now has an official MCP server package (@wp-playground/mcp). You can wire Claude Code or Gemini CLI directly to a local Playground instance via WebSockets to execute PHP, manage files, read/write to the database, and navigate pages entirely through conversation.

Which API changes are you most excited (or concerned) about? Has anyone started migrating their meta boxes to React sidebars yet?

Hi all, yesterday my server had about eight hundred 404 requests in 10 minutes from the same IP address and this caused Load Average to spike to 30 and caused the server to go down - does Cloudways have any firewall rule that should respond to this kind of bot traffic, for example after 10 consecutive 404 requests the IP address is immediately banned ?

Here is a short sample, continues for 800 requests...

34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:53 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788253 5.026 62914560 12.53% 3.78% "/api.zip"
34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:54 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788495 5.296 62914560 10.76% 2.45% "/api.tar.gz"
34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:55 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788506 5.855 62914560 9.39% 3.59% "/api.tgz"
34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:57 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788521 4.430 62914560 12.19% 3.61% "/api.tar.bz2"
34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:56 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788513 6.157 62914560 9.75% 3.09% "/api.tar"
34.32.81.23 - [13/May/2026:21:31:58 +0000] "GET /index.php" 404 0 - 443147 788525 4.575 62914560 11.15% 3.06% "/api.tar.xz"