Ever wished you could double your traffic by reaching international audiences who don’t speak English?

Imagine if you could click a few buttons to translate your entire WordPress site into 70+ languages without hiring a developer or professional translators. 

Sadly, most website translation tools are either crazy expensive, painfully slow, or so poorly built that they damage your SEO the moment you activate them. 

It simply shouldn’t be this hard to speak to your global audience in their own language.

That’s why today, I’m excited to announce Universally, an AI-powered translation platform that turns your WordPress site into a fully-translated, SEO-ready, multilingual experience in minutes.

Simply put, Universally is truly the “set-it-and-forget-it” translation engine you’ve always been waiting for.

Background Story – Why Universally?

For years, I’ve wanted to translate WPBeginner and my other eCommerce websites into multiple languages because we have users from around the world and many have even asked for it. 

So, last year I decided to give it a try. 

The journey of making a multilingual eCommerce website in WordPress is a lot bumpier than I would’ve hoped. And the problem extends to every mid to large content site as well.

That’s because every well-known WordPress translation plugin inefficiently stores translations inside the WordPress database. I tried them all on WPBeginner, and every single one of them made our WordPress admin area so slow that the post editor was practically unusable. 

When we tested them on our eCommerce sites (both Woo and EDD), we noticed that the performance impact was on our entire checkout process, and that’s not good for conversions & revenue. 

Out of every WordPress translation plugin that I tried, only ONE worked, but it required converting the website into a WordPress multisite which comes with its own set of complexities and technical challenges.

As I went through this process, I literally thought to myself why is this so hard? Clearly there has to be a better solution.

So I looked into some well-known SaaS solutions that offered AI translations, and they worked very well. Unfortunately, the cost for us would be hundreds of thousands of dollars to use their platform for just WPBeginner alone. If I included my other brands like WPForms, AIOSEO, and others, our translation cost would likely go into 7 figures.

In the age of AI, translation platforms shouldn’t be this expensive. The new AI models have gotten so much better that a small business owner who is not leveraging translations is just missing out.

After going through this painful process personally over the last year, I asked our team to build an AI website translation platform that we can use for our own brands, and make it available to our community (YOU).

Because in 2026, small businesses and eCommerce website owners need an easy & affordable way to translate their websites without having to compromise on website speed.

That’s exactly what Universally offers.

The best part is that it will work on all website platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Loveable, Replit, etc. 

You simply connect your website with Universally, select the languages, and let our intelligent multilingual AI platform expand your global reach.

We have already translated over 250 million words on the platform during our internal launch and private beta.

Here’s a quick overview:

What is Universally?

Universally is an AI-powered website translation platform built for WordPress site owners, WooCommerce stores, SaaS companies, and agencies that need to go multilingual without the usual translation headaches.

Once installed, it automatically detects every translatable element on your site, including blog content, button text, menu items, form labels, image alt tags, schema.org data, even your product descriptions in WooCommerce, and more. 

Universally translates them into 70+ languages within minutes.

Unlike traditional plugins, Universally doesn’t store anything extra in your WordPress database. No duplicate posts, bloated tables, or slowdowns. Translations live on Universally’s cloud and content is delivered from edge (cloud servers closest to the user). This means your international visitors will likely see a faster version of your website, never slower.

Here’s what makes it special:

Full Website Translation in Minutes, Not Months

If you’ve ever worked with a translator, you know how tedious the process is…

You export strings to a spreadsheet and send it to a translator. You get the translated content 2 weeks later, only to realize that the context is wrong. So, you’ll have to repeat the same process… and for every language you want to translate.

Universally skips that entire back and forth.

You pick your target languages once, and within minutes your entire site is live in every language you selected, including content you forgot you had (old blog posts, archived product pages, buried checkout strings).

And it doesn’t stop there. Every time you publish or edit a post in your source language, Universally automatically catches the change and pushes the updated translation across every language version. You never have to remember to “also translate this” again.

For quality, Universally targets 90-95% AI accuracy out of the box, with optional professional human translation available for critical pages like your pricing page, checkout flow, or legal terms.

Multilingual SEO That Actually Works (Without a Developer)

Multilingual SEO is where most translation tools quietly fall apart.

Google has very specific rules for multilingual sites. You need hreflang tags on every page. You also need translated meta titles and descriptions, properly structured URLs, and multilingual XML sitemaps. 

For Arabic and Hebrew translation, you need RTL (right to left) support to ensure those languages are properly displayed.

Miss any of those rules and Google either ignores your translated pages entirely or flags them as duplicate content.

Universally handles all of it automatically.

It provides:

• Automatic hreflang tags on every language version
• Translated title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags
• Schema.org / JSON-LD structured data translation
• Automatic lang attribute and dir=”rtl” for right-to-left languages
• Multilingual XML sitemaps generated automatically
• Internal link rewriting (your /about link becomes /fr/about on French pages… without you lifting a finger)
• Subdirectory, subdomain, or separate-domain URL structures supported

AI Glossary – Protect Your Brand in Every Language

If you’ve ever seen a major brand’s product name get awkwardly translated into a random foreign word, then you know how painful this can be.

Universally’s AI Glossary lets you lock down specific terms, like your brand name, product names, technical vocabulary, legal wording and so on. That way they either stay untouched across every language or get forced into a specific translation.

You can build the glossary manually, let Universally’s AI suggest entries based on your existing content, or import your terminology into Universally.

A Language Switcher That Looks Great

You can place the Universally language switcher in multiple locations on your website, depending on your layout and user experience needs.

Universally gives you four built-in switcher styles, such as bottom right, bottom left, top right, and top left. It also comes with a Language Switcher block as well. 

The Most Affordable AI Translation Tool

Universally is the most affordable AI translation tool on the market. Compared to other platforms, like Weglot, for example, Universally is up to 50% cheaper. 

Here’s how to try Universally on your site:

✅ Step 1: Sign up for a free Universally account. The free plan gives you 1 site, 1 language, and 2,000 translated words per month… no credit card required.

✅ Step 2: Install the Universally plugin from the Universally site.

✅ Step 3: Paste your API key into the plugin settings.

✅ Step 4: Pick your source language and target languages, then save.

Universally starts translating immediately, and your language switcher appears on your site automatically.

If you need more words or more languages, you can consider using the paid plans, which start at $7.5/month when paid annually.

What’s Coming Next?

My goal with WPBeginner has always been to help small businesses grow & compete with the big guys.

Every big company is already translating their websites and expanding their global reach. We’re building Universally to level the playing field, so small businesses can also expand their global presence.

We’re truly building something special, and it would mean a lot to me if you join us on the journey while also expanding your global audience. My goal is to make Universally, the best translation solution on the market, and the best way to do that is by listening to you.

I would love to hear your honest feedback.

While we have an exciting roadmap ahead, I want to make sure we’re building exactly what you need. If you have ideas for languages, features, or platform integrations that would make your life easier, please send us your suggestions.

If you’re an agency that builds multilingual websites, we would love to work with you.

If you’ve been putting off translating your site because it felt too expensive, too technical, or too fragile, give Universally a real look. The free plan is genuinely free, and you can see your website running in a second language in less than 10 minutes. 

Thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner and the products I’ve been part of over the years. I look forward to helping you reach a global audience without the complexity, cost, or maintenance headaches that have held WordPress site owners back for years in making their websites truly multilingual.

Let’s make websites universally accessible.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post Introducing Universally: Translate Your Entire WordPress Site with AI in Minutes first appeared on WPBeginner.

WordCamp US 2026 will take place August 16–19 in Phoenix, Arizona, and applications are now open for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. WordCamp US is the flagship gathering for the WordPress community in North America, where contributors, builders, and users come together to share ideas and help shape what comes next for the open web. Full details are available on the WordCamp US 2026 site.

Sponsor

Sponsorships keep WordCamp US accessible. They fund the production and programming that make a flagship WordCamp possible while keeping ticket prices low for attendees, and, in return, sponsors gain direct visibility within one of the most engaged technology ecosystems. Packages support both in-person and digital participation, with opportunities to connect with agencies, developers, and enterprise teams that build on WordPress every day.

Speak

The organizing team is looking for strong ideas with practical takeaways from across the community, whether that means a personal story, a lesson learned in production, or a perspective on where publishing, AI, and the open web are heading. Sessions can take the form of traditional talks, workshops, or more interactive formats, and new or underrepresented voices are especially encouraged to apply. Prior speaking experience is not required.

Speaker applications due by May 29, 2026.

Volunteer

Volunteers are essential to the experience of the event. They welcome attendees and support sessions throughout the week, helping create the inclusive environment that defines a flagship WordCamp. Volunteering is also one of the best ways to meet people from across the global community and see firsthand how an event of this scale comes together. No prior experience is needed, and volunteers receive a free ticket.

Volunteer applications due by June 15, 2026.

Attend

It’s the people. It’s the friendships and the stories.

Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder

WordCamp US continues a long tradition of in-person gatherings where contributors meet face-to-face to openly discuss the project’s direction. Whether you participate as a sponsor, take the stage, join the volunteer team, or help organize the event, your involvement shapes what the event becomes.

To stay informed as ticket sales open and the schedule takes shape, subscribe to WordCamp US 2026 updates.

Since the early days of WordPress, Contact Form 7 has been helping website owners add simple forms to their sites. If you’ve trusted it on your own site, then you made a perfectly reasonable choice that millions of other site owners have made, too.

But things have officially changed.

At WordCamp Asia 2026, Contact Form 7 creator Takayuki Miyoshi confirmed on stage that the plugin will no longer receive new feature updates after version 6.2. Miyoshi’s focus is shifting to a separate project called Contactable.io, which is currently targeted for 2028.

Your existing forms aren’t going to break overnight, but a plugin in ‘feature freeze’ is a plugin that will slowly fall behind. That makes today the perfect time to migrate to a new form builder plugin before your forms get more complex and migration gets harder. 

The good news is that you don’t need to start from scratch.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know exactly what the WordCamp announcement means for your site and how to migrate all your Contact Form 7 forms to a modern form builder using a simple import tool. 

What the Contact Form 7 Feature Freeze Actually Means

The ‘Contact Form 7 abandoned’ headlines sound dramatic, so let’s explore what exactly this means in more detail.

Firstly, the plugin isn’t going to disappear overnight. Instead, it’s entering what developers call a “feature freeze,” which still has very real implications for the future of your website.

Here’s everything Contact Form 7 user needs to understand before deciding what to do next:

• Version 6.2 is the Final Major Release: Takayuki Miyoshi announced at WordCamp Asia 2026 that version 6.2 will be the last version to add new functionality. After this, Contact Form 7 moves into maintenance mode.
• Security Patches Will Continue: This is the reassuring part. Critical security holes and bugs will still be patched, so your forms won’t suddenly become a security risk. However, don’t expect any attention beyond these basic fixes.
• No Modern Tools or Integrations: Increasingly, site owners need features like AI form generation, conditional logic, and seamless payment fields. None of these are planned for Contact Form 7. If you want to keep up with your competitors, then you’ll need to switch to an alternative form builder.
• The Replacement Project is Years Away: The successor project, Contactable.io, isn’t expected to release until at least 2028. That is a long time to wait for a tool that hasn’t even launched yet, especially when proven alternatives already exist.

The truth is that as your website grows, your forms will often need to become more complex. You’ll start adding more fields, setting up custom email routing, or trying to integrate your forms with a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

What takes just a few minutes to migrate today could easily turn into a frustrating, weekend-long project in the future. The smart move is to migrate to a Contact Form 7 alternative now, while your Contact Form 7 forms are still stable and up-to-date.

The Best Way to Replace Contact Form 7 in WordPress

We’ve tried out dozens of contact form plugins, but we always find ourselves coming back to WPForms.

The reason is simple: WPForms strikes the perfect balance between being incredibly easy for beginners to use, while still offering the advanced features you’ll need as your website grows.

In our opinion, this is exactly what Contact Form 7 users need. 

If you’re looking for more power, then the premium version of WPForms comes with over 2,100 ready-made form templates, smart conditional logic, and seamless payment integrations. You can even create multi-page forms to improve your form conversion rates.

However, the free WPForms Lite plugin actually has everything a former Contact Form 7 user needs. This includes a drag-and-drop builder that lets you create professional forms in minutes without touching a single line of code.

Even better, WPForms comes with a built-in Contact Form 7 import tool. This means you can migrate all your existing forms to WPForms with just a few clicks.

Behind the scenes, WPForms reads your old forms and recreates them inside its modern, user-friendly interface. It even imports your field labels and notification settings so you don’t lose any data.

This is a must-have feature for Contact Form 7 users who want to switch to a modern, secure form builder that’s constantly evolving – without having to start from scratch.

Now, let’s look at how you can easily migrate from Contact Form 7 to WPForms today. 

Step 1: Install and Activate WPForms

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin on your website.

As we mentioned earlier, you can download the Lite version of WPForms for free directly from WordPress.org. For this guide, I’ll be using the Lite version so you can migrate away from Contact Form 7 today, regardless of your budget.

However, at some point you might need more advanced features, such as the ability to accept online payments, create conversational forms, or connect to email marketing services like Mailchimp. In that case, you can easily upgrade to the premium plugin at any time. 

Once the plugin is activated, you’re ready to start the migration process.

Step 2: Run the WPForms Setup Wizard

Upon activation, WPForms will automatically launch a quick setup wizard. This tool is designed to walk you through the entire setup experience in just a few minutes.

The wizard helps you get up and running quickly, so we highly recommend completing the entire process rather than skipping it.

If you’ve upgraded to the premium version of WPForms, you’ll also need to enter your license key. You can find this key by logging into your account on the WPForms website or by checking your purchase confirmation email.

After completing the setup process, WPForms will offer to help you create your very first form. Since we’re going to import your existing forms from Contact Form 7 instead, skip this step when prompted.

Step 3: Open the WPForms Import Tool

This is where the migration actually begins. WPForms comes with a dedicated Tools page that includes a built-in Contact Form 7 importer, so you don’t have to worry about installing any extra addons.

To access the importer, go to WPForms » Tools.

If it isn’t already selected, click the ‘Import’ tab.

Next, open the ‘Import from Other Form Plugins’ dropdown and select ‘Contact Form 7.’

After that, click the ‘Import’ button. 

WPForms will now scan your site and display a list of every Contact Form 7 form it finds. This makes it easy to see exactly what you need to migrate. 

Step 4: Choosing Which Forms to Import to WPForms

After the scan finishes, you’ll see two columns labeled ‘Available Forms’ and ‘Forms to Import.’ This is where you decide exactly which forms you want to move over.

If you want to migrate all your Contact Form 7 forms, simply click the ‘Select All’ link.

Alternatively, you can manually check the box next to each individual form you want to import.

This is a great opportunity to clean up your site by leaving behind any old test forms or duplicates you no longer need.

When you’re happy with your selection, go ahead and click the ‘Import’ button. WPForms will then begin recreating each form inside its own drag-and-drop builder.

Step 5: Review the Imported Forms  

Once it’s finished, WPForms will show a results screen with a “Congrats, the import process has finished!” message. This is an important step, so we recommend looking at the report carefully rather than skimming past it.

Every form that imported successfully will show up with a green checkmark, along with quick ‘Edit’ and ‘Preview’ links.

WPForms can migrate most standard fields like text, email, dropdowns, checkboxes, and file uploads without any issues. 

However, Contact Form 7 might occasionally use custom fields or unique shortcodes that don’t have direct WPForms equivalents. In these cases, WPForms will flag the form for review.

We recommend making a quick note of any flagged forms. In the next step, we’ll show you how to easily adjust these forms manually before publishing them to your site.

Step 6: Reviewing and Polishing Your New Forms

Now it’s time to open your migrated forms and check that everything looks right. It’s always worth spending a few extra minutes to catch small issues before your visitors do.

To get started, head over to WPForms » All Forms.

Here, you’ll see a list of every form that WPForms just imported. 

To take a closer look at a specific form, simply hover your mouse over it and click the ‘Edit’ link.

This opens the form in the WPForms drag-and-drop editor. You can now check each field to make sure it matches your old Contact Form 7 setup. 

We recommend paying special attention to required fields, dropdown options, and custom field labels.

After that, click the ‘Settings’ tab on the left side of the builder to confirm your configurations.

In particular, you should check the ‘Notifications’ tab to ensure your email address is correct. While WPForms imports your existing settings, it’s always a good idea to confirm that submissions will go to the right inbox.

When you’re happy with the setup, click the ‘Save’ button in the top-right corner to store your changes.

If you’d like more advanced control here, our guide on how to create a contact form with multiple recipients walks you through routing different submissions to different team inboxes.

Step 7: Replacing Your Old Forms 

Your forms are now ready inside WPForms, but your site is still showing the old Contact Form 7 content to visitors. You’ll need to update your site so that visitors can start using your new forms.

First, open the page or post that contains your Contact Form 7 form. Then, click on the existing Contact Form 7 block to select it.

Finally, press the ‘Delete’ key on your keyboard to remove it. 

With the old form gone, click the ‘+’ button to add a new block to the page. In the popup that appears, start typing ‘WPForms.’ When the correct block appears, click to add it to your page.

Next, open the dropdown menu inside the WPForms block and select the specific form you want to display.

One of the best parts about WPForms is that the form will load directly inside the editor. This lets you see exactly how the form will look when visitors arrive on your site.

Once you’re happy with how everything looks, go ahead and publish or update the page as normal to make your new form live.

Step 8: Testing Your New Forms

Before going any further, you need to confirm that your new form actually works. We always run at least one test submission on every form we migrate. It’s the only way to guarantee your data is being collected properly and your notifications are firing as intended.

To do this, open your live page in a regular browser tab (not the WordPress editor). Then, fill out the form exactly like a real visitor would, and click ‘Submit.’

Next, check your inbox to confirm the email notification has arrived safely.

If the email doesn’t arrive, your site might have email deliverability issues that existed before you migrated to WPForms. In that case, we recommend installing a WordPress SMTP plugin to fix the problem. 

SMTP is the standard way to send emails through a reliable provider instead of relying on your web host, which often gets flagged as spam. For a complete walkthrough, see our guide on how to set up WP Mail SMTP with any host.

Once you’ve confirmed the form is working from start to finish, you’re officially ready to retire Contact Form 7.

Step 9: Deactivate and Delete Contact Form 7

This is the final step, and we encourage you to take it slowly. You should only deactivate Contact Form 7 once you’re 100% sure that your entire site is using WPForms.

After that, go to Plugins » Installed Plugins, find Contact Form 7 in the list and click its ‘Deactivate’ link.

After that, we recommend visiting your site one more time. Load every page that used to display a Contact Form 7 form, just to check that everything still looks right.

If any page shows a leftover [contact-form-7] shortcode instead of a form, it means you overlooked this form earlier. If that happens, simply follow the steps to replace this shortcode with the WPForms block.

Once you’ve confirmed that every page is using WPForms cleanly, head back to the Plugins screen and click ‘Delete’ to remove Contact Form 7 from your site entirely.

It’s as easy as that! Your forms are now running on a modern plugin that’s built to grow with your site, and you’re ready to take advantage of all the powerful features that Contact Form 7 was missing.

Getting More Out of WPForms Now That You’ve Migrated

Now that your migration is complete, it’s the perfect time to explore the features WPForms offers that simply don’t exist in Contact Form 7.

Here’s the features we always recommend trying out, especially if you upgrade to the premium plugin: 

• AI Form Generation: This feature lets you describe the form you want in plain language, like “a feedback form with a rating system.” WPForms will then build it for you in seconds. This is a life-saver when you need to create a new form, fast. 
• Built-in Spam Protection: WPForms uses invisible token validation to stop spam without any frustrating CAPTCHA challenges. This feature makes a huge impact on your form completion rates. 
• Smart Conditional Logic: This allows you to show or hide fields based on a visitor’s previous answers. We love using this for quote requests, as it makes long forms feel much shorter and more personal.
• Smart Payment Forms: Turn your forms into a revenue tool by connecting Stripe, PayPal, Square, or Authorize.net. This is great for recurring donations, registrations, or custom orders.
• Conversational Forms: Instead of showing 20 questions at once, this feature displays one question at a time, just like a real conversation. This is a total game-changer for survey completion rates because it feels much less overwhelming for your visitors.
• Multi-Page Forms with Progress Bars: If you have a long application or registration form, WPForms lets you break it into multiple pages. 
• Form Abandonment: Imagine if you could see every lead that almost contacted you. This feature lets you capture those partial entries so you can follow up with potential leads who got distracted. It’s like a ‘recovered cart’ feature, but for your contact forms.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Contact Form 7 Feature Freeze

Since the Contact Form 7 announcement, we’ve been getting lots of questions from our readers. It’s clear that you’re concerned about what this feature freeze means for your website. 

Whether you’re worried about your existing forms breaking, wondering if the free version of WPForms is enough, or trying to decide if you should switch now or wait, these answers will help you move forward with confidence. 

Is Contact Form 7 actually abandoned, or is it just in feature freeze?

Technically, it’s a feature freeze rather than a full abandonment.

Takayuki Miyoshi confirmed at WordCamp Asia 2026 that version 6.2 will be the final major release for Contact Form 7. Moving forward, the development team will only provide critical bug fixes and security patches.

While Contact Form 7 isn’t being removed from the WordPress.org repository, it effectively means that no new features, modern integrations, or user experience improvements will be added.

In the fast-moving WordPress ecosystem, a plugin that stops evolving can quickly become a compatibility risk or a security liability. It’s much safer to migrate now while your forms are working correctly, rather than waiting until a conflict or security vulnerability forces you to move later. 

Will my existing Contact Form 7 forms suddenly break if I don’t migrate?

No, your forms won’t suddenly break.

As Miyoshi confirmed, Contact Form 7 will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security patches. This means your forms should continue to work with WordPress core updates for the foreseeable future.

However, the real risk is gradual rather than sudden. As the rest of the web moves forward, a plugin in ‘feature freeze’ starts to fall behind. 

You’ll eventually find yourself needing modern features that simply aren’t coming to Contact Form 7. Plus, while your forms might work, they’ll start to look and feel dated compared to competitors who are using modern form builders. 

Should I just wait for Contactable.io instead of switching now?

We wouldn’t recommend waiting. While Takayuki Miyoshi discussed his vision for Contactable.io during his session in Mumbai, the reality is that a full, stable release is still a long way off.

Current estimates place a target launch closer to 2028, which is years away. Even when it does launch, it will be a brand-new plugin without the years of testing, massive community support, or the deep ecosystem of integrations that WPForms already offers.

Migrating to a stable, actively maintained plugin today gives you immediate access to modern tools like:

• AI-powered builders to save you time.
• Invisible spam protection to keep your inbox clean.
• Built-in entry management so you never lose a lead.

If Contactable.io eventually launches and turns out to be a game-changer, you can always reconsider then. But for now, you won’t lose anything by switching to WPForms. In fact, you’ll likely find that your site runs much more smoothly.

If you want to compare other options before deciding, you can also explore our roundup of the best WPForms alternatives to see what else is actively being developed.

Do I need the paid version of WPForms to migrate from Contact Form 7?

No, you don’t need the paid version to migrate. The free WPForms Lite plugin includes the Contact Form 7 importer, plus the full drag-and-drop builder.

Most former Contact Form 7 users find that the Lite version is more than enough to get started. You can always upgrade later if your business needs grow. 

What happens to my existing Contact Form 7 entries during migration?

The short answer is that your past form submissions won’t migrate over. This is because Contact Form 7 doesn’t actually store entries inside your WordPress database. Instead, it simply emails them to you. 

Since there’s no entry list for the importer to find, there’s nothing to migrate. 

If you need to keep a record of your past Contact Form 7 submissions, we recommend checking your email inbox for this information. Alternatively, if you’ve been using the companion Flamingo plugin to save your entries, then you can export your messages as a CSV file. 

Final Thoughts on the Contact Form 7 Feature Freeze

If you’ve been following along with this guide, then every one of your old Contact Form 7 forms is now running on a modern plugin that’s supported by an entire development team.

The Contact Form 7 era was a historic one for WordPress, and it served millions of sites well for nearly two decades. But as we move toward the future of the web, having a form builder that evolves alongside your site is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity.

Additional Resources for WordPress Form Building

Now that you’ve made the move to WPForms, you might be wondering what else you can do with a modern form builder.

Whether you’re trying to grow your email list, accept your first online payment, or build something more advanced like a survey or booking form, the resources below will walk you through it step-by-step:

• How to Use a Contact Form to Build Your Email List
• How to Create GDPR Compliant Forms in WordPress
• How to Create a Survey in WordPress (with Beautiful Reports)
• Best Order Form Plugins for WordPress
• How to Create a Booking Form in WordPress
• Best File Upload Plugins for WordPress (Free & Paid)
• How to Create a Custom User Registration Form
• How to Easily Create a Quiz in WordPress

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Contact Form 7 Freezes New Features – What WordPress Users Should Do Next first appeared on WPBeginner.

Hi there,

May is an action-packed month for the WordPress community, packed with tons of local WordCamps and Campus Connect events. After so long without seeing each other, it’s awesome to get together in person — sharing ideas, storytelling, and just making real connections. In this digital age, those genuine face-to-face moments remind us how much it really matters to show up in person.

Enjoy the people around you, friends and family. Speaking of which my next two weeks are all about that. We are on the road to a family reunion and the following weeks we get a visit from our long -time Canadian friends. I also will take another break on the weekend edition, though. Number 366 is scheduled to come out on May 23, 2026, the 77th Anniversary of the German Constitution.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Yours,
Birgit

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Amy Kamala, co-release coordinator for WordPress 7.0, published an Urgent: Testing request to Web hosts for collaborative editing by May 4th. The results will inform core architectural decisions before release. The test suite needs only bash, cURL, WP-CLI, and patch — and the Core team wants data from your actual customer environments, not clean installs. Results are aggregated and kept anonymous.

The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #130 – WordPress 7.0, Gutenberg 22.9 and 23.0, WordCamp Europe, Block Themes and More with Tammie Lister, Chief Product Officer at Convesio

Hamza Kwehangana, co-organizer of WordCamp Vienna, walks you through everything new in WordPress 7.0, the release that kicks off Phase 3: Collaboration. You’ll see real-time multi-user editing in action, native AI Connectors for plugging in providers like OpenAI or Anthropic, a refreshed admin with Data Views, and a new Notes and Comments system for editorial teams. Block-level additions include heading variations, fit text, responsive editing mode, a native Icons block, and Visual Revisions.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

The WooCommerce team is actively exploring a DataViews-powered Product Catalog Management experience that could improve how merchants handle large product sets. Led by Luigi Teschio, you can already test a working prototype via WordPress Playground. The shared blueprint installs WooCommerce nightly, Gutenberg, and sample products in one click. Smoother filtering, price filtering, inline variation handling, and improved bulk edit workflows are all on the table.

WPMet, plugin developers of GutenKit, introduced TableKit, a native Gutenberg table builder aimed at replacing the block editor’s limited default table with a more sophisticated approach. You get four table types — standard tables, WooCommerce product tables with live stock and direct add-to-cart, data tables that import from CSV, Google Sheets, or JSON with auto-sync, and WordPress post tables. Standout features include conditional formatting, freeze columns, column sorting, search and filtering, and export to PDF, CSV, or Excel, all without shortcodes or leaving your editor.

Mike McAlister has been busy shipping for Ollie Pro. He posted a demo on X showing new responsive controls in the block editor — device-specific settings for typography, padding, margin, spacing, and text alignment at specific breakpoints, no custom CSS or extra plugins required. Alongside that, he introduced a completely redesigned Ollie Pattern Library with a unified design language across hundreds of patterns, a faster Browse tab with live search and one-click actions, and a brand-new Discover tab powered by Ollie AI, letting you describe a layout in plain language, use pre-made prompts, or hit “Inspire Me” to instantly assemble a full page.

Maxime Bernard-Jacquet announces that Modern Fields 1.0 is now out of beta — a custom fields plugin built for the block editor era and positioned as an ACF alternative. The 1.0 release adds JSON import/export, automatic field sync with the theme, a no-code UI for creating custom post types and taxonomies, and WP-CLI commands. A live in-browser demo requires no installation. A Pro version is in the works, with repeater and relational fields, conditional logic, options pages, query loop filters, and custom block creation planned.

Core contributors Nik Tsekouras and Marin Atanasov started an Experiment: Content types tracking issue, developer might want to keep an eye out. The idea is to bring management of majority of the cases to core and leave complex use cases in plugin territory.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

Jamie Marsland shares a neat design-system-to-WordPress workflow that lets you spin up a styled site in minutes — no local install, no hosting, no deploy. Head to claude.ai/design, grab a DESIGN.md from the awesome-design-md repo (Vercel, Linear, or Stripe are solid picks), upload it to Claude, and ask it to build a homepage, about page, and blog with sample posts inside WordPress Playground. One tip you shouldn’t skip: make sure Playground uses storage=browser so your work persists between reloads.

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Taylor Drayson‘s WP Wireframe is a PHP library that you can include in your plugin to create complete WordPress admin settings pages using one configuration array—no JS build step required. It offers over 20 field types (like text, color, file picker, and more), an API for accessing settings, options for conditional visibility, validation, support for multiple pages, and a helper to adjust settings. Install it with Composer, point it to a settings.php file, and your settings page is ready to go. Or so Drayson promises.

AI and WordPress

Automattic’s Alexa Peduzzi introduces Studio Code, now in public beta — a WordPress-native agentic CLI tool built on top of Claude Code. Install Studio CLI and run studio code to get started. Unlike general-purpose coding agents, it’s purpose-built for WordPress: you can describe a site in natural language and it builds a complete block theme — layout, typography, fonts, and content — then validates block markup against the real editor, runs WP-CLI commands, audits performance, and pushes to WordPress.com or Pressable hosting. Free during beta. Details on how to get started are on the developer portal.

Varun Dubey, founder of Wbcom Designs and BuddyPress contributor, offers a developer’s honest take on WordPress 7.0 AI Connectors — what they get right and what still worries him. You’ll find the case for standardization (one dashboard for all AI providers, lower barrier for solo plugin developers, user choice of cloud or local models) balanced against real concerns: data privacy enforcement is still honor-system, budget limits are soft rather than hard, and local/self-hosted AI remains a second-class setup experience despite Varun’s own work running a private Ollama-powered WordPress instance. His prescription for the ecosystem — mandatory data transparency declarations, hard cost caps, end-user consent hooks, and provider certification — is worth reading before you start wiring AI connectors into your own plugins.

Among other things, Varun Dubey flagged unencrypted AI Connector key storage as one of the sharper edges of WordPress 7.0 — and Encrypt AI Connector Keys by Thomas Zwirner is exactly the kind of ecosystem response he was calling for. Install it, re-enter your keys under Settings > Connectors, and they’re saved encrypted using the battle-tested Crypt for WordPress library, with the decryption key stored outside the database in wp-config.php, an MU plugin or a custom file. No settings page, just one filter hook if you need to customize the encryption method.

If you’ve ever asked an AI to write a post for your WordPress site, you’ve probably seen what happens: the content looks fine at first glance, but once it’s in the editor, the blocks are a mess. That’s because AI tools are great at plain HTML and Markdown, but Gutenberg’s block format — with its mix of HTML and JSON-formatted comment tags — is just quirky enough to trip them up regularly.

Block Format Bridge, a new open-source plugin by developer Chris Huber, offers a sensible fix. Instead of wrestling AI into producing perfect block markup, it lets AI do what it’s good at and handles the conversion to blocks itself, server-side. It works the other way too, so you can pull post content back out as Markdown or HTML whenever you need it. If you’re experimenting with AI-assisted publishing on WordPress, this one’s worth a look. Install it and it automatically makes the conversion.

In this post, i dived a bit deeper into the matter: Block Format Bridge: A Practical Solution for AI-Generated Content in WordPress

Greg Ziółkowski maps out what he’d like to see land in WordPress 7.1 for Core AI, building on the Abilities API and server-side WP AI Client shipping in 7.0. You’ll find proposals across four areas:

• a refactored Guidelines system (with a wp_guideline_type taxonomy and a wp_register_guideline() plugin API),
• execution lifecycle filters and filtering support for the Abilities API,
• new site-orientation abilities like core/get-active-theme and core/list-plugins, and
• a JavaScript @wordpress/ai client still awaiting a merge strategy for 7.1.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
Send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

WPVibe launched on WordPress.org, and with it, something genuinely new: the ability to manage your entire WordPress site through a simple conversation with AI. No dashboard, no switching tabs. Just tell Claude or ChatGPT what you want done, and it happens.

That’s the headline, but there’s plenty more to cover. AIOSEO, Charitable, PushEngage, OptinMonster, and others all shipped significant updates. WordCamp Asia brought the global community together in Mumbai. And Contact Form 7 — one of WordPress’s oldest and most-used plugins — officially closed the door on new features.

It’s been a busy month. Let’s get into it.

WPVibe Launches on WordPress.org: Manage Your Entire Site Through a Conversational AI

Imagine opening Claude or ChatGPT and simply saying: “Create a new blog post about our spring sale, add a featured image from Unsplash, and schedule it for Friday.”

No logging into your dashboard. No switching tabs. Just a conversation and it’s done.

That’s exactly what WPVibe makes possible, and it just landed on WordPress.org as a free plugin.

WPVibe is a WordPress MCP (Model Context Protocol) server built by the team at SeedProd , which is the same team behind the popular WordPress landing page builder trusted by over 1 million websites.

MCP is the new standard that allows AI assistants to connect directly to external tools, and WPVibe is the best solution that brings this power to your WordPress site.

Once you install the free Vibe AI plugin and connect it to your AI assistant of choice — whether that’s Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor — you can manage virtually every aspect of your site through natural conversation.

We’re talking about creating and editing posts and pages, managing media, browsing and editing theme files, running health checks, checking which plugins are active, searching Unsplash for stock photos, and even executing safe WP-CLI commands. All this without ever opening wp-admin.

This is an incredibly powerful tool for WordPress users who are already using AI assistants in their daily workflow.

The setup takes about 60 seconds. Just install the Vibe AI plugin from WordPress.org, activate it, and click ‘Connect to WPVibe’ inside your WordPress admin.

After that, copy and paste the MCP server URL into your AI client’s settings.

You’ll find instructions for different AI platforms on your screen.

Once connected, you can simply tell your AI platform:

‘Connect to my website at example.com’

The SeedProd team has also built in safety guardrails so you never have to worry about accidentally breaking something:

• New posts default to draft status
• Deleted content goes to the trash (not permanently removed)
• Theme edits happen in a sandboxed draft environment you review before publishing.
• Everything runs over encrypted HTTPS using your existing WordPress application passwords — no third-party servers store your credentials.

WPVibe is completely free — no credit card, no subscription.

Charitable Launches Recurring Donations 2.0 and New Visual Fundraising Tools

Charitable, the popular WordPress fundraising plugin, has released a series of big updates headlined by Recurring Donations 2.0.

With this new update you can run Recurring Only campaign mode, which allows organizations to create campaigns where one-time donations are disabled.

To address the issue of lost revenue, Charitable now includes an Automatic Failed Payment Recovery system. The plugin immediately sends a customizable email to donors if a transaction fails due to expired cards or insufficient funds.

The update also prioritizes donor trust by adding a self-service cancellation button directly within the donor dashboard.

Data tracking has also seen a significant upgrade with a new real-time Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) dashboard.

Plus, Charitable has introduced Featured Images for campaigns to boost visual storytelling.

Site owners can now set prominent thumbnails for their donation pages, which are optimized for social media sharing and grid layouts to encourage higher engagement and click-through rates.

Charitable has also introduced a new Mini Donation Widget, which allows users to embed a functional giving experience anywhere on their site.

This widget supports preset donation amounts with impact statements, such as “feeds a family for a month”. This helps donors understand the tangible result of their gift.

FunnelKit Team Launches Sublium: A New WooCommerce Subscription Plugin for Recurring Revenue

The team behind FunnelKit has launched Sublium, a WooCommerce subscription plugin that handles recurring revenue across multiple use cases:

• Subscribe-and-save deliveries for physical products
• Automated billing for digital memberships and courses
• Installment plans for high-ticket items.
• All three support flexible billing cycles, free trials, sign-up fees, and recurring discounts, with no coding required.

Subscribers get a self-service dashboard where they can pause, skip, swap products, or update their payment method without contacting support.

And store owners get built-in analytics tracking MRR, ARR, churn, and retention.

Sublium also includes automated payment recovery that retries failed charges and sends follow-up emails to save at-risk subscriptions. It works with Stripe, PayPal, Square, and all major card networks out of the box.

Showcase Customer Reviews With Eye-Catching Popups Using Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon has released Reviews Feed Pro v2.5.0, introducing a new Review Alerts feature.

This update allows website owners to display animated review notification popups using their existing review data instead of using expensive third-party social proof tools.

Users can choose between “Recent Reviews” to cycle through individual testimonials or “Aggregate Review” to show an overall star rating.

The system also includes advanced filtering, which enables site owners to show only 5-star reviews or testimonials containing specific keywords to address customer objections.

The feature is specifically optimized for WooCommerce by automatically detecting product review feeds to boost sales directly on store pages.

With four pre-built themes and custom accent colors, these popups can be styled to match any brand identity without technical hassle.

To ensure a positive user experience, the popups also include “Compact Mode” to avoid blocking content and flexible timing controls. Precise targeting options allow users to display alerts site-wide or on specific high-converting pages like pricing and checkout.

All in One SEO Brings AI-Powered Schema and Bulk SEO Actions to Your WordPress Site

All in One SEO, the popular WordPress SEO plugin, has released version 4.9.6, and it’s one of the most AI-focused updates the plugin has shipped.

The headline addition is the new AI Schema Generator, which automatically creates structured data markup for your pages — the behind-the-scenes code that helps Google understand your content and display rich results in search.

You no longer need to know what schema is or how it works because AIOSEO figures it out for you.

Here’s what’s new in this release:

AI Schema Generator

Two modes: Smart Schema analyzes your page and recommends the right schema type automatically, while Prompt-Based Schema lets you describe what you need in plain language.

It includes a “Test with Google” button to validate before publishing.

AI Bulk Actions

Generate SEO titles and meta descriptions across multiple posts at once, with multiple suggestions per post to choose from. It also generates alt text for your entire media library in bulk.

Notes in Redirects

Add context to any redirect explaining why it exists. Notes appear as a hover icon so your redirect list stays clean, which is especially useful for agencies managing multiple sites.

Overall, SEO tasks that used to take hours, like writing meta descriptions one post at a time, manually tagging images, figuring out schema markup, can now be handled in minutes. For anyone running a content-heavy WordPress site, this update is well worth installing.

WordCamp Asia 2026 Unites the Global WordPress Community

WordCamp Asia 2026 recently concluded in Mumbai, India, gathering 2,627 attendees at a local convention center.

The flagship WordCamp event brought together a diverse global audience of developers, designers, and business owners for three days focused on collaboration and the future of the open web.

Photo credit: WordCamp Asia

The event kicked off with a massive Contributor Day, where over 1,500 participants joined more than 20 teams to work directly on the WordPress software. Key achievements included the Polyglots team processing over 7,000 translation strings and the Photo team contributing dozens of new images to the WordPress directory.

Educational sessions were split across Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tracks, covering high-impact topics like the Interactivity API and AI-driven development workflows. A major highlight was the fireside chat with Executive Director Mary Hubbard, which addressed long-term questions regarding stewardship and community resilience.

The conference also prioritized the next generation of users through its YouthCamp program, which provided hands-on workshops for younger participants.

Closing remarks focused on the roadmap for WordPress 7.0 and the increasing integration of AI infrastructure within the platform. The event concluded with the exciting announcement that WordCamp India will officially join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship global WordPress event.

OptinMonster Launches Mobile Popup Design for Per-Device Styling

OptinMonster, the popular conversion optimization software, has introduced Mobile Popup Design.

This is a significant update that gives users full, independent control over how their popups appear on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Previously, creating device-specific layouts often required duplicate campaigns or custom CSS. But this new feature allows for all adjustments to be made within a single campaign interface.

The update also features a dedicated layer of style controls accessible via device toggles in the upper right-hand corner of the builder. Users can now independently adjust font sizes, padding, spacing, and colors for each screen size.

Changes made to a smaller device view “break the link” from the desktop version, ensuring that mobile optimizations do not negatively impact the desktop layout.

Another major highlight of this release is the new Block Visibility toggle, which allows users to show or hide specific elements based on the device.

For example, a resource-heavy video block can be displayed to desktop users for high engagement while being hidden for mobile users to improve load times and reduce screen clutter. This management can be done via a quick-hide eye icon or a centralized Block Visibility panel.

Mobile Popup Design is now available to all OptinMonster subscribers at no additional cost. While it handles how a popup looks on different screens, it is designed to work alongside the existing Device Targeting feature, which controls which audience segments see a campaign based on their hardware.

WPConsent Simplifies WordPress Privacy Compliance With Smarter Automation

WPConsent, the popular WordPress privacy compliance plugin, has released version 1.1.4, introducing significant upgrades to its automatic cookie scanner and geolocation features.

The goal of this update is to make privacy compliance more hands-off for site owners through better automation and tracking of background services.

The updated scanner now includes a “History” tab that maintains a full record of every scan performed on the site.

This log is specifically designed for compliance audits by allowing users to see exactly when scans occurred, which services were detected, and how their site’s cookie usage has evolved over time.

To save time, a new “Auto-Update Services” toggle allows the plugin to automatically add newly detected services to the cookie configuration. This is paired with an email notification system that alerts site owners the moment a new script or service is found, ensuring that no technical changes go unnoticed.

Privacy regulations vary by region, and WPConsent addresses this with more granular geo-targeted content blocking.

Site owners can now manage content blocking settings for individual location groups, such as enforcing strict blocking for GDPR regions while using a lighter touch for visitors in other areas.

This update also gives users more precise control over third-party embeds like YouTube videos, Google Maps, and reCAPTCHA. By choosing how these services load based on the visitor’s location, site owners can improve legal compliance across different borders without complicating the experience for their entire global audience.

Uncanny Automator Adds Microsoft Teams and LinkedIn Support for Endless Workflows

Uncanny Automator, the most powerful WordPress automation tool, has released version 7.2, which introduces a major integration with Microsoft Teams and support for LinkedIn.

It allows site owners to automate internal communication by sending channel messages, creating group chats, and even scheduling online meetings directly from WordPress triggers like new WooCommerce orders or course completions.

Another significant addition is support for LinkedIn personal profiles, which moves beyond the previous limitation of only posting to company pages.

This change allows users to share blog posts and product launches directly to their personal feeds, where content often receives higher reach and engagement than brand accounts.

The update also brings a massive expansion to the AffiliateWP integration, transforming it into a more comprehensive toolkit for managing affiliate programs. New triggers and actions allow for “hands-off” rewards, such as automatically increasing an affiliate’s commission rate once they hit a specific referral or visit count.

Email marketers using Kit and Mautic will also find several new tools, including the ability to create and send broadcasts from a WordPress trigger.

PushEngage Launches Workflows: A Visual Builder for Automated Push Notification Campaigns

PushEngage, a popular customer engagement platform, has launched Workflows, which is a new drag-and-drop builder that lets you design entire push notification campaigns in one place.

Instead of juggling separate tools for drip sequences and triggered messages, you can now build and manage all of your campaigns on a single visual canvas.

You start by choosing what triggers the workflow. That could be a new subscriber joining, a customer completing a goal, or a custom event you define. From there, you map out the full journey your subscriber will go through.

Along the way, you can add wait periods between messages, create decision branches based on how subscribers behave, and set up A/B/C split tests to see which messages perform best. If a subscriber hits a goal or meets an exit condition, they leave the workflow automatically.

PushEngage also ships 60+ pre-built templates across nine industries to help you get started quickly.

Quiet hours ensure notifications respect subscriber time zones, and each step in the workflow has its own performance data so you can see exactly where subscribers drop off.

For anyone already using PushEngage to re-engage visitors, Workflows removes a lot of the manual work that came with running complex campaigns.

Contact Form 7 Enters Feature Freeze – Development Stopped

In a significant shift for the WordPress plugin ecosystem, Contact Form 7—one of the oldest and most widely used form plugins in the repository—has officially entered a feature freeze.

Takayuki Miyoshi, the lead developer, announced it in a presentation during WordCamp Mumbai 2026. Moving forward, the plugin will only receive security patches and basic maintenance updates.

For the millions of legacy users still relying on Contact Form 7, this means they can either keep using a plugin not actively developed, or they can move on to modern alternatives.

If your website relies heavily on forms for lead generation or customer support, this freeze is a great prompt to audit your setup. It may be the perfect time to upgrade to a more powerful, actively developed solution that offers visual builders and cutting-edge features to help maximize your conversions.

Plugins like WPForms offer a modern drag and drop AI-powered form builder. This allows you to create any kind of WordPress form in seconds. They even offer a lite version for free called WPForms Lite.

Users on the fence will be happy to know that WPForms even has a Contact Form 7 importer. It allows you to seamlessly import your Contact Form 7 forms data into WPForms.

In Other News

• FunnelKit has introduced full compatibility with Divi 5 and added advanced conditional checkout fields to improve the WooCommerce checkout experience. Users can now use product-specific redirects and custom file upload fields, making it incredibly easy to create personalized, high-converting funnels without writing a single line of code.
• Thrive Apprentice now features automated welcome emails that trigger instantly when students gain access to a course through a purchase, bundle, or manual enrollment. These highly customizable messages deliver essential login credentials and direct links to remove post-purchase confusion and support tickets.

Optimize Your Site for AI Search with AIOSEO

With zero-click searches on the rise, All in One SEO helps you optimize your site for AI platforms and AI overviews. With built-in tools like llms.txt and .md file generator, it makes your content easy to consume for AI bots and boosts your AI citations.

Download All in One SEO for WordPress

• FunnelKit Automations brings premium CRM power directly inside your WordPress dashboard with a newly redesigned, lightning-fast React-based interface. Featuring hierarchical AND/OR logic and over 50 filter types, this update delivers sophisticated targeting and deep subscription lifecycle automations.
• Cloudflare has launched Em Dash, an open-source CMS it describes as the “spiritual successor” to WordPress. The announcement drew a detailed response from WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, who challenged the “spiritual successor” label. Syed Balkhi, CEO of Awesome Motive, also noted the real challenge for any new CMS is matching the community WordPress has built over two decades.
• Wholesale Suite has launched a powerful new Wholesale Quotes plugin for WooCommerce, which is designed specifically to streamline operations for B2B stores. This vital tool brings price requests and approvals right inside the WordPress dashboard, helping store owners escape chaotic email chains and easily manage complex purchasing workflows.
• WooCommerce 10.6.2 is now available, introducing essential UI refinements and admin style updates to ensure full compatibility with the upcoming WordPress 7.0 release. The update also resolves selection issues with variable product attributes to future-proof your eCommerce store while noticeably improving overall dashboard performance.

New Tools & Plugins

• WPVibe: Connect your WordPress site to your favorite AI platform like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor using Rest API and the new Abilities API.
• Activity Log by Duplicator: Easily track every change, login, and update with a detailed audit trail. Get complete view of all your site activity to improve security.

That wraps up this month’s edition of the WPBeginner Spotlight! We hope these updates help you build better workflows, boost your conversions, and get the most out of your WordPress site.

Have thoughts on this issue or suggestions for what you’d like to see covered next? Drop us a message using contact form.

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The post WPBeginner Spotlight 23: WPVibe Brings AI to WordPress + Smarter Automations, SEO, & Fundraising Tools first appeared on WPBeginner.

WordPress Student Clubs are beginning to take shape as a new way to carry the momentum of WordPress Campus Connect beyond one-time workshops. What starts as an introduction to WordPress and open source is now continuing on campus through student-led groups that create space for learning, peer support, and early community participation. That shift matters because it gives students a more consistent path into the WordPress ecosystem while helping local communities build stronger connections with the next generation of contributors.

When WordPress Campus Connect workshops first began reaching universities, the goal was straightforward: help students discover WordPress, understand the value of open source, and see that contribution can be part of their learning journey. In many cases, that first introduction created immediate interest. Students who had never worked with WordPress before started asking questions, exploring what the software could do, and showing curiosity about the wider community.

That early response also revealed a gap. A workshop could spark interest, but it could not always sustain it on its own. Encouraging students to attend local WordPress meetups helped extend that first connection and, in some cases, brought new energy to existing local communities. Even so, it became clear that campuses needed something more consistent and closer to students’ everyday environment.

WordPress Student Clubs emerged from that need. Instead of limiting engagement to a single event, these clubs create an ongoing, student-led presence on campus where students can keep learning, share knowledge with peers, and grow more confident over time. They also offer a practical bridge between first exposure and deeper participation, helping students move from curiosity to contribution through regular activity and community support.

Learning What Sustains Participation

As WordPress Student Clubs started forming across campuses, the early enthusiasm was encouraging, but sustaining that momentum proved to be one of the first real challenges. Student Club Organizers shared that interest was often strongest at the beginning, especially after a workshop or an introductory session, but turning that interest into regular participation required patience and experimentation. Like many community efforts, the clubs needed time to find a rhythm that worked for the students involved.

One of the most common challenges was consistency. Many students were interested in learning WordPress, but regular engagement depended on more than initial curiosity. Organizers found that participation grew more steadily when activities felt approachable and useful, especially when students could learn by doing rather than only listening. Small learning sessions, collaborative exercises, and hands-on activities often made it easier for students to return and take part again.

Organizers also noticed that some students were initially hesitant to engage actively. Asking questions, speaking up in a group, or volunteering to help lead a session did not always happen naturally. Building a club meant creating an environment where students felt comfortable enough to participate, try something new, and gradually take ownership of their own learning.

Academic schedules added another layer of complexity. Because the clubs are student-led, planning around classes, assignments, and exams required flexibility. Keeping activities regular without overwhelming organizers or participants meant working within the rhythms of campus life. Those early difficulties became part of the learning process and helped shape how the clubs began to operate more effectively.

Building Through Small, Consistent Activities

As organizers worked through those challenges, certain approaches began to show results. Instead of focusing on large events, many clubs found momentum through simple, repeatable activities that students could join without feeling intimidated. Regular learning sessions, small hands-on workshops, and peer-to-peer discussions helped create an environment that felt both welcoming and practical.

That steady approach mattered. When students could return to familiar formats and see progress from one session to the next, clubs became easier to sustain. Organizers were able to build routines, and participants could join at their own pace. Over time, those small efforts started to strengthen participation more effectively than occasional large events.

Student ownership also played an important role. As students began sharing what they had learned, helping their peers, and taking part in running sessions, engagement started to grow more organically. These moments helped shift the clubs from being simply learning spaces to becoming communities in their own right. Students were not only using WordPress in a classroom context. They were also beginning to understand it as part of a collaborative open source project shaped by people who learn together, build together, and support one another.

Guidance from the local WordPress community helped reinforce that progress. Although the clubs are student-led, organizers benefited from having experienced community members available as mentors. Mentors helped them think through session structure, activity planning, and the practical challenge of staying motivated while balancing academic responsibilities. That kind of support gave organizers more confidence to experiment and keep building.

Mentorship also connected campus activity to the broader WordPress ecosystem. Students were not learning in isolation. Through local community guidance, they were able to see how meetups, contributions, and collaboration all fit into a larger network of people who have been participating in WordPress for years. That connection gave the work happening on campus greater meaning and helped students see a clearer path forward.

Early Impact Across Campuses

Although WordPress Student Clubs are still in an early stage, signs of impact are already visible. Organizers have shared that more students are showing interest in learning WordPress and in exploring what open source participation can look like in practice. In several cases, students who first joined as learners are now contributing to discussions, helping peers during sessions, and organizing club activities themselves.

That shift from passive participation to active involvement is one of the clearest signs of growth. It suggests that the clubs are beginning to create more than awareness. They are creating opportunities for students to build confidence, practice leadership, and develop a stronger sense of connection to the WordPress community. Even at this stage, that kind of change points to the long-term value of sustaining engagement on campus.

One encouraging example came during the International Women’s Day celebration in Ajmer, India, where students participated alongside members of the local WordPress community. Organizers noted that the event included 100 female attendees, with around 50% of participants coming from student clubs. For many of those students, it was a first opportunity to take part in a broader community event, meet other contributors, and see how open source communities collaborate in practice.

Experiences like that show how student-led initiatives can extend beyond campus and begin contributing to the wider community. They also create space for new voices to participate. As students move from club sessions into local events, they gain experience not only as learners but also as community members who can help shape what comes next.

The clubs are also creating leadership opportunities on campus. Organizers have stepped into new roles by coordinating activities, encouraging participation, and maintaining momentum over time. Those experiences help students build skills that matter both within the WordPress community and beyond it, including communication, organization, and problem-solving.

“Being a Student Club Organizer helped me improve my leadership and communication skills.”
— Sanjeevni Kumari, WordPress Student Club Organizer, Mahila Engineering College, Ajmer

Looking Ahead

WordPress Student Clubs are still developing, but the journey so far points to a promising direction. What began as an effort to sustain interest after WordPress Campus Connect is gradually becoming a more durable model for ongoing learning and collaboration on campus. The clubs are helping students stay connected to WordPress beyond a first introduction, while also creating stronger links between educational spaces and local communities.

That longer-term potential is one reason this work matters. With regular campus activity and continued mentorship, Student Clubs can help create a stronger foundation for future contributors. They can also help students build confidence before attending local meetups, contributing to community efforts, or participating in events beyond their campuses.

“With regular on-campus activities through WordPress Student Clubs, the real impact may become visible over the next couple of years, as a stronger WordPress ecosystem begins to take shape within campuses.”
— Anand Upadhyay, Student Club Mentor

As more students get involved and take ownership of these spaces, WordPress Student Clubs can continue to open pathways to learning, leadership, and community participation. For campuses, they offer a way to keep the momentum going after Campus Connect. For the broader project, they represent another step toward welcoming more students into the WordPress open source ecosystem. To follow this work and explore how it connects with the wider community, readers can look to WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Meetups, and other education and community initiatives across WordPress.org.

Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.