WordPress 7.0 is still in beta, having missed its first release candidate deadline due to concerns around installation size and the default behavior of real-time collaboration.

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Program transcript

Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.

In this episode, you’ll find the information from March 16 to 22, 2026.

The WordPress 7.0 release cycle had a small adjustment this week. Release Candidate 1, originally scheduled for Thursday, March 19, has been pushed back to Tuesday, March 24. The reason is three last-minute concerns: real-time collaboration performance, client-side image optimization, and the size of the installation package.

Beta 6, which includes over 130 fixes, brings notable changes since Beta 5. The client-side image processing feature has been temporarily reverted to resolve the issues found. Real-time collaboration is now opt-in by default, with a configuration constant for those who want to control it at the server level using WP_ALLOW_COLLABORATION. Additionally, the collaboration sync intervals have been multiplied by four — from 250 milliseconds to 1 second — to reduce the number of HTTP requests and server impact.

The final release date for WordPress 7.0 remains April 9, so the window is still workable if the first release candidate ships in the coming days.

WordPress 7.0 brings a solid set of block editor updates, and several dev notes have been published covering the details:

Text indent. The paragraph block now includes an indent control in the typography options — one of the community’s longest-standing requests. It can be configured to apply only to paragraphs that follow another paragraph, as is common in English-language publishing, or ...

7.0 Beta 6