The release candidate for WordPress 7.0 is now available for testing on VIP from the Software Management page. This is one of the major milestones in the WordPress 7.0 development cycle and can now be deployed to all non-production WordPress environments.
The current target date for the final release is April 9, 2026. UPDATE: WordPress 7.0 has been postponed and a new release date will be announced soon.
What’s new in WordPress 7.0
WordPress 7.0 is a milestone release with a big push into collaboration, AI infrastructure, and an enhanced editing experience.
Real-time Collaboration
Already available on VIP, Real-time Collaboration comes to WordPress Core with 7.0. It allows multiple users to edit the same post or page simultaneously, with data syncing, block-level notes and live updates.
We recommend enabling Real-time Collaboration from the Integrations Center to leverage VIP’s WebSockets-based implementation for a more-performant experience. Customers already using Real-time Collaboration through the VIP integration shouldn’t expect any changes.
Developer features
- Connectors API and AI Client: a provider-agnostic API to connect your site with external service integrations, and dedicated UI to manage all integrations.
- Abilities & Workflows API improvements: hybrid abilities, client-side filtering and search, an improved command palette, and a new Abilities Explorer admin screen when using the AI experiments plugin.
- PHP-only block registration, no JavaScript required.
- Block Bindings for custom dynamic blocks: pattern override support now extends to custom dynamic blocks for building flexible, data-driven content patterns.
- Custom CSS per block instance.
Admin experience
WordPress 7.0 ships with a fresh default color scheme and cleaner dashboard styles. These CSS-level changes bring the WordPress Admin experience closer to the Site Editor’s modern look while keeping the interface familiar.
Editing experience
- Visual revisions: revisions now appear inline within the editor, allowing side-by-side visual comparisons
- Pattern: updated editing experience and support for custom blocks with pattern overrides
- Viewport-based block visibility: show or hide individual blocks based on screen size.
- Font Library for all themes.
- Customizable navigation overlays for block themes
- New blocks: Icons block, Breadcrumbs block (with support for archives, 404s, search pages, and pagination).
- Block updates: Cover Block with video embed backgrounds, responsive controls for the Grid Block, Gallery Block with lightbox support, Navigation Block with customizable overlays, block variations for the Heading Block.
Testing & Support
How to test the upgrade on a local environment
The quickest way to test locally is to use the VIP Local Development Environment.
To update an existing environment:
vip dev-env update -w=7.0 --slug=mytestsite
To create a new one:
vip dev-env create -w=7.0 --slug=mytestsite
How to test the upgrade on a VIP Platform environment
You can update your non-production environments by running the 7.0 version of WordPress from within the Software Management section of the VIP Dashboard or by running the vip config software update command with VIP-CLI.
For example:
vip @mytestsite.develop config software update wordpress trunk
Not for Production Environments
WordPress VIP does not recommend using Release Candidate or Beta versions in production environments. Any sites that have managed updates will automatically be updated to WordPress 7.0 when it is released on April 9, 2026.
Questions?
If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release, please open a support ticket, and we will be happy to assist.