DEV: Merge With Caution

Welcome to DEV, your fortnightly glance at where WordPress is headed next.
Buckle up. We’ve got the news, the community moves and the stats to help you merge into 2026 smoothly.

Stick around to the end to see why that package you ordered last year still hasn’t arrived yet.

In today’s edition:

• WP Engine snaps up Big Bite to level up enterprise WordPress publishing.
• WordPress 7.0 needs you (yes, you!) and no, you don’t have to write code to get involved.
• A community scholarship honours Zeel Thakkar’s legacy, helping more people find their place in WordPress.

Hot Off The Presses: What’s New?

Whether you think this is ethical, you gotta admit it’s pretty clever.

Of course, it only works because CloudFlare is about as reliable as a chocolate teapot and a random unexpected outage is not far fetched in the slightest.

It’s kinda the internet version of blaming a particularly bad fart on the dog, isn’t it?

No one will ever suspect you were the culprit all along!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to read while you procrastinate on fixing things a little longer… you’re in the right place.

WP Engine Takes a Big Bite Out of the Enterprise Publishing Space

WordPress hosting giant WP Engine has officially acquired Big Bite, a UK-based enterprise agency that has been building editor-centric workflows, newsroom platforms, and custom publishing systems for major media brands for over a decade.

They’ve also made plenty of impact across the open web, such as:

• Making contributions to Internet.org
• Helping to drive adoption of WordPress Gutenberg with a global bank
• Building the open-source Humanity theme in partnership with Amnesty International.

Big Bite’s roster of clients reads like a who’s who of global newsroom heavyweights, from The Times and The Wall Street Journal to New York Post and Metro. The deal means the agency arm of Big Bite will wind down, no longer taking on new clients as they fold into WP Engine’s core engineering organisation.

The aim is to bake editorial tools and publishing workflows directly into WP Engine’s product stack rather than serving them up as bespoke builds.

In a world where content is still king and editorial workflows can feel like herding cats, this move signals WP Engine getting serious about giving publishers some pretty snazzy built-in tools.

👉 Check out the official press release.

👉 Read what Big Bite have to say about the move.

Wanna Brag That You Helped Build WordPress? This is Your Moment.

WordPress 7.0 is officially on the horizon, and the Core team is rolling out the welcome mat for volunteers. If you’ve ever wanted to leave your mark on WordPress, there’s no better time to dive in.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Feature development, testing, and triaging: there’s a place for you no matter your skill level or area of expertise.
• Can’t code? No problem. They need your help with other things too, like photography, translation, and documentation.
• Your work will ship in 7.0, giving millions of sites new capabilities and a smoother experience.

The Core team has a spot saved for you, and the goal is to publish the final release during Contributor Day at WordCamp Asia, on April 9th, 2026!

👉 Heed the call by commenting here.

👉 Visit the WordPress Contributor Wizard to see which team you should join based on your interests and skills.

Zeel Thakkar’s Legacy Lives On With a WordCamp Kolhapur Scholarship

Zeel Thakkar, who passed away while attending WordCamp Surat in November 2025, was a contributor to WordPress 6.7 “Rollins” and 6.8 “Cecil,” an Operations team organiser, and a beloved member of the WordPress Ahmedabad community.

The Kolhapur WordCamp team is keeping Zeel Thakkar’s memory alive with a brand-new community scholarship in her honor for WordCamp Kolhapur 2026. Zeel believed in building community spaces where everyone had a seat at the table, and this scholarship embraces that inclusive and supportive vibe.

The details:

• The scholarship provides 20 free tickets for WordCamp Kolhapur 2026 (January 31st – February 1st.)
• It’s targeted at women and girls who want to contribute to WordPress but might need a financial boost.
• Preference is given to first-time WordCamp attendees or those new to the community.
• Last date to apply: Jan 15, 2026 | Winners announced: Jan 22, 2026

It’s more than just a free ticket, it’s a chance to learn and connect with other WordPress enthusiasts while paying tribute to a community builder who made it all a little brighter.

👉 Apply for the scholarship here.

👉 Read more about Zeel and the work she did.

Mind Bloggling Facts & Stats

• WordPress powers 65% of sites that use a CMS at all. As Nat Miletic points out, that’s “overwhelming category leadership.” (Source)
• In 8 years of Do the Woo/Open Channels FM, BobWP has aired 1.53 million seconds of audio. The word “WordPress” was mentioned 12,700 times. On average, that’s about once every 2 minutes! (Source)
• New Year, New Patch. In the first week of 2026, over 333 new vulnerabilities emerged in the WordPress ecosystem. Don’t forget to update, update, update! (Source)

Blogs & Resources You Shouldn’t Miss

Want confidence that your plugin won’t explode in production? Start with automated unit tests. Here’s how.

A domain renewal scam targeting admins might be hiding in your inbox, and this isn’t the usual “Nigerian prince” nonsense.

An illustrated deep-dive handbook on WordPress security from Tài Hoàng

“The best outcomes rarely come from one perspective winning. They come from multiple perspectives being taken seriously, long enough to reveal what actually matters.” A thoughtful read from Aurooba Ahmed.

What’s Updog? Apparently, it’s a uptime detector that might help you see that next Cloudflare outage coming.

Advice from Sam Sayer: Think of your business year as a league – you may not win every game but you can win the season.

Dave Foy shares why teaching “evergreen” WordPress courses led to burnout, and why he pivoted to live cohort learning.

Coffee Break Distractions

What happens when you try to go for a day without using open source software.

This browser turns your next Wikipedia rabbit-hole deep-dive into a virtual mind map.

When everyone on the team does their part and the site launch goes off flawlessly.

If you miss the golden era of MTV, this player recreates it in your browser, with filters for music videos from each decade.

A little reminder about something you might not have done yet this year. (Speaking of, this might help.)

“Punk rock turtles saved our art group from AI-generated spam.”

When you’re working with more experienced devs and you’re just trying to keep up.

And finally…

Why your package hasn’t arrived yet.

Love this mix of nerdery and nonsense? Forward it to your favorite WordPress weirdo. 💗