More than 40% of all websites around the internet are based on WordPress. Version 6.0 arrives with improved block themes for easier website building and customization, alongside numerous stability and performance enhancements.

We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you're ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine.

To run WordPress we recommend your host supports:

• PHP version 7.4 or greater.
• MySQL version 5.7 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.3 or greater.
• HTTPS support

That's it. We recommend Apache or Nginx as the most robust server for running WordPress, but any server that supports PHP and MySQL will do.

Features

Building with Blocks

The new block-based editor won't change the way any of your content looks to your visitors. What it will do is let you insert any type of multimedia in a snap and rearrange to your heart's content. Each piece of content will be in its own block; a distinct wrapper for easy maneuvering. If you're more of an HTML and CSS sort of person, then the blocks won't stand in your way. WordPress is here to simplify the process, not the outcome.

Freedom to Build, Freedom to Write

This new editing experience provides a more consistent treatment of design as well as content. If you're building client sites, you can create reusable blocks. This lets your clients add new content anytime, while still maintaining a consistent look and feel.

Designed for the block editor

Twenty Nineteen features custom styles for the blocks available by default. It makes extensive use of editor styles throughout the theme. That way, what you create in your content editor is what you see on the front of your site.

Simple, type-driven layout

Featuring ample whitespace, and modern sans-serif headlines paired with classic serif body text, Twenty Nineteen is built to be beautiful on the go. It uses system fonts to increase loading speed. No more long waits on slow networks!

Versatile design for all sites

Twenty Nineteen is designed to work for a wide variety of use cases. Whether you're running a photo blog, launching a new business, or supporting a non-profit, Twenty Nineteen is flexible enough to fit your needs.

Protect

Blocks provide a comfortable way for users to change content directly, while also ensuring the content structure cannot be easily disturbed by accidental code edits. This allows the developer to control the output, building polished and semantic markup that is preserved through edits and not easily broken.

Compose

Take advantage of a wide collection of APIs and interface components to easily create blocks with intuitive controls for your clients. Utilizing these components not only speeds up development work but also provide a more consistent, usable, and accessible interface to all users.

Create

The new block paradigm opens up a path of exploration and imagination when it comes to solving user needs. With the unified block insertion flow, it's easier for your clients and customers to find and use blocks for all types of content. Developers can focus on executing their vision and providing rich editing experiences, rather than fussing with difficult APIs.

What's New

Say hello to "Arturo" and WordPress 6.0, inspired by Grammy-winning jazz musician, Arturo O'Farrill. Known for his influence on contemporary Latin jazz, Arturo has pressed more than 15 albums spanning a body of work across five decades.

With nearly 1,000 enhancements and bug fixes, the second major release of 2022 is here. Download it now! As of today, WordPress powers more than 42% of websites worldwide.

Site owners and administrators should upgrade to take full advantage of the many stability, performance, and usability enhancements today. WordPress content creators will enjoy a suite of new features geared toward improving the writing and designing experiences.

Enhanced Writing Experience

• Writing improvements abound, whether you're writing a brand new post or adding elements to an existing page. Explore more ways to streamline your content creation process, including:
• Select text across multiple blocks for easier copying and pasting.
• Type two open brackets '[[' to quickly access a list of recent posts and pages.
• Keep existing styles when you transform some blocks from one kind to another—from a Paragraph block to a Code block, for instance.
• Create customized buttons and any new buttons you make will retain the style customizations automatically.
• Make tag clouds and social icons even more appealing with updated settings and controls, and a new outline style for the tag cloud.

Style Switching

• Block themes now include the option to contain multiple style variations. This expands the new Style system even further and enables shortcuts to switch the look and feel of your site all within a single theme. In block themes that support this feature, you can change both the available settings, like the font-weight, and the style options, like the default color palette. Change the look and feel of your site with just a few clicks.

More Template Choices

• WordPress 6.0 includes five new template options for block themes: author, date, categories, tag, and taxonomy. These additional templates provide greater flexibility for content creators. Tailor each with the tools you already know or with the following new options in this release:
• Featured images can be used in the cover block.
• New featured image sizing controls make it easier to get the results you want.
• While editing a template, at the root, or between blocks, the quick inserter shows you patterns and template parts to help you work faster and discover new layout options.
• The query block supports filtering on multiple authors, support for custom taxonomies, and support for customizing what is shown when there are no results.

Integrated Patterns

• Patterns will now appear when you need them in even more places, like in the quick inserter or when creating a new header or footer. If you're a block theme author, you can even register patterns from the Pattern Directory using 'theme.json', enabling you to prioritize specific patterns that are most helpful to your theme's users.

Additional Design Tools

• Design tools grow more powerful and intuitive with each release. Some highlights for 6.0 include:
• A new color panel design saves space, but still shows your options at a glance.
• New border controls offer a simpler way to set your border exactly as you like it.
• Transparency levels for your colors allow for even more creative color options.
• Control gaps, margins, typography, and more on a collection of blocks, all at once, in the Group block.
• Switch between stack, row, and group variations to position groups of blocks with more layout flexibility.
• Use the gap support functionality in the Gallery block to create different looks – from adding spacing between all images, to removing spacing altogether.

Better List View

• New keyboard shortcuts enable you to select multiple blocks from the list view, modify them in bulk, and drag and drop them within the list. List View can be opened and closed easily; it comes collapsed by default and it automatically expands to the current selection whenever you select a block.

Block Locking Controls

• Now you can lock your blocks. Choose to disable the option to move a block, remove a block, or both. This simplifies project handover, allowing your clients to unleash their creativity without worrying about accidentally breaking their site in the process.

Improved Performance in WordPress 6.0

• This release includes several updates focused on improving the performance of WordPress. These enhancements cover a range of performance areas including improving the page and post-load speed, reducing the execution time of various query types, caching, navigation menus, and much more. The performance team working group is an important focus area of the core development team. For more information on this group's work, please follow their work on Making WordPress with the #performance hashtag.

Enhancing WordPress 6.0 Accessibility

• Accessibility is an integral part of the WordPress mission of fostering an inclusive community and supporting users of all types around the world. With this in mind, WordPress 6.0 includes more than 50 updates specifically focused on enhancing the accessibility of the platform. You can read about these updates and learn more about the accessibility initiatives that are ongoing.
• Android version updated to 19.4
• macOS version updated to 7.2.0