We’ve reached the 7th edition of our Quarterly Roadmap Roundup, and it’s crazy to see the massive growth we’ve experienced in just two short years since launching the public-facing roadmap.
Of course, you can view the progress we are making on your favorite plugins and services at any time, but we stop to look ahead, share the highlights, and get your feedback each quarter.
“Why?” you ask.
- There are a ton of reasons, but topping the list are:
Because you’re busy and we want to make sure you’re getting the most out of all the special features that come with each new release. - It is a perfect opportunity to get your feedback and suggestions for the future. What are you excited about? What features would make running a WordPress site even better?
- And because you’ve trusted us with 1.2 million websites for image compression, blazing-fast page speeds, total site protection, dedicated hosting, and 24/7 live support…we want to make sure you are prepared when things change and/or improve.
So, before we look at what we have planned for Q3, let’s see how we delivered on our Q2 goals. We didn’t just hit our goals; we went flying past them:
- Defender, SmartCrawl and Hustle all got new features, brand new white labeling, new settings, and a UI upgrade.
- Hummingbird includes mobile-first performance reporting and improvements to her cache suite.
- And the beta tag has officially been removed from our dedicated hosting option.
And this is where our devs crushed it:
- Smush now has bulk image restore, more control over what images are optimized, Multisite subsite settings, improved Lazy Loading, background image compression, and free users can now compress images up to 5MB (used to be 1MB).
- Forminator becomes the first and only free form plugin to offer payments and calculations. Now you can sell products, make registration forms with a payment option, or take donations with the included Stripe and PayPal integrations.
- Integrated Video Tutorials now lets you add and embed your own custom videos in the WordPress dashboard alongside our 40 included WordPress tutorials. Plus we’ve made it so you can select what user role is able to manage video settings.
- The Hub now includes a Secure Single Sign-On option for quickly logging on to any of the hundreds of sites you manage. Save. So. Much. Time.
When you installed your first WPMU DEV plugin, opened your first support ticket, or synced your first website to The Hub, you knew it would make it better… but I bet you didn’t realize it would *keep* getting better.
All of these updates are available now! So…if you’re not a member yet, get started now, your first 30-days are free.
Now let’s look to the future!!!
I’m not a fortune teller, but as you can see, the Roadmap Roundup has been 110% accurate lately. Here’s what we hope to share with you over the next few months.
Hosting 1.0.1 (Is that even a thing?)
We don’t really have semantic versioning for our hosting. But as you already know, we are confident our hosting experience is more than ready for both your business and client sites.
It combines our years of enterprise hosting, speed optimization, security hardening, growth, and maintenance automation to our dedicated servers, customized for WordPress.
But we’ve been collecting your feedback, and the final touches are on their way including simplified email forwarding, better live stats, bulk plans built with agencies in mind, and continued polishing…followed by a huge marketing push.
Active Unlimited members currently get 3 sites included with their membership as long as they stay a member. But that is not going to last forever, so lock it in while you can.
If you’ve already tried hosting, tell us what you love and what we can add to take it to the next level in the comments.
Hummingbird 2.1
Besides image optimization, caching is the single best way to improve site speed. That’s why we’re making the best cache plugin for WordPress even better.
We’re adding support for OPcache, Varnish, and other popular cache tools. We’re adding page cache pre-load, so users get the speed benefits on every visit. And we’re adding the ability to serve compressed cache files for even more speed.
But that’s not all. Set Cache to work the way you want it to. Exclude cookies from being cached and turn off mobile caching. Plus automatically clear the cache on a post when someone leaves a comment.
Make sure users are always getting the latest updates with global asset cache flush from the Hub and schedule automatic clearing on a schedule.
Speed up any site on any host including SiteGround and WP Engine. Hummingbird is queen when it comes to performance optimization for WordPress.
Branda 3.2
If you’re not familiar with Branda, it is the ultimate white label tool for customizing the WordPress login screen, quickly setting-up coming soon and maintenance pages and branding the dashboard.
This upgrade is all about user permissions for both single sites and Multisite networks. With 3.2, it’s not just administrators with Branda access. Set which roles can access and manage Branda’s modules.
Branda has always worked with Multisite, but now you’ll be able to manage modules on every subsite separately and import/export subsite settings to back up or quickly move settings around your network. Create a template and add custom branding to every site in seconds.
SmartCrawl 2.4
Great SEO is about following best practices, and SmartCrawl adds everything you need to easily do professional-grade SEO on your WordPress site, including recommendations and automation.
In this version of SmartCrawl, we’re adding the ability to quickly edit your robots.txt file so you can make it easier for search engines to crawl and share your most important content.
WPMU DEV Dashboard Plugin 4.7.4
Our products are used on sites around the globe and translated into over 50 languages. That is great news.
But managing the language settings for each of your plugins and themes can be quite time-consuming. We are making language selection for our products a one-click setting that can be synced across all our plugins on your website. Set your language of choice and your plugins and themes will be updated automatically.
No more jumping from settings page to settings page sorting out translations.
Shipper 1.1
Moving a site from host-to-host has never been easier with Shipper. It syncs your servers and automates the whole process. But with so many configurations and slooowww 3rd-party servers to contend with, we are adding more simple migration options.
Shipper will soon allow you to package your site into a .zip file and provide you with an installer.php. All you gotta do is download both files, upload them to your destination server via FTP/SFTP, and run the installer.php file to complete the migration.
But what if you don’t want to move your full site? Shipper will soon allow users to filter out files, folders, DB tables and much more.
Finally, we’re adding a white label tool for customizing the successful and failed notification migration emails. Perfect for when you’re working on client sites and want to send something a little more, *ahem* professional.
Top Secret Hero Report (Google Analytics Upgrade Coming Soon)
Information is power! So it’s no wonder Google Analytics has consistently performed in our top 10 plugins for over a decade.
We’re planning an overhaul of our crowd favorite, including a hero makeover and faster leaner code. And while Google Analytics is pretty great by itself, when paired with other data, it is incredible.
Be on the lookout for our newest Superhero upgrade with more data, a cleaner interface, and all the bells and whistles you need for tracking and analyzing information about your website.
How Can We Help You? Share Your Game-changing Ideas.
Did we miss anything? Browse the Roadmap and let us know if there’s something we can do to make setting up, running, hosting, or managing your WordPress sites easier.
Who knows, maybe you have the next big idea for WPMU DEV?
Not a member yet, your free 30-day-trial is waiting. Get started now and tell us what you think in the comments below.
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