Tips Tuesday – WP 7.0 Release Issues, EmDash Reactions, Change of Direction 

Tips this week include:

• WordPress 7.0 release delayed – and why I’m glad
• Is EmDash the new WordPress Alternative
• Reactions to EmDash
• Caching challenges with AI bots
• The evolve or die change of direction for me
• Why to focus on Now
• Two new opportunities
• Is it time for you to eat the carrot?

WordPress Tips

WP 7.0 Release Delayed

Remember about a month ago when I told you there were things in the upcoming WP 7.0 release that I really didn’t like? Well, turns out there are all kinds of problems with the biggest new thing in it.

The Release Candidates for WordPress 7.0 started coming out a couple of weeks ago. And they had planned to do the public rollout during WordCamp Asia, which is April 9-11.

But, they’ve run into several issues with a few of the things in this release that will need more than just minor tweaking.

The most ambitious part of 7.0 is real-time collaborative editing, where multiple folks can work on the same content at the same time.

But, that is causing all kinds of caching invalidation issues.

Honestly, I think that’s the least of the issues with this new feature.

Hosting Resource Issues

Keep in mind that logged in users who are actively working in the admin pages are not seeing a cached version from Cloudflare. Everything is being drawn directly from the host server.

So, on the hosting side, the way WP is currently handling the “keep alive” type features will directly impact WordPress resource usage and database interactions in a seriously negative way.

Impact on Plugins and Blocks

During testing, the WP devs have also discovered that several major plugins are going to have serious issues with the new collaborative editing too. 

Plus, some Gutenberg blocks freak out when one team member is working on content and another is working on styling or layout.

Possible Opt-in Mode

Due to all of the above issues, WP is now considering making this new feature opt-in instead of turned on by default.

I sure as hell hope so!!!!!!!!

None of my peeps will be using it. I don’t think the majority of WP site owners will be using it.

And we don’t need to take a hit on hosting resources while we’re editing/creating posts just because this mess is turned on by default.

(You know I will be looking for a way to turn it off for us if they don’t deliver it as an opt-in.)

Release Cycle Update

As of the time this post was written, I have not seen an updated release schedule.

What I have seen is a statement that they will call all new “betas” RCs. That’s because of the way the tester plugin works. After it hits an RC release, it won’t recognize a beta version as being newer in the nightly release cycle setting.

I don’t plan to start my testing until the final, public release comes out, and maybe not right away even then. I have a feeling there will be issues and more minor releases soon after to fix the bugs and conflicts.

And testing the new media handling “feature”, that I don’t like either, will be at the top of my testing list when I do start digging into it.

I’ll keep you posted.

Cloudflare Tips

Is EmDash the new WP Alternative?

Cloudflare recently announced its new CMS, EmDash as the “spiritual successor to WordPress”.

They go on to claim that EmDash solves the plugin security problem that exists with WordPress.

Ah hum, right.

Here’s what’s going on.

In January 2026, Cloudflare acquired Astro, which is a web-framework company.

WP is also a web-framework, but it has its own interface to access and manage the content, and that is more commonly referred to as a CMS (Content Management System).

So now, Cloudflare has built its own CMS to run on Astro. It’s called EmDash.

They were able to build it so quickly because they used AI agents that were trained on WP’s Open Source code, plus other CMS’s source code.

(FYI, there are at least 10,000 other devs that have tried this over the last 2 years, and none of them have gotten it to work well as a true alternative that can do everything WP can do.)

You can see a sample of it in the EmDash Playground. It sort of looks like WP prior to Gutenberg, as it uses a TinyMCE type editor.

Even though they trained on WP source code, they didn’t use any of it.

EmDash is written entirely in TypeScript and is serverless. It also uses the more permissive MIT license and all source code can be found on GitHub.

But is it a true WP alternative?

Reactions to EmDash

Cybersecurity Mag wrote a glowing review of EmDash. But their whole premise, and 75% of their article, relies on one stat – that 96% of WP hacks start with plugins.

Is that true? Nope.

They pulled that stat from a 2025 Patchstack report. If you read the info which that report was based on, you’ll see that the plugins cited presented vulnerabilities, not hacks. And the majority of those exploited were not updated by the site owner and/or are no longer being maintained by the developer.

That’s a FAR cry from 96% of hacks happening from plugins.

(To be fair, there are at least 25 new plugin vulnerabilities a week. And only 0.0001% of them are ever exploited in the wild before they are caught and patched.)

The Cybersecurity report didn’t mention a word about all of the functionality you miss with the lack of EmDash plugins either.

So, if all you have is a site with a bunch of static pages and some broadcast blog posts, maybe you won’t miss the extra functionality that WP-related plugins offer.

But that’s not us, is it?

Search Engine Journal has a far more balanced review titled 6 Reasons Why Cloudflare EmDash Can’t Compete with WordPress. They basically say that this is an early version that focuses on infrastructure and is not user-focused at all.

Matt Mullenweb, WP’s cofounder, gave some feedback saying it’s not even close to being the “spiritual successor” of WP. And in the nicest way he could, he said that this is basically an attempt by Cloudflare to sell more of its services.

I agree with that statement, as sell, sell, sell has been the primary focus of Cloudflare since they became a publicly traded company.

There are tons of opinions about EmDash on Twitter from WordPress OGs, hosts, plugin devs, and more. All say the same thing – it is yet another WP “killer” that will come and go.

The only OG I see embracing it is Joost de Valk. Well, actually he has not embraced EmDash yet. He rebuilt his whole personal site on Astro. (You may recall that I did not speak highly of this move in a recent Tips Tuesday.)

Caching Challenges with AI Bots

During site audits, I can see what AI bots are crawling on the site and how that RADICALLY differs from what SEO bots are crawling.

Crawling sites costs a TON of money. That’s why SEO bots tend to only crawl the things that are worth them knowing, like your content, images, and navigation structure.

But, AI bots crawl EVERYTHING including stuff that is rarely to never hit by SEO bots or humans.

Here’s the problem.

All of the typically hit stuff is cached by Cloudflare and delivered via their mirrored locations. That removes hits to your hosting and preserves your hosting resources.

And that speeds up delivery to your site visitors.

But, with these AI bots hitting on everything, that causes a LOT of “cache misses” meaning that the info has to be pulled directly from the hosting.

So, the folks at Cloudflare are Rethinking Cache for the AI Era.

There are already some tools in place at Cloudflare for limiting bot crawls, but they are far too restrictive for us, and mainly suited to major news/entertainment sites that want to use “pay to crawl” features.

Cloudflare understands this limitation and is working on new tools for us to have choices.

I’m definitely keeping close watch on this and will be implementing suitable new features for my site audit clients, as well as informing my Webmaster Training members about them.

Creator Tips

Evolve or Die Change of Direction for Me

This past week I worked every day trying to make new video tutorials for my new YouTube channel.

Nothing was working well.

That’s because I was trying to do something the “old” way that would help beginners learn the basics.

But the fact is, the software I’m training folks on has changed a lot in the past year. And the “old” ways, that seem non-technical, just don’t work well anymore.

I was so discouraged!!!! I had a list of tuts to make and now I couldn’t do any of them. Well, I could, but they were not going to work well.

New Research Needed

I sat on my deck, staring at the blossoming trees for a while, hoping they would help me lose the discouragement feeling.

And then I remembered that I did my initial SEO research for this channel about this time last year.

I had based my content creation schedule around what I found during that research.

So, I started new research into what topics were hitting today.

There are 3-4 really big folks in this niche, and all have at least 100k subscribers and millions of hits on their videos.

I had a look at their latest video tutorials.

One of them is teaching the same sort of style I am, but his tuts are a wee bit more involved and advanced than mine. In other words, too complex for a total newb.

While looking through the comments, I saw folks complaining that things he had mentioned in his video were no longer available. And I found that 2 things he mentioned were no longer free either.

His video was only 4 months old.

Can you imagine me doing a big review and tutorial on how to use a free plugin and then 2 weeks later it is no longer free or that the interface has changed? (That’s actually happened a few times!)

It was so disheartening!!!

Focus on Now

I had a look at what the other 3 big folks are teaching.

All of them have moved on to the “new” ways of doing things.

They don’t look very beginner friendly, like the “old” ways do.

And there lies the problem.

My whole focus has been teaching true newbs.

But I finally had to come to the conclusion that the definition of a newb with this software has changed.

And I need to get in line with that fact.

I also know that I can still do a better job of teaching newbs than most of what’s out there. That’s my super power.

Two New Opportunities

During my research this weekend, I also saw some alternative ways that folks are making bank with this software.

They are not teaching how they made things with it.

They are just showing what they’ve made with it.

It is VERY entertaining!!!!!

And they are getting jobs to make such things for 3rd-party vendors.

Hmmmm.

Plus, I can use the things I make in my own music videos too, which I’ve had a HUGE craving to go back into making.

Hmmmm.

Is It Time for You to Eat the Carrot?

Many times in my life I’ve chased a goal, only to discover that was not the ultimate goal.

I think of that first goal as a carrot that got me moving in a particular direction.

But, when I came to a fork in the road, I realized that I could now see more opportunities from this new place than from where I started.

And then I saw the carrot for what it was. And I ate that carrot while deciding which new way I should go.

When you’re discouraged because a path is ending, look around for the new opportunities that are present.

Eat the carrot that got you to that place, and then move in a new direction.