Real-time collaboration—the ability for multiple users to edit the same post simultaneously, similar to Google Docs—is being developed for WordPress 7.0, scheduled for release in 2026. Beginning in October 2025, WordPress VIP customers have had access to a beta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. version of real-time collaboration to begin stress-testing the experience across different environments and use cases, informing the work as early as possible. The beta has provided valuable insights into how real-time collaboration performs with production WordPress sites and real editorial workflows. The response has been enthusiastic, with several organizations already enabling the feature in production. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a demo of the feature in action.
About the research
This post summarizes feedback gathered from 45 beta participants between October and early December 2025. While the issues are being tracked individually under the [Type] Real Time Collaboration label, this summary centralizes the information for easier review and broader transparency. The insights come from:
- Direct conversations with technical leads and editorial teams at participating organizations.
- Recorded testing sessions and demonstrations.
- Written feedback submitted through beta feedback channels.
- Observations of production and staging deployments.
Participating organizations span industries including news and media, higher education, research institutions, and enterprise publishing; all are larger organizations with multi-person editorial teams.
Key insight: It just works with modern WordPress
The most consistent feedback: real-time collaboration works seamlessly when sites are built for modern WordPress. Organizations using the block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor with native WordPress blocks and custom blocks developed using best practices reported smooth experiences with minimal issues.
One technical lead at a major research institution noted their team has invested in a deep understanding of Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ and, as a result, “… have not run into any issues.” Their editorial team described the feature as delivering “an amazing workflow change,” eliminating the frustration of kicking colleagues out of posts to make quick edits.
Multiple teams tested the limits by:
- Adding dozens of blocks simultaneously.
- Copying large amounts of existing content in parallel.
- Having entire teams edit the same post together (one team specifically noted “this is so fun”).
In these stress tests with native blocks and modern custom blocks, real-time collaboration held up remarkably well.
Other insights
The value of Notes
The newly released Notes feature generated significant enthusiasm.
One communications team called it “revolutionary.” Teams particularly value the ability to leave contextual feedback directly in the editor without disrupting the editorial flow.
This feedback confirms that collaborative editing is a suite of tools that make it easier for you to create in WordPress from your very first keystroke, not a single feature.
Flexible workflows
Different organizations expressed distinct preferences for how collaboration should work within their editorial processes:
- Some teams want flexibility: Publishers aggregating content from distributed teams appreciate the ability for multiple editors to work simultaneously across different sections of a post.
- Others prefer predictability: Organizations with established “check-in, check-out” workflows expressed interest in mode controls that would allow them to programmatically determine editing permissions based on user roles and post status.
One organization specifically noted their less technical users might feel “uncomfortable with the shift to a fully collaborative environment, fearing they might step on each other’s toes.”
Teams want the ability to adapt the collaboration model to their existing editorial culture rather than completely restructuring workflows.
Attribution
Multiple organizations emphasized the need for better attribution tracking. Today, when a user saves a revision, you know they made all changes. With real-time collaboration, multiple users can make changes to the same version.
Contributors are working to address this feedback by adding “contributor” metadata for versions. You can follow that work in this GitHub issue.
Where things go wrong
The most significant compatibility issues emerged with blocks storing data in post meta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. rather than block attributes, particularly when that post meta isn’t updated using modern methods.
Real-time collaboration works with any post meta that is registered with show_in_rest set to true. Metadata registered this way will participate in the data store that powers real-time collaboration. Legacy metaboxes update meta using other means.
This will be an important area to address for WordPress 7.0. Plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors will want to know what work, if any, is required to ensure their code supports real-time collaboration.
Accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)
The current beta does not meet the accessibility standards expected for WordPress. Providing functional affordances in a real-time environment is challenging, but it is a challenge to be met.
This is an area where help is needed from the Accessibility team. You can report any accessibility issues you encounter on this GitHub tracking issue.
Going forward
Experimental work in Gutenberg is tracked in a branch, and it is also being merged upstream to provide undo support and post meta syncing.
If you want to test the beta for real-time collaboration today, you can follow the instructions in this GitHub repository to set up an environment. You can test locally by editing content in two different browser windows.
Stay tuned for broader dedicated calls for testing and more summaries like this. The aim now is to get everything into Gutenberg trunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running “trunk”, then you are on the latest revision. to make it easier for more testing in different environments.
If you have feedback or questions, please comment here. Issues can be added with the [Feature] Real-time Collaboration label on GitHub.
Props to @annezazu for reviewing this post.
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