Stay connected with WooCommerce developer updates

We’re making it easier to keep up with the evolution of WooCommerce. We’ll be keeping up with the Woo Developer Blog as usual, but new to the scene is an email newsletter. Our developer newsletter delivers the latest Woo updates, insights, and opportunities directly to your inbox every month.

What we’re sharing in the Woo Developer Newsletter

At Woo, our core team manages every feature that comes with the installation of the WooCommerce plugin. Because WooCommerce is an open-source product, we also review and accept code changes to the platform from contributing developers — and anyone can contribute!

But, that means updates come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes, those can be hard to keep track of. The developer newsletter will take some of that work off your plate, in addition to keeping you up to speed on the latest community events, the newest contributions, and opportunities to give feedback on features in development.

Through the newsletter, you’ll receive updates on:

Stay up-to-date on the latest changes to WooCommerce! Keeping up with the latest release version is essential for maintaining compatibility, leveraging new capabilities, and ensuring your store remains secure and performs optimally.. Our newsletter highlights the most important features for you (and your developer or development team) to look out for.

Every five weeks, we release a new version of WooCommerce that includes new features, bug fixes, security enhancements, API updates, and performance upgrades. Each major release — like the recent WooCommerce 9.7 — brings significant new features.

Each release cycle includes alpha releases, a beta phase with feature freeze, and a release candidate (RC) a week before the final public release. These release phases allow developers to test new features before they’re publicly available, and allows the Woo team to incorporate feedback before the final release is merged. 

The newsletter also shares expert tips and tricks to build a fast, secure, and scalable website with WooCommerce. For those managing your store’s functionality, this will help them make sure your website is ready to grow alongside your business.

Whether that means generating data to test how well your store does when scaling to hundreds or thousands of orders using Smooth Generator, or important resources on how to mitigate card-testing attacks, the newsletter has you covered. 

As we mentioned above, everyone can contribute to WooCommerce — we want you to join the conversation! Whether you want to get involved in the WooCommerce community by contributing to core development, creating extensions, or participating in discussions, our Developer Newsletter keeps you in the loop on ways to contribute to WooCommerce’s growth and improvement.

Our newsletter is a great place to stay up-to-date on our monthly office hours, live events with Woo’s engineering and product teams, and opportunities to join discussions about product changes. Whether we are launching a new system for previewing new features or modernizing our email tools, your contributions to the conversation help make WooCommerce better with each release.

Be among the first to test new features and provide valuable feedback to the Woo team. Beta testing is a great way to contribute to the WooCommerce and WordPress open-source projects without needing to code anything. 

User feedback is a key driver in the changes we make to the WooCommerce platform, and we’re always looking for ways to solve challenges and improve the user experience. As part of the beta testing program, you’ll be invited to join some of the contribution opportunities mentioned above in order to give feedback and share your experiences.

In the past year, our beta testing community has helped shape several major improvements to WooCommerce, including:

• Improving the WooCommerce payments experience for reduced complexity and easier configuration.
• Reimagining the WooCommerce email experience for better design and customization functionality.
• Testing our new Order DataStore Caching for store performance improvements.

WooCommerce’s development is accelerating: in 2024 alone, we merged thousands of pull requests from hundreds of contributors. The newsletter helps you track significant changes and understand their impact on Woo development.

Thousands of WooCommerce developers already rely on our newsletter to stay informed. With an 85% open rate, it’s quickly becoming an essential resource for the WooCommerce community. Don’t miss out on insights that could save you time and help you build better WooCommerce experiences.

Thousands of businesses know what’s coming next — you should too. Sign up for the developer newsletter here.

About

Pi

When not thinking about all things developer experience on WooCommerce, Pi can be found rock climbing, eating plants, and enjoying the sunshine.