Gutenberg
Gutenberg
Description
“Gutenberg” is a codename for a whole new paradigm for creating with WordPress, that aims to revolutionize the entire publishing experience as much as Johannes Gutenberg did the printed word. The project is following a four-phase process that will touch major pieces of WordPress — Editing, Customization, Collaboration, and Multilingual.
Following the introduction of post block editing in December 2018, Gutenberg later introduced full site editing (FSE) in 2021, which shipped with WordPress 5.9 in early 2022.
What Does Gutenberg Do?
Gutenberg is WordPress’s “block editor”, and introduces a modular approach to modifying your entire site. Edit individual content blocks on posts or pages. Add and adjust widgets. Even design your site headers, footers, and navigation with full site editing support.
Each piece of content in the editor, from a paragraph to an image gallery to a headline, is its own block. And just like physical blocks, WordPress blocks can be added, arranged, and rearranged, allowing users to create media-rich content and site layouts in a visually intuitive way — and without workarounds like shortcodes or custom HTML and PHP.
We’re always hard at work refining the experience, creating more and better blocks, and laying the groundwork for future phases of work. Each WordPress release includes stable features from the Gutenberg plugin, so you don’t need to install the plugin to benefit from the work being done here.
Early Access
Are you a tech-savvy early adopter who likes testing bleeding-edge and experimental features, and isn’t afraid to tinker with features that are still in active development? If so, this beta plugin gives you access to the latest Gutenberg features for block and full site editing, as well as a peek into what’s to come.
Contributors Wanted
For the adventurous and tech-savvy, the Gutenberg plugin gives you the latest and greatest feature set, so you can join us in testing and developing bleeding-edge features, playing around with blocks, and maybe get inspired to contribute or build your own blocks.
Discover More
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User Documentation: Review the WordPress Editor documentation for detailed instructions on using the editor as an author to create posts, pages, and more.
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Developer Documentation: Explore the Developer Documentation for extensive tutorials, documentation, and API references on how to extend the editor.
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Contributors: Gutenberg is an open-source project and welcomes all contributors from code to design, from documentation to triage. See the Contributor’s Handbook for all the details on how you can help.
The development hub for the Gutenberg project can be found at https://github.com/wordpress/gutenberg. Discussions for the project are on the Make Core Blog and in the #core-editor channel in Slack, including weekly meetings. If you don’t have a Slack account, you can sign up here.
Faq
The best place to report bugs, feature suggestions, or any other feedback is at the Gutenberg GitHub issues page. Before submitting a new issue, please search the existing issues to check if someone else has reported the same feedback.
While we try to triage issues reported here on the plugin forum, you’ll get a faster response (and reduce duplication of effort) by keeping feedback centralized in GitHub.
The Gutenberg team and WordPress community take security bugs seriously. We appreciate your efforts to responsibly disclose your findings, and will make every effort to acknowledge your contributions.
To report a security issue, please visit the WordPress HackerOne program.
Not necessarily. Each version of WordPress after 5.0 has included features from the Gutenberg plugin, which are known collectively as the WordPress Editor. You are likely already benefiting from stable features!
But if you want cutting edge beta features, including more experimental items, you will need to use the plugin. You can read more here to help decide whether the plugin is right for you.
View the Versions in WordPress document to get a table showing which Gutenberg plugin version is included in each WordPress release.
The four phases of the project are Editing, Customization, Collaboration, and Multilingual. You can hear more about the project and phases from Matt in his State of the Word talks for 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018. Additionally, you can follow the biweekly release notes and monthly project plan updates on the Make WordPress Core blog for more up to date information about what’s happening now.
- Gutenberg, or the Ship of Theseus, with examples of what Gutenberg might do in the future
- Editor Technical Overview
- Design Principles and block design best practices
- WP Post Grammar Parser
- Development updates on make.wordpress.org
- Documentation: Creating Blocks, Reference, and Guidelines
- Additional frequently asked questions
Reviews
Potential and performance
By WPRavix (wpravix) on May 20, 2026
Gutenberg has its flaws, but it has great potential and, most importantly, it doesn’t burden a website the way external page builders do.
I’ll take the opportunity here to promote my free plugin that improves the UX of the block editor - BlockUX Workflow. It’s available in the WordPress repository.
Wishing you efficient website building!
Gutenberg Completely Changed My Perspective on WordPress Development
By asevims on May 14, 2026
As a web developer with over 12 years of experience, I have worked extensively with builders like Elementor and WPBakery. For a long time, I honestly believed Gutenberg was inferior and overly limited compared to traditional page builders.
That perspective completely changed once a client specifically requested a WordPress website without Elementor or WPBakery. Because of that requirement, I finally gave Gutenberg a serious chance and started building with a custom theme and modern block-based workflows.
Today, I can confidently say that Gutenberg is by far the most thoughtful and well-architected builder WordPress has ever had. Once you truly understand how it is intended to work — especially together with custom themes, patterns, theme.json, and custom blocks — it becomes incredibly powerful, clean, scalable, and future-proof.
Yes, development can initially take longer compared to visual page builders, especially when building things properly with a custom setup. But after getting used to the workflow, it honestly feels like the best long-term approach for professional WordPress development.
I also understand many of the negative reviews now, because I used to share the same opinion before I actually learned and understood Gutenberg properly. In my opinion, most criticism comes from comparing it to page builders without fully embracing the modern block-based development approach.
Excellent work by the Gutenberg team. The direction WordPress is taking with blocks and full site editing is genuinely impressive.
good
By redeemcode247 on May 11, 2026
plugin very good
ok
By MAEX (martinxn) on May 3, 2026
Clean, performant, perfect!
By newtonvibe on May 3, 2026
I think the bad reviews are from people who don't know how to use it or try using Full Site Editing. The best approach is to keep Gutenberg for page/post content using blocks and also use theme.json to define design tokens that can be reused in your theme and blocks for consistency. You can keep using PHP for everything else. It's so much better than Elementor or the horrific mess that Divi is.
Not my favorite...
By yeark on April 28, 2026
Probably the worst thing that happened to wordpress, suboptimal user experience
Embrace the change, don't just listen to the slop
By Trent Stromkins (bmx269) on April 22, 2026
This way of developing sites, fundamentally changes how we work with content, and with a little adjustments in your thinking, you will not want to go back.
Be aware that this plugin is the bug fixes, and experiments, for the core block editor, in between releases. This plugin does not add the block editor, but it does add fixes and enhancements that are being currently worked on. That said, to get the most from it, go to the "Experiments" section, and enable some of the features there, and see what you can get from the future of WP. Without any experiments enabled, you will still get the fixes that are coming in the block editor's next release.
Worst builder
By davidbaranek on April 1, 2026
Really painful to work with. Native blocks are useless. Why do something simple when it can be difficult
What to say when updates come?
By nowforever on March 31, 2026
It a waste of time even to rate Gutenberg after 8 Years of Development.. How does it feel when comparing ot many other pagebuilders, who are developing 1-2 Years?
I do not know how you want to copy the minimal Apple usability, and missing every logic?
o.k. Functions are there, but users do not get it...
It became a really great tool
By Roman Perevala (ramzesimus) on March 13, 2026
I've been using Gutenberg/Editor for the last 3 years and I'm super happy with it. Now it's stable and provides everything needed to be the primary builder for different types of sites.
Changelog
To read the changelog for the latest Gutenberg release, please navigate to the release page.