WordPress 6.8: Everything You Need to Know About the New Release
A step towards a faster and more intuitive WordPress.
Released in April 2025, WordPress 6.8 brings a set of innovations designed to make website management smoother, more secure, and better suited to the needs of businesses.
Whether you are a business owner, communication manager, or project lead, here’s an overview of the main new features and what they mean for your site.
Major new features of WordPress 6.8
Improved performance with “Speculative Loading”
WordPress 6.8 introduces Speculative Loading, which preloads certain pages before the user even clicks on them. The result: faster navigation and a better user experience, which also has a positive impact on SEO.
Stronger security with bcrypt
User passwords are now protected with bcrypt, a more robust hashing algorithm. You don’t need to do anything: the update is applied automatically.
Redesigned Style Book available for more themes
The Style Book centralizes the management of styles (colors, fonts, blocks). With WordPress 6.8, it becomes clearer and is now accessible even for some classic themes, not just “full site editing” themes.
- Block editor improvements
- Query Loop: new filters, sticky posts management, better sorting.
- Gallery Block: open images in lightbox mode.
- Image Block: set an inserted image as the featured image directly.
- Social Icons Block: Discord added, with more color control.
- Navigation Block: simplified interface with menu names displayed.
Better ergonomics and time-saving for editors
- Reset button for colors, shadows, and duotones.
- New Cut option in the block menu.
- Shortcuts to create a new page or open the site editor directly from the content editor.
Accessibility and stability
Over 100 fixes improve accessibility and overall stability. A maintenance release (6.8.2) has already followed to address bugs.
Benefits for your professional website
A better user experience
A faster and smoother site that keeps visitors longer and improves your conversion rates.
Less friction for your teams
Simplified design tools and practical shortcuts make work easier for marketing and communication teams.
Stronger security without effort
Your users are better protected, with no technical intervention required on your part.
A future-proof site
With regular fixes and internal optimizations, your site stays compatible with future WordPress developments.
Our recommendations before updating
- Back up your site (files + database).
- Test the update in a staging environment.
- Check compatibility of your extensions and theme.
- Update gradually (plugins first, then WordPress).
- Monitor performance after deployment.