Test Your Site With WordPress 6.3

August 1, 2023

Automattic

Great news! WordPress 6.3 is coming soon. It’s packed with a bunch of new features and is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, August 8th, 2023.

All WordPress.com sites will automatically upgrade to WordPress 6.3 when it’s released. If you’d like to test your site with WordPress 6.3 beforehand, you can now do so on your WordPress.com staging site. Staging sites are available to WordPress.com Business and Commerce sites with hosting features enabled.

Use the Latest WordPress Beta with Your Staging Site

To test your site with WordPress 6.3 before release, you’ll need to first create a staging site:

  1. Starting in your dashboard, go to Settings → Hosting Configuration.
  2. Scroll down to the “Staging site” module.
  3. Click “Add staging site.”

Once your site has a staging site, you can change its WordPress version:

  1. Click “Manage staging site”. This will bring you to the Hosting Configuration page for your staging site.
  2. Scroll to the “Web server settings” module.
  3. Switch “WordPress version” to “Beta”.

Congrats! You’re now running the latest WordPress beta version on your staging site.

Notable Features in WordPress 6.3

WordPress 6.3 has a ton of new improvements including the new Command Palette, a revision system for the Style Book, and simplified menu management.

If you’d like a quick tour, check out this video from Dave Smith, a Gutenberg core team developer and fellow Automattician:

If you’d like to try WordPress 6.3 between now and when it’s released, simply create a new staging site and switch the WordPress version to “Beta”.

Build Your Next Site on WordPress.com

Making it easy and safe to test WordPress versions is just one more reason WordPress.com is the best managed WordPress hosting on the planet. Whether it’s global edge cache, staging sites, SSH and WP-CLI access, or centralized site management, we’re constantly adding new tools to make WordPress.com an indispensable part of your workflow.

Follow this Developer Blog to keep up with all the latest announcements, or leave a comment with any new features you’d like to see.

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