WordPress is an ever-evolving software with regularly released new features, security fixes, and maintenance updates. These core updates ensure the safety and efficiency of the WordPress system.
If you’re running a WordPress site, you must update the latest WordPress version to ensure you have the latest features, performance enhancements, and protections.
In this article, we’ll show you how to check your current WordPress version, discuss the latest WordPress version and its features, and guide you on how to update to the latest WordPress version.
Let’s get updating!
Why WordPress Rolls Out Regular Updates
Before we begin, we need to understand why WordPress has a regular update cycle. In short, you can expect to see updates for the following reasons:
- WordPress releases new features regularly. Whether it’s a less noticeable change like adding new oEmbed providers (WordPress 4.4) or a complete overhaul of the editor by adding Gutenberg (WordPress 5.0), these additions tend to make content creation and website building much more straightforward.
- WordPress updates often include security fixes. It’s an ongoing battle since hackers find vulnerabilities all the time. So it’s essential to update to get the latest protections from new types of attacks.
- Recent WordPress versions often provide “under the hood” performance improvements. You may not immediately notice these enhancements, but they make working on WordPress simpler and faster. In WordPress 2.0, the user experience for publishing blog posts took a considerable boost. In WordPress 4.2, they streamlined plugin updates with a simple one-click button instead of the previous, more tedious, process.
- Every WordPress version also eliminates past bugs. These happen with all software. It’s like fixing something on your car that’s been acting up and bringing it back to normal.
Now that you understand the reasons for WordPress updates, let’s explore the more recent WordPress versions, along with details on how to check and update your current WordPress version.
Note: Although the folks at WordPress would prefer everyone to update to the most recent version, that doesn’t mean they abandon support for older versions. In fact, past WordPress versions still get updates—for instance, the WordPress 3.7 “Count Basie” update released on October 24, 2013. Yet, several updates still come out for it every year. That’s because some (not many) sites are still on the older versions.
What’s the Latest WordPress Version Available?
WordPress 5.7, nicknamed “Esperanza Spalding” after the Grammy award-winning jazz musician from Oregon, is the most recent rendition of WordPress available for you to upgrade. It was released on March 9, 2021, after going through multiple development stages. You can learn more about it in our in-depth WordPress 5.7 article, which covers all its new features and backend improvements.
You can download WordPress 5.7 from the official repository or directly through your WordPress admin dashboard.
What’s New in WordPress 5.7?
WordPress 5.7 includes an impressive list of minor tweaks and improvements to the block editor, along with more considerable changes for making more advanced blocks and boosting flexibility when it comes to customizations.
It’s a version worth updating to, seeing how every update since the Gutenberg editor’s introduction has resolved issues people have with the block editor, and this one is no different.
Here are the highlights:
Adjustments to the WordPress Editor
Three significant improvements come with WordPress 5.7, including reusable blocks, font-size settings in more locations, and options to drag and drop blocks into the editor.
The most impressive change involves the drag-and-drop blocks, seeing how the WordPress editor was never a true drag-and-drop page builder like many of its competitors. You can now click on any Gutenberg block and move it anywhere on a page or post.
We also like that you can access font controls within Code and List blocks, seeing how they were missing before. Finally, you’ll see several improvements to reusable blocks, most notably the automatic saving.
A Sightly Different, Simpler Color Pallete
WP Admin color palette (courtesy of ryelle)
The WordPress dashboard and design interface saw a few changes in 5.7, with what WordPress is calling a simpler default color palette. In short, the dashboard only has seven core colors now, as opposed to the long list of about 56 shades from before. It’s a simple change but an important one. Primarily because it’s not just for the dashboard, but also for designing themes and plugins.
More Codeless Elements
Each WordPress release seems to include a few additions to remove the need to work with custom code. Some of those additions in this version include a full-height alignment setting for your editor blocks. Simply put, this allows you to spread a block across the entire window, giving you more control of the block sizing and making it relatively easy to use the Cover block and make it into a fullscreen picture.
Huge size for social icons
It’s also now possible to resize the social media icons when you insert the Social Icons block.
Finally, the Buttons block received modifications with new options for setting the width to a specific percentage size. It’s also possible to select either a horizontal or vertical button layout from the beginning, further improving how you design with things like buttons and other blocks.
More Technical Improvements
The following “under the hood” updates help developers or initiate boosts in the overall performance or infrastructure of WordPress:
- Lazy-loading with iframes: All iframes on a website now have a default lazy-loading feature. There’s no longer a need to type in your own custom code or add a plugin for this feature.
- A fresh Robots API: In an attempt to allow search engines to reveal larger image previews, WordPress 5.7 has a new Robots API with the “max-image-preview: large” directive set as the default option. You can also include other filter directives within the robots meta area.
- Quick switching from HTTP to HTTPS: It was quite a tedious process to switch a WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS in the past. With 5.7, it only takes one click of your mouse. WordPress completes an automatic update of your database URLs, cutting out much of the process for you.
- Continual cleaning from jQuery update 3.5.1: Although jQuery has been a rather helpful tool for the user interface in WordPress, it also tends to distract and clutter. WordPress continues to clean up that clutter by introducing less intrusive jQuery elements, including in version 5.7.
Read our dedicated article for a deeper look into WordPress 5.7.
How to Check Your Site’s Current WordPress Version
There are four methods for checking the current WordPress version on your website. This way, you understand the features and limitations available to you as a WordPress user and can decide whether or not it’s time to upgrade to a newer WordPress version.
The four methods for checking the WordPress version include:
- Looking in the Admin area of WordPress.
- Going through the website’s frontend.
- Checking in the
version.phpfile. - Using WP-CLI.
For detailed information on how to complete these methods, check out our full guide on how to check your WordPress version. The linked article also provides valuable information on how to remove version information from your WordPress website.
How to Upgrade to the Latest WordPress Version
It’s prudent always to upgrade WordPress to the most recent version. It minimizes any situations that may arise with bugs, security holes, or performance issues. You also gain access to all the new features from WordPress, making it a winning situation all around.
WordPress introduced automated version updates for developers long ago. Today, most regular WordPress users receive automated updates or alerts on their dashboards to implement the update themselves.
For instance, you may receive an email stating that your website has updated to the most recent version. In that situation, there’s no need to complete any other tasks. Simply delete the email, or save it for your own reference, and continue with your day.
Email for the new WordPress version
We recommend looking at the About page in your WordPress dashboard to see what features and bug fixes came with the new upgrade. You may find that a feature you’ve wanted for a while has now been added to WordPress.
You can find the About page by clicking through the automated update email from WordPress. To get there directly, type about.php at the end of your domain.com/wp-admin/ URL. This page highlights everything from the new updates to the credits and the privacy statements. It’s always there on the About page, with the same content, until you upgrade to a recent version.
“What’s New” page for WordPress 5.7
But what if you don’t receive that email about an automatic update, yet you want to complete an upgrade to ensure you’re on the most recent WordPress version?
To accomplish a manual upgrade, go to your main dashboard page.
You can see the current WordPress version in the At A Glance box. The version is outdated in the example screenshot, so it’s possible to upgrade to a new version.
Checking the old WordPress version
You also receive a warning message in several dashboard spots, the most prevalent being right at the top of the dashboard. It states that “WordPress X.y is Available! Please Update Now.”
The significant part about this warning is that it shows up on just about every page you navigate WordPress, so you won’t forget about the need to upgrade.
Click on the Please update now link to move onto the next steps.
Click the “Please update now” link
As an alternative, the At A Glance box also provides a button to update. Both the Please update now button and the Update to #.# button sends you to the same place.
Update to latest WordPress version
The next page is titled WordPress Updates. It shows the most recent WordPress version number and a button to Update now. You can also see if you have any updates for plugins or themes.
It’s wise to make a backup of your database and files before updating the WordPress version. We recommend going through a manual site backup, even if you have a WordPress backup plugin configured on your site. Kinsta offers manual and automated site backup tools. Learn all about backing up your WordPress website, even if you’re not using Kinsta for hosting.
We also have other helpful articles for restoring your site from a backup and finding the best WordPress backup plugins.
WordPress offers an encouragement warning about making a backup in the WordPress Updates section. You can click the back up your database and files link for more information about the process from WordPress.
Take a backup of your site before updating.
You’re now ready to upgrade from your older WordPress version to the most recent one.
Click on the Update Now button.
Click the “Update Now” button.
The upgrade usually only takes a few seconds.
You’ll see messages about WordPress working on the process, with mentions about verifying unpacked files, enabling maintenance mode, and upgrading the database.
Finally, a quick message says that the WordPress version was updated successfully. It then sends you to the About page on your dashboard.
Note: A WordPress update switches your site to maintenance mode for a brief period, usually seconds. Keep this in mind if you’re worried about losing sales, or interrupting website visitors, during those moments. It’s also a good idea to complete updates during slow hours, just in case something goes wrong and you need to spend time restoring a backup file on your site.
The info shown during a WordPress update
As promised, the last section shown is the dashboard About page. Feel free to browse the new features and changes, then move onto the rest of your day.
“What’s New” page for WordPress 5.7
To ensure the update happened, go back to the main Dashboard page and look under the At A Glance module. You should see whichever WordPress version you have. Cross-reference the number with the most recent version number (at the bottom of the list) on the WordPress Versions Codex page to ensure you’re on the right one.
See the new WordPress version in your dashboard.
As a bonus, the WordPress version upgrade process brings light to other updates you should make in your dashboard. For instance, they mention plugin and theme updates in the automated WordPress update email and on the WordPress Updates screen in the dashboard.
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By default, orange number icons appear next to areas that have necessary updates. There’s even a section dedicated to all Updates below the Home tab.
Go to your “Plugins” panel in the WP dashboard
Whether for the theme, plugin, or WordPress version updates, each of them offers quick links to update to the next version. Much like the most recent WordPress version benefits, you should also update these plugins and themes to ensure the best security and performance.
Click the “update now” link for a plugin
Upgrade Your WordPress Version With FTP
Although it makes the most sense to get on automated updates or click the links provided inside the dashboard, one other method exists for swapping out your current WordPress version for the new one. You may consider using this method if you have trouble with the more straightforward dashboard Upgrade button, or if you’ve lost access to your dashboard for some reason.
It involves FTP (file transfer protocol), where you download the most recent WordPress version as a file to your computer. You then link to your site files through an FTP client and swap out the old WordPress version files for the new.
Learn all about FTP, and how to manage and upload files to your WordPress site via FTP.
When using an FTP to update WordPress, begin by going to the WordPress.org Download page, which offers a quick download link for the latest WordPress version.
Scroll down to the Download WordPress button. It should have the version numbers on the button as well.
Downloading the latest WordPress version
Clicking this downloads a zip file to your computer. Save it anywhere you want and right click on the zip file to extract all files.
Extracting the files of the latest WordPress version
The extracted folder appears with the current WordPress version number.
The extracted folder of the latest WordPress version
Click on that to open the collection of WordPress core files, the ones we plan on uploading via FTP.
Checking all the files of the latest WordPress version
Next up, it’s time to open your FTP client and connect it to your WordPress website. Here’s a list of recommended FTP clients if you decide to go this route.
As mentioned, we have a complete guide right here about uploading files to your site with an FTP client. In short, you need to connect using your Host, Username, Password, and Port, all of which you can find in the Kinsta dashboard—or the dashboard from any other host.
After connecting to your site, find the root folder for your website in the left column. The root folder is usually called public. Sometimes it’s named after your website.
Regardless, opening the root folder shows files like wp-admin and wp-content, so it should look almost identical to what you see in the computer files column. The main difference is that the computer files column has the newest updates.
Select all files within the new update folder. Right click that selection and click the Upload button.
Uploading the latest WordPress version via FTP
Your FTP client attempts to upload all files from the computer to your remote website server. The process replaces the old files, so you should select Overwrite and Always use this action before clicking OK.
Overwrite your current WordPress version with the latest one
The FTP client eventually provides a success message if it uploaded all the files.
There’s a good chance this ends the process. However, you may have to update your database as well. Therefore, close out the FTP client and go to your WordPress admin area in the dashboard.
Click the Update WordPress Database button if you see the following message on your dashboard.
Click the “Update WordPress Database” button.
If no database message appears, you’re all done! We typically only see a database update requirement if the new WordPress version itself needs you to upgrade the database.
You can also learn how to update the PHP version of your site. The PHP version is separate from the WordPress version update, but it’s often a good idea to improve your speed and security in WordPress.
Tips for After the WordPress Version Update
It may seem like after updating WordPress you can go right back to business as usual. That’s typically the case, but it’s still wise to keep an eye out for malfunctions within your website. You have entirely swapped out your WordPress core files for new ones, so it’s possible a plugin or theme conflicts with the latest update. Or you might find that there’s a noticeable bug that you should report to WordPress.
Therefore, we suggest clearing your cache and going to your WordPress site’s frontend in a new browser window. Test out the usual functionality and make sure everything looks up to speed. You can also complete this simple test on the backend, ensuring nothing looks strange or broken.
How Many New WordPress Releases Come Out Every Year?
WordPress has a “release cycle,” where they assign one or more core WordPress developers to head up the planning, development, and launch of the following WordPress version. Each cycle contains five phases, from planning and development to releasing and launching.
Each release cycle tends to go for about four months. At least that’s the goal.
However, the release cycles occasionally change if there are more bugs with the most recent major WordPress version.
So, the goal is three (maybe four) major releases within a year, but it doesn’t always turn out that way. There are also more minor maintenance releases made every year for past WordPress versions, so it all seems to depend on the resources and time available.
For instance, 2020 saw three major WordPress releases, including:
- WordPress 5.4 (Nat Adderley) on March 31, 2020.
- WordPress 5.5 (Billy Eckstine) on August 11, 2020.
- WordPress 5.6 (Nina Simone) on December 8, 2020.
Yet 2017 only had two major releases: Version 4.8 and 4.9, in June and November, respectively. 2018 only saw one WordPress release, and that wasn’t until December 6, 2018, when WordPress came out with the 5.0 Bebo Valdés update.
The situation and scope of each release change all the time, so it’s not entirely possible to predict how many updates will come out every year. The 2018 year was an excellent example. Version 5.0 was a massive release where WordPress completely revamped its editor and added drag-and-drop block modules (the Gutenberg editor). So it made sense they took an entire year for one release.
As for more minor releases – mainly for maintenance and performance tweaks in past versions – we tend to see dozens of these come out every year. Version 5.4 included four updates in 2020. So did version 5.3, and 5.2, and 5.1.
You may notice a trend here. In short, the developers eventually work out most bugs from significant releases. They can then stick to a more regular four-release cycle for past versions to handle routine maintenance and improve security and performance issues.
All Current WordPress Version Updates from the Previous Year
As mentioned, WordPress 5.7 came out on March 9, 2021, The previous version, WordPress 5.6, is the most recent before 5.7, and it has experienced three versions so far, including the initial release.
However, after the original 5.6 version, we’ve seen two updates to WordPress 5.6, both of which happened in February 2021.
Here are some details on each update:
WordPress 5.6.1 Update – February 3, 2021
WordPress 5.6.1 was a standard maintenance release covering seven reported issues in the Gutenberg block editor. They also reported fixes for 20 bugs within the 5.6 infrastructure while stating that those bugs were, in fact affecting the functionality of WordPress 5.6, so it’s a good idea to update to 5.6.1.
WordPress considered this a “short-cycle maintenance release,” meaning it simply cleaned up some problems right after the prior version was released back in December.
All of this version’s bug fixes are listed here.
WordPress 5.6.2 Update – February 22, 2021
Another quick maintenance release, Version 5.6.2, eradicated bug fixes for five problems since the original maintenance release in early February. Those bugs were either not entirely resolved in 5.6.1, or they occurred within the update. Therefore, WordPress recommends users update to 5.6.2 for the best performance and security.
Find all bug fixes for this release.
Other Recent WordPress Versions
The most recent maintenance releases for versions that still receive updates include the following:
- 5.6.2 – February 22, 2021
- 5.5.3 – October 30, 2020
- 5.4.4 – October 30, 2020
- 5.3.6 – October 30, 2020
- 5.2.9 – October 30, 2020
- 5.1.8 – October 30, 2020
- 5.0.11 – October 29, 2020
- 4.9.16 – October 29, 2020
- 4.8.15 – October 29, 2020
The list goes back to WordPress 3.7 (launched in 2013), which saw its 35th update in October 2020. The 3.6 version of WordPress is the last one to have its updates discontinued.
Some of the most recent major WordPress updates include:
WordPress Updates in the Future
WordPress development starts with a team lead and continues with five phases. The phases are:
- The planning and getting team leads
- The start to the development
- Beta stages
- The release candidate
- The launch
In general, this cycle may lead to up to around three or four major releases within a year. However, that all depends on the size and scope of each release. Remember, some years only have one or two releases.
After the initial five phases, a minor release helps the team get rid of most bugs. That then leads to the eventual major release.
Summary
Updating to the latest WordPress version is critical. It ensures that your WordPress site is in tip-top shape at all times. Not to mention, it brings with it many performance and security enhancements.
WordPress now offers automated updates too. So you can take advantage of that to update all your WordPress sites to the latest version automatically. If you’re managing a lot of sites, this feature is super handy, just like our MyKinsta dashboard.
Finally, you can keep up to date with the upcoming WordPress updates by going to the official Releases Category Archive page, which lists all the details for every WordPress version, including maintenance updates and major releases.
Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about finding your current WordPress version and upgrading to the latest WordPress version.
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