As the WordPress ecosystem grows, so does the challenge of managing plugin updates across a massive user base. With some plugins reaching millions of installs, rolling out updates to all users at once introduces significant risk. Uncaught issues in a new release could quickly impact a large portion of users, leading to potential instability or downtime.
In this talk, we’ll explore why WordPress’s scale calls for a gradual release process to detect and resolve issues early, sparing the full user base from disruptions. We’ll cover the benefits, potential challenges, and practical steps to make phased rollouts work for the WordPress community.