What Is WordCamp Asia
WordCamp Asia is the largest WordPress conference in the Asia-Pacific region. After Taipei (2023), Manila (2024), and Kota Kinabalu (2025), the 2026 edition moves to Mumbai. It is community-organized, backed by 31 sponsors across seven tiers, and draws a mix of developers, agency owners, hosting companies, and open-source contributors.
The event runs three days. April 9 is Contributor Day — a working day where attendees contribute directly to the WordPress project. April 10–11 are conference days with sessions across three parallel tracks. All sessions are livestreamed.
Three Days, Three Tracks
Contributor Day (April 9) is not a talk day — it is a working day. Contributors split into teams (core, plugins, documentation, testing, translations) and ship real work. This year’s Contributor Day has an extra draw: WordPress 7.0 releases live at 11:45 AM IST, with a panel discussion and Q&A at 11:00 AM. If you want to hear directly from the people who built the release, this is the session.
Conference Days (April 10–11) run three parallel tracks:
- Foundation (Lotus Room 1) — core development, performance, accessibility, open-source contribution
- Growth (Lotus Room 2) — business, marketing, scaling WordPress-powered businesses
- Enterprise (Lotus Room 3) — large-scale deployments, migrations, architecture, security
The Enterprise track is where most hosting-relevant sessions land. The After Party is on the evening of April 10 (included with Standard and Pro passes).
Who Is Speaking
The lineup includes 50+ speakers. Names that stand out for the hosting crowd:
- Matt Mullenweg — WordPress co-founder, Automattic CEO. His presence usually means announcements.
- Mary Hubbard — WordPress Executive Director. The person setting the project’s strategic direction.
- Jonathan Desrosiers — Bluehost principal engineer and WordPress Core committer. One of the few people who sits on both sides of the hosting-core divide.
- Birgit Pauli-Haack — Publisher of Gutenberg Times, Automattic. If you want to understand where the block editor is going, she is the source.
- James Giroux — WordPress VIP. Enterprise hosting and performance.
- Ramon Corrales — session on modern WordPress performance diagnostics, directly useful for hosting support teams.
- Anna Hurko — Crocoblock CEO. Plugin ecosystem perspective.
- Fellyph Cintra — Automattic, working on WordPress Playground. Developer tooling that could change how hosting companies offer WordPress demos and staging.
Full speaker list with bios at asia.wordcamp.org/2026/speakers.
WordPress 7.0 Ships on Day One
The headline announcement is that WordPress 7.0 releases live during Contributor Day. The short version of what is in it and why hosting providers should care:
- AI Connectors — a shared API key system for OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini baked into core. Plugins share credentials instead of each managing their own. A new MCP Adapter lets AI tools like Claude Desktop and Cursor control WordPress sites via the REST API. This means more outbound API calls and a new inbound endpoint — check your firewall rules.
- Real-time collaborative editing — multiple users editing the same post at once, with live cursors and sync. Default is HTTP polling (more requests per site), with WebSocket support available through plugins or hosting config.
- Admin redesign — DataViews replace the old WP List Tables. New Command Palette (Cmd+K). If you have custom admin panels or white-label dashboards, test them.
- PHP 7.2 and 7.3 dropped — minimum is now PHP 7.4.0. Sites on older PHP will not auto-update and will stay on 6.9.x. If you have customers on PHP 7.2/7.3, tell them now — they will call support on April 9 wondering why WordPress “stopped updating.”
- Client-side media processing — images get resized in the browser before upload, which reduces server CPU load.
We covered WordPress 7.0 in detail in a separate article. The point here is: if you run WordPress hosting, the release lands on April 9, and the people who built it will be in the room answering questions.
Why Go
Three reasons this event is worth the trip for hosting companies:
Access to the people who make WordPress. Core committers, the Executive Director, and Automattic engineers are all there. If you want to understand what is coming next in WordPress — or flag a hosting-specific problem — this is the room to do it in. You will not get this access from a blog post.
The hosting industry is already there. Hostinger, Bluehost, Pressable, Kinsta, GreenGeeks, and Hosting.com are all sponsoring. WordPress VIP is sending speakers. This is not a developer-only event — it is an industry event.
The Asia-Pacific market. India alone has over 300 million internet users and a fast-growing SMB hosting market. If you are looking at the APAC region, three days in Mumbai with 3,000 WordPress professionals is a good way to start.
Practical Details
| Pass | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Student | INR 1,000 (~$12) | Conference + Contributor Day + meals |
| Standard | INR 2,500 (~$30) | Everything above + After Party |
| Pro | INR 35,000 (~$415) | Everything above + priority listing + networking perks |
Venue: Jio World Convention Centre, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai — 30–45 minutes from Mumbai International Airport (BOM).
Livestream: All three tracks on YouTube. Links will be posted on the official site.
Hotels: Two official partner hotels within walking distance — Trident BKC (from ~$250/night) and Sofitel BKC (from ~$310/night), both with breakfast. Details and booking at asia.wordcamp.org/2026/official-hotels.
So, Mumbai in April?
WordCamp Asia is three days in Mumbai for $30. WordPress 7.0 drops PHP 7.2/7.3 support, adds AI infrastructure to core, and changes how multi-user editing works — and the people who built all of it will be in the room on April 9. The hosting industry is already sponsoring. The APAC market is growing. If you work in WordPress hosting and can get to Mumbai, this is the event worth showing up for. If you cannot, the livestream is free.
Łukasz Nowak
Author of this post.