Today, it was announced that Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Akismet, and other services, has acquired Frontity, a headless WordPress framework. The acquisition aims to benefit the open-source WordPress CMS and further the goal of achieving full-site editing with Gutenberg blocks.
Headless CMS
A headless content management system (CMS) involves using a CMS like WordPress to manage content creation (the back end) while employing a React front end for the user interface (the front end, or the head). Separating these functions allows WordPress to be used exclusively for content management and not for the front part of the site that users interact with. This architecture is known as a headless CMS.
Using WordPress as the back end for content management in a headless setup offers speed and SEO advantages. It also allows publishers to easily distribute content across various channels like social media and the Internet of Things.
Frontity
Frontity is an open-source framework designed to simplify using WordPress as a headless CMS. It makes it easier to adopt a headless site architecture in the WordPress environment, giving publishers the benefits of speed without needing to handle coding issues.
Automattic invested in Frontity in 2020, establishing a close working relationship with the Frontity team. Automattic even sponsored Frontity’s contributions to the WordPress core. With this acquisition, the Frontity team will focus on the WordPress core and the Gutenberg project.
This move will not result in the React framework becoming part of the WordPress core. Instead, Frontity will continue as an open-source project.
What’s Exciting About Frontity and Automattic
The most intriguing aspect of this announcement is that the JavaScript engineering resources behind Frontity will now focus on the WordPress core, specifically on finalizing the Full Site Editing Experience via Gutenberg blocks. Gutenberg aims to modernize website creation by making it accessible to everyone through an easy-to-use visual editor that utilizes blocks for creating websites.
According to Frontity:
“As part of Automattic, our team will contribute to the WordPress open source project and work closely with its community to help improve the full site editing developer experience.
…The impact our team could make working directly on WordPress is much more significant than continuing on our own, so we decided to go for it!”
Big Score for WordPress
The reaction in the private Advanced WordPress Facebook group has been positive. This announcement is significant for the entire WordPress publishing community, as it brings more top engineering talent to developing the WordPress core CMS and accelerates the development of the Gutenberg content editor.
Citation
Read the official announcement from Frontity:
Frontity is joining Automattic
