Should You Upgrade To WordPress 3.0?
As you may know, the long awaited WordPress Version 3.0 was released a few days ago and is now available to download directly from WordPress.org or upgrade through your control panel.
But should you upgrade now?
Well, yes and no… my answer will depend on a few things.
If you have a simple blog that doesn’t use many plugins, then I may upgrade to 3.0.
But, if you run many plugins that are essential to your blog or run membership sites using plugins like WishList for example, my answer would be no.
Since this is a major WP upgrade with over 1,200 bug fixes, incorporation of MU (multiple blog management from one installation), a new standard theme, new menu system and many more upgrades, my recommendation is to wait until you test or hear from the creators of the plugins that are essential to your blog to confirm they are compatible with 3.0 before upgrading.
For example, since Wishlist is the membership plugin we use to run most of our sites (we now use Wishlist for all our membership sites and most every new site we create is a membership site), they have announced an upgrade that is necessary for it to work with WP 3.0. So until that’s available, we’re waiting and will test other essential plugins to insure they work with 3.0 as well. Sometimes one plugin can break your entire blog, so as standard practice, and especially with major upgrades like WP 3.0, we test everything before upgrading. Often I like to wait a few weeks to see feedback from other users as well as plugin authors to see when upgrading makes sense and the chances of trouble are low.
If you do decide to upgrade, I highly recommend backing up your WP database tables using a plugin like WP DB Backup beforehand.
If you’re installing a new blog using Fantastico in CPanel, you’ll need to wait a bit before 3.0 becomes available through that interface. Currently Fantastico is installing and upgrading to 2.9.2. Of course, you can download 3.0 directly from WordPress.org.
Let me know what you think and your experiences with the new 3.0 version of WordPress.
Mark,
Thanks so much this was very helpfull. Every time I go into my dashboard I keep thinking should I upgrade. Well I am going to take your advice and wait a bit longer and let all of those wonderfull plugins shake out any problems.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for your great and really helpful advice on whether one should upgrade to WP 3.0 or not. I totally agree with your conclusions.
Best,
Klaus