Most conversations about the WordPress ecosystem focus on the platform: the block editor, the ongoing builder wars, the plugin marketplace. The agencies running client WordPress sites at scale rarely get that attention. They should.

CloudLinux and WebPros surveyed 210 WordPress agencies and freelancers to find out how they operate: where they run client sites, how they handle security and performance, and what they expect AI to do for them next. Selected insights and the link to the full report are in this post.

The summer paradox in hosting

Most industries treat summer as a slow season. Hosting providers know better.

For decades, the hosting industry operated under a predictable security rhythm. A major local privilege escalation (LPE) kernel vulnerability would emerge perhaps once a year. System administrators would scan the vendor change logs, assess the threat, and schedule a patch window or server reboot when convenient.

That era is officially over.

In a matter of just a few weeks, the industry has suffered a rapid succession of root exploits — Copy fail, Dirty frag, and Fragnesia, to name a few. We are no longer dealing with isolated, seasonal security events. We are living through a continuous barrage where new critical kernel vulnerabilities are surfacing weekly. Based on what I'm seeing, the next three to six months will be extremely intense, and the overall elevated threat environment will persist for roughly a year and a half.

A purpose-built virtual assistant — trained on our own knowledge base — is changing how customers get answers.

VPS is the biggest growth opportunity in hosting right now. According to the 2026 Web Hosting Trends Report, 65% of providers reported revenue growth last year and 26% rank VPS as their top growth category. The demand is there. The customers are signing up.

A lot has shipped since the Q1 edition of CloudLinux Product Pulse. The Q2 session on April 29 at 4pm CET / 10am ET covers all of it: what's new, what it means for your hosting operations, and where the product roadmap is heading next

Here's a preview of the topics we'll cover.

Cached WordPress pages, 3x faster

CloudFest 2026 is just around the corner, and the CloudLinux team is excited to once again join the global hosting community for one of the industry’s most anticipated events.

As we enter 2026, the hosting industry faces a familiar but intensifying challenge. In the 2026 Web Hosting Trends Report, produced by CloudLinux together with our partner WebPros, around 65% of hosting providers reported revenue growth in 2025. But that growth is getting harder to keep.