A New P2 Debut
WordPress.com has launched an updated new beta version of P2. In the past, P2 was a WordPress theme that has been used for “blogging at the speed of thought.” It was adopted for internal communications between teams at Automattic in 2009. A successor, O2, emerged in 2015 as a plugin rather than a theme. O2 was shared on GitHub, but that project has been quiet. So has P2, until now.
This P2, despite the same name, is significantly different from the old P2 that has been available for download at WordPress.org without updates in over two years. The new P2 adds Gutenberg support and likely many other under-the-hood modernizations.
Ben Gillbanks took a look and says the new P2 makes use of both the O2 plugin and the P2 theme with a lot of WordPress.com-specific code.
The new P2 is “free to use” at WordPress.com now, and “current P2s will always be free to use” there, but a “paid version … is in development.” Sarah Gooding reported the commercial tiers will offer extended features and include an “enterprise” option, as described by P2 launch lead Jon Burke.
Currently you “cannot use custom domains,” and the FAQ says you can’t self-host it “at the moment.” The code does not appear to be available, but Automattic “plan[s] to offer this option in the future.”
There is a blog post by Miguel Lezama about P2’s debut with a link to the demo. 🆕✨
