FAIR Shifts Focus Away from WordPress After Hosting Providers Refuse Investment

Summary

FAIR (Federated and Independent Repositories), an initiative created in June 2025 to decentralize WordPress updates, has announced it will shift its primary focus away from WordPress to TYPO3. Founder Joost de Valk revealed on February 26, 2026, that despite extensive conversations with hosting companies and major ecosystem players, they refused to invest in the decentralized update solution. The lack of investment stemmed not from support for WordPress's current centralized model, but from unwillingness to commit resources and navigate political tensions within the WordPress ecosystem.

FAIR was established in response to controversies over centralized control of WordPress updates, with AspirePress being the first company to provide hosting resources. However, the long-term goal of attracting additional companies to invest in decentralized package mirror servers never materialized. While FAIR will continue to maintain its WordPress connector plugin and welcomes contributors, the organization is redirecting its efforts toward TYPO3, a different content management system.

For WordPress users who adopted FAIR's connector plugin, the transition means they may want to revert to receiving updates directly from WordPress. However, one popular feature—serving avatar images locally instead of from Gravatar—has been extracted into a standalone plugin by contributor Andrew Norcross. This plugin allows WordPress users to upload and serve profile images from their own domains, maintaining privacy and control over user avatars without requiring the full FAIR connector infrastructure.

• Hosting companies cited cost, commitment, and political risk as reasons for avoiding investment in decentralized WordPress solutions