WP Bakery / In Themes / Updates / Envato Need to Take Ownership

Hi

Just seen (belatedly) that WP Bakery, which is used in the Majority of themes on themeforest has another security hole.

As a web designer with 50+ themed clients. this hurts.

It’s TIME FOR ENVATO TO OWN THE SITUATION. It’s no longer appropriate for people that buy themes to have to redownload the theme to get an update.

The alternative to enable auto-updated for $50 a year per site - Is not really cricket. Envato should acquire extended licencing for WP Bakery, or sort a deal with WP Bakery a better solution.

It’s not good that something so crucial to the majority of themes has further responsibility dumped on those that purchase. It just seems bad. Thoughts anyone?

thanks!

(speaking as a big buyer who is very familiar with this process/challenge)
It would need to be some kind of unique license and not that simple.

The main obvious issue is that Envato do not own the items for sale here and the license exists between the author and the plugin, rather than envato

In many cases, the plugin is customized for per theme/purpose so it’s not as simple as updating out of the box and will most certainly need customizing first in many cases.

This is not going to happen, especially since there already are better solutions to use for any page builder needs: Elementor and Gutenberg.
If Envato did anything like that with WPBakery, they would have to do it with all premium plugins (like RevSlider, LayerSlider etc.). Again, not going to happen.

The alternative to enable auto-updated for $50 a year per site

You don’t have to pay $50 a year, it is a one time purchase (for each site) to get lifetime updates for WPBakery.

Hi Charlie Thanks - I definitely appreciate its not that simple.

But when something gets to a certain size, and is such a key part of how a company interacts with its customers. It has responsibility.

Security updates should be Both automatic and free.

Feature updates are theme dependent and yes, wpbakery should be able to profit somehow.

Ah yes it is $50 per site (not monthly), my bad.

Ultimately some kind of advanced gutenberg blocks builders will be incorporated into themes in the future. but that’s not right now.

I just think its sucky that security updates are not baked into something that is sold on this platform ( and sold in significant numbers).

While I do entirely see your point, the challenge remains the ownership.

All the obvious other marketplaces, where this type of functionality possible, own and develop the themes themselves (and at significantly smaller volume).

The ‘size’ you rightfully mention is exactly the challenge - adding even basic security updates could very easily break themes if they have been customized extensively, and without the knowledge or control of how themes are put together envato could never make this functionality possible, and will always require the authors’ input.

Hi Charlie thanks for your messages. Hope you are well.

I just wonder though… if other people that use themes (a lot) feel the same.

Sure I can buy $50 wpbakery support for each of the approx 50 sites and add it on to the client bill. But for smaller clients that a significant amount.

Of course I could simply not use those wpbakery themes in smaller client cases. But that seems weird that I’d have to make that choice at all.

Envato could find the will for a solution for security updates on the 10,000-a-day theme sales (guess) commission it takes.

But maybe, it’s just me that thinks this.

It is not that it’s a bad idea, but it is close to impossible to do on the scale of this marketplace. I don’t know what’s your programming background, but I am telling you as a coder, it is just not going to happen. WP plugins are simply not meant to be updated only partially. Either you update the whole plugin to the latest version or you do not update it at all. You would have to keep separate version branches to pull this off. Hell for any developer team. 99% of developers here have no resources to make this work. And you can’t force it just onto some developers, that would be super unfair and would only force these big guys off the market to sell on their own. And again, there is already a solution: buy a separate license for each project.

Hey thanks for engaging with me :slight_smile:

Yeah,:cry: I know its not going to happen.

A wpbakery licence does though feel like a 100% tax on a theme… But that’s the way it is.

My point was if there was a Will from Envato they could have lobby/mandated for something like :

– there being a “security update” button in the wpbakery version that’s installed with theme that’s a different button from the normal “update” on the wp plugin page.

– And thus the installed version of wpakery captures the theme name… You press the “security update” button, which runs to the theme creator and check which version of wpbakery can be installed to update safely, and then it goes off to the usual repository and updates, etc… And then all that automatically without a button… Still protecting the site, and still protecting a fair percentage of wpbakery’s revenue…

But yeah. its not going to happen… I guess I’m manually updating 50 websites.

And theme developers will develop more and more Gutenblock modules, I guess.

:slight_smile: have a good week

Again, this is not really about Envato. The process you are describing wouldn’t be hard to implement, IF plugins were ready for it. And that is one BIG if. Again, this will require a lot of additional work for all plugin developers without increase in their sales. It will be actually detrimental to their sales. And there are thousands of plugin developers on Envato. It is simply much harder to pull this off than you think.

A wpbakery licence does though feel like a 100% tax on a theme… But that’s the way it is.

That is kinda right, that’s why I would avoid themes which do support only WPBakery. Or just bill that additional $64 to your clients. Those are much more realistic paths than to expect marketplace-wide security updates feature.

There’s usually no way to get the key layouts of a theme without using the WP bakery builder inside the theme. Hence why the WpBakery upgrade feels like a tax.

Looking at the Gutenberg First Themes in here… There are very few … Of course that’s an opportunity.

Are your themes “Gutenberg First” - Can you run them with all the layout components without installing WpBakery? If so well done :slight_smile:

We’ll have to disagree about it not being a Envato issue… Apple puts “moral” policy on what apps can be sold in its store… .Amazon will very soon be forced to own up to its actively anti-competition strategies against small business that sell on FBA… If one operates a marketplace, you have a moral responsibility to the end customer for 100% transparency and nurturing healthy business practices. :slight_smile:

Again, just use a theme which uses Elementor or Gutenberg instead of WPBakery. There are plenty of them, especially Elementor ones.

Are your themes “Gutenberg First” …

All my themes work with WPBakery, Elementor and Gutenberg with Gutenberg being recommended option which was used to create the demo content (but all demo layouts can be also recreated using the Elementor and WPBakery).

I have a question about changing the title on one of my pages. How do I change the wording from “Blog” to “Our Menu” on this page? https://daisyorganicbakery.com/menu I am dumbfounded and have tried to figure it out for weeks!

Thanks!
Eddie