Review of the year: What we achieved in 2018 & our plans for 2019

What a "Yeah"! With this pun, we'll jump right in and say: another exciting year has come to an end! 2018 was full of interesting challenges such as WordPress 5.0 and the Gutenberg editor, the GDPR and the first co-organization of a WordCamp for 2019. To bring 2018 to a fitting close, we're sharing our product developments and personal highlights from the past year as well as our plans for 2019.

Thank you for your great motivation

In the past year, you have once again provided us with a great deal of support in many different ways. Our entire team would like to say THANK YOU for your honest feedback, ideas, criticism, praise and the heartfelt gifts we received in the form of pizza and drinks deliveries, parcels, postcards and letters!

Raidboxes - The WordPress hosting specialist no. 1

Since 2014 in a small coworking space in the center of Münster and with just three people (Marcel, Johannes and myself), the first prototype of the Raidboxes dashboard automatically created and delivered a WordPress installation for the first time, a lot has happened.

Raidboxes has grown with the help of the financing round by HTGF in the amount of half a million euros from 2016 to the WordPress hosting specialist in Germany, Austria and Switzerland!

More freedom for over 8,000 customers

With over 8,000 customers across Europe, we are proud to primarily support internet professionals such as agencies, freelancers, (influencer) blogs and WooCommerce stores in their daily work. to give them more freedom and support them.

We are looking for you to join our growing team

To date, our team has grown to eleven people and office dog "Elea" and in 2019 we are also planning to fill further positions in the system administrationsupport and in sales/consulting.

WordPress 5.0 and the new Gutenberg editor

Anyone who works professionally with WordPress will find the discussions and the introduction of the WordPress Gutenberg editor. The comments range from sky-high endorsement of the new WordPress editor and its modular blocks to scathing feedback. Critics criticize, for example, the project management of the Gutenberg development team, the lack of user-friendliness and accessibility as well as the premature release as the standard editor in the still quite new WordPress version 5.0 End of December 2018.

Raidboxes has been with Gutenberg at an early stageas a WordPress hosting specialist for all existing BOXES (websites) as well as newly created WordPress installations, we always use the latest WordPress version and thus also the new Gutenberg editor available.

Automatic update to WordPress 5.0 planned for the end of February 2019

In the meantime, the comprehensive update of all our websites to the latest WordPress version 5.0.X is planned for February 2019provided that all known plugin and theme manufacturers have finalized their Gutenberg compatibility.

When creating a new WordPress instance at Raidboxes, you as a user can now choose whether your BOX should run on the latest WP version with the classic editor or on the latest WordPress version 5.0.X.

E-book special: The Gutenberg editor e-book with lots of help

With the major update to WordPress 5.0 on December 6, 2018, the classic TinyMCE editor was replaced. To help you decide for or against the Gutenberg editor, we have published an e-book (to download the Gutenberg e-book this way). In six chapters, we show you what the new editor means for WordPress and your business and how you can get to grips with it.

Help for WordPress 5.0 and the Gutenberg editor

We have extensive help articles and articles in our WP magazine to provide all customers and users with the best possible support during the transition. From fixing the current WP version in the Raidboxes dashboard to different methods to avoid the avoid the Gutenberg editoryou will find the most important Gutenberg information in this article.

OUT OF THE BOX - The WordPress magazine

With our entry into the hosting market in Austria and Switzerland, we also laid the foundation for our German-language WordPress magazine "wp unboxed", whose high-quality content is primarily aimed at professional WordPress users in the DACH countries.

Our magazine now has over 1,500 subscribers to our free WordPress news and more than 2,000 push notification subscribers, our magazine has become an established source of information. Topics around WordPressbut also online marketing and web design as well as the optimization of your online business have their place in OUT OF THE BOX.

The 10 most popular OUT OF THE BOX items in 2018

The ten most popular articles from our OOTB readers in 2018, in order:

The GDPR and our learnings from its implementation

The cross-departmental preparation and implementation of the GDPR until it came into force on 25 May 2018 was particularly challenging, but also instructive, for us. The transnational General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) introduced by the European Parliament General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) had strict procedures in place to better protect your privacy on the internet.

Interestingly, only a quarter (24%) of companies in Germany have fully implemented the GDPR to date. A further 40 percent have implemented the rules to a large extent, while three in ten (30 percent) have only partially implemented them. Since May 2018, a total of more than 70,000 inquiries and complaints received by the data protection authority.

GDPR guide for WP agencies, freelancers and website operators

Our accumulated experience during the implementation of the GDPR, including the technical measures for you as a website operator, have been summarized in an easy-to-understand 30-page e-book, which you can download here here.

WordCamp sponsoring and co-organization

Other highlights in 2018 were certainly the participation in WordCamps - whether as a sponsor, speaker or co-organizer. A personal highlight was definitely the WordCamp retreat in Soltauwhich brought a completely new WordCamp concept to life. You can find out why the WordCamp Retreat was so special in our recap to read more.

In addition to the WordCamp Retreat, we were also a silver sponsor at the beginning of the year at the WordCamp Zaragoza as a silver sponsor. As a gold sponsor and with two workshops held by Matthias, our Senior Web Developer, we were then able to organize the WordCamp Cologne 2018 organized in record time. As at the WordCamp Retreat, our Raidboxes slush machine was of course also there with not entirely "youth-free" mixed drinks 😉.

Further WordCamps are also planned for 2019. One of these is the first WordCamp Osnabrück in March, which Johannes and Leefke from the Raidboxes team are helping to organize. We are looking forward to a WordCamp for all WordPress friends from the Münster, Osnabrück and Emsland regions as well as from all over Germany and the world.

In 2019, we would also like to focus on our mission "To give you more freedom" and our corporate visionto enable limitless opportunities, in a now regularly recurring workshop with the entire team. You can find a summary of our first workshops with initial assistance for your own implementation here.

Fun facts infographic of our year 2018

To give you a comprehensive overview of 2018 at Raidboxes, we have compiled the most important figures of the year for you in an infographic.

Our product features and improvements in 2018

With one click on the feedback forum in the RB dashboard every RB user can contribute their own feedback and/or suggestions for improving Raidboxes and discuss and vote on the ideas of other users.

We take the ideas and criticism of our users very seriously and regularly incorporate this information into product development. The features from 2018 were not excluded from this either, so here is a list of the features and improvements that we implemented with the help of the RB community:

Tools for a better workflow

Free hosting for agencies and freelancers

For all those who implement WordPress projects for customers, we have developed our exclusive FREE-DEV program program. With this program, you as a freelancer or agency can develop up to three parallel WordPress projects with us for 90 days free of charge. More information and registration can now be found here.

Free SSH environment with WP-CLI & Git

You can use Secure Shell (SSH) to establish a secure network connection with our servers. SSH uses unique encryption in the form of a key, which you can store in our in the RB dashboard with us. You can then establish a secure connection to your WordPress websites with us and speed up the development of your WP projects.

WordPress templates for recurring use

In 2018, we integrated the template function into the Raidboxes dashboard. From your saved WordPress templates, you can then create as many additional WordPress pages as you like in a flash - and already preconfigured with all your favorite settings. You can find more information here.

Features for better working with WordPress

Reset WordPress with one click

You can now restore any of your BOXES to their original state with a single click. This deletes all plugins, themes and content from the file system and database and you can continue working with a completely empty BOX.

Change WordPress database prefix

For various reasons, it can happen that the table prefix (Table_prefix) wp_which is created by default during the WordPress installation, needs to be replaced or changed. Regardless of whether it is for the clarity of your database or for security reasons, this is now possible for each of your websites under "Settings".

Add special entries in wp-config.php

It is now also possible to enter special entries in wp-config.php. Our write protection remains active and successfully prevents hackers and malware from using your wp-config.php for criminal activities.

Set PHP Max Execution Time

You can now change the PHP max_execution_time yourself. You can set separate values for the frontend and the WP dashboard. The setting is available for all activated BOXES from the STARTER plan onwards.

Integrated cronjob management

You can now view all cron jobs in the settings of your BOX(EN) and, if necessary, delete them directly.

IP blocking - blacklisting and whitelisting

The 'IP blocking' setting implemented in 2018 allows you to create blacklists and whitelists. This allows you to control exactly which IP addresses should have access to your site and which should not.

Special GDPR measures

Change login audit log settings

Under the profile settings in the Raidboxes dashboard, you now have the option of setting whether your visits are stored with us, only stored in encrypted form or not stored at all. By default, we do not store your visits in accordance with the EU GDPR.

WordPress Gravatars removed from the RB dashboard

The Gravatar service we use, which displays your avatar and those of your colleagues in the RB dashboard, is no longer permitted under the GDPR, as data is sent to Gravatar without your consent. As a result, we have removed the service until a GDPR-compliant alternative is found and the administrators have been given the first letters of their first and last name.

WP Session Eraser setting

The WP Session Eraser takes you one step further towards GDPR compliance and is unique to date! The background: WordPress stores session data from logged-in users until they explicitly log out. This can lead to this data being stored in the database even though there is no longer a purpose for processing it. With our WP Session Eraser, you decide at what interval this data is deleted.

Our planned projects in 2019

New planned positions in the RB team

In 2019, we are also planning to fill further positions in system administration, support and sales/consulting. As soon as there are new job offers, you will also find further information in our overview of open vacancies.

Raidboxes sponsors the WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin

To the delight of us all, this year's WordCamp Europe 2019 will take place in the German capital Berlin. This not only makes it interesting because of the short journey, but we are also proud to be an official sponsor for the first time.

Raidboxes will be there present its own booth and we are looking forward to meeting many friends again and getting to know new WordPress fans from all over Europe. We look forward to seeing you at the RB Booth for a personal chat! By the way, tickets can now be ordered be ordered here.

Planned product features in 2019

WordPress multisite

A frequently requested product feature from the feedback forum is the use of WordPress multisites on our BOXES. Due to the necessary GDPR measures and the launch of WordPress 5.0, this feature will now be implemented in the first and second quarters of 2019 instead of 2018 as planned.

Create e-mail inboxes

Another request from the RB community in the feedback forum, in addition to the possibility of domains (which we implemented in 2018), the offer of email inboxes. Due to our specialization in WordPress hosting, we have long struggled with our own implementation of emails. But: email inboxes are a perfect example of involving the RB community in the ongoing process of desired features and improvements.

The first release of our e-mail service is therefore already scheduled for February 2019, which we are developing with the help of our cooperation partner mailbox.org - a German email provider that specializes in secure email communication.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

In 2019, we will also finalize the development of the CDN integration that has already been started. Here, too, the actual roadmap has been postponed due to the necessary measures in the area of GDPR and WordPress 5.0. Unfortunately, there is currently no exact date for the release of this feature.

Detailed status overview of a BOX

In the first version of the status overview of a BOX, the utilization of the CPU and RAM can be read out. Further information, such as detailed log files, will be added in subsequent versions. Again, the exact release date is not yet known.

Planned features without a fixed deadline

Optional password entry when deleting a BOX
Optional two-factor authentication of the RB account
Images are automatically compressed when uploaded
NGINX cache is more individual in the professional settings
Raidboxes bulk plans can be booked more flexibly than before
Price discount when choosing annual billing
Space-saving list view can be selected in the RB dashboard

"Be free and wild and creative"

That was our recap of 2018 and the first outlook for the current year 2019. We are sure that 2019 will be at least as exciting as 2018 and are starting this year with the aim of supporting you so that you can live up to our slogan "Be free and wild and creative!" you can pursue your passion: your business!