The latest "Inside box" update for Strapi highlights recent developments in both the framework and hosting solution, emphasizing significant advancements and upcoming enhancements. The team has implemented a new validation layer inspired by the Hapi framework, utilizing Joi for easier configuration through a JSON object syntax. Additionally, they updated dependencies by opting for the more feature-rich and popular koa-sslify middleware, which includes support for Azure and reverse proxies. A major milestone was achieved by merging the feature/plugins branch, which introduces alpha support for plugins that function as sub-apps within the core framework. Despite progress, the release of the administration panel has been delayed due to bugs with plugin loading. The development of a proprietary hosting platform is underway, promising easy deployment of Strapi apps without requiring devOps knowledge, with some users soon able to participate in testing a free trial plan. The Strapi team encourages community engagement through pull requests, issues on GitHub, email, or Slack for support and feedback.