PlaceholderAPI is now using the Expansion cloud v2 web API which allows quite a bit more functionality such as viewing placeholders in game as well as expansion version history and ability to download a specific version of an expansion.
The command system has been refactored to not depend on a specific server implementation (bukkit or spigot) as we now use a nice JSON message API instead of Spigot TextComponent.
A bug has been patched related to placeholders that use the bracket pattern - "{placeholder}". If a plugin you use is parsing placeholders matched to the bracket placeholder pattern, it is highly recommended you update as you have most likely already noticed this issue when you updated to 2.8.5.
Ecloud commands now work with permission instead of checking if the CommandSender is OP. The permission to use ecloud commands is: placeholderapi.ecloud
Ecloud commands have been updated:
Here is a full list of the changes since last version: