How to update the PHP version on the server? How to update the PHP version of Joomla How to update the PHP version on the server.

Useful tips

Your WordPress site can run faster and become more secure, and it's in your hands!

This page will try to explain why this means for you, and how you can fix it.

Why PHP is significant

PHP is the programming language that WordPress is based on. The PHP version is installed at the server level by the system administrator. While you may be aware of the importance of keeping your WordPress, plugins, and themes up to date, keeping your PHP version up to date is equally important.

There are two important reasons to have the latest version of PHP:

Your site will run faster, since the latest versions of PHP are more efficient. Updating to the latest supported version of PHP (currently 7.3) can speed up the site up to 3-4 times compared to older versions.
Your site will be safer. PHP, like WordPress, is supported by its community. Since PHP is so widespread, it is a priority target for hacking; only the latest supported versions will have the latest security features. Old, unsupported versions of PHP don't have them, so updating PHP is required to keep your WordPress site secure.

But that's not all, there are other advantages:

A fast website gets advantages in search engines, so you will get a higher ranking in search!
A fast website retains visitors better. Visitors leave faster from slow sites; a fast site is more effective.
A secure website is better protected from hacking and damage to reputation in case of hacking.

These benefits are good for both you and site visitors. These are the reasons why you should update PHP as soon as possible. In the next section we will tell you how to do this.

Before updating PHP

First, a few warnings, but no need to be alarmed. There are some technical things you need to do before upgrading your PHP version.

Updating the PHP version itself shouldn't be a big problem, but we we can't guarantee that it will pass without problems. WordPress works even with a version as old as 5.6.20 (even though we recommend 7.3, we have excellent backwards compatible!), but we don't know how your plugins and themes will work. They should, the most popular or reputable plugins and themes are likely to be, but again, we don't guarantee this.

Below are a couple of steps you can take to reduce your risk before upgrading:

Make a backup copy of the site:, this will allow you to rollback the site in case something goes wrong. There is, so if you haven't yet decided on a solution for yourself, then try one of these. To complete the rollback, you will also need to return the current version of PHP (we will tell you how to do this a little later).
Update WordPress, themes and plugins: from the WordPress console, go to Updates and update everything. This is something that should be done regularly anyway. Once the updates are complete, make sure the site is working as it should.
Check PHP compatibility: install a plugin to check your themes and plugins for possible problems. The plugin is not perfect and may miss things or give false positives, but in most cases it works.
Fix PHP compatibility issues: If the plugin found problems in the previous step, contact the theme or plugin developers and ask them to sort it out. If they don't want to or can't do this, then look for other themes in the directories with similar functionality and use them instead of the problematic ones.

Take these few steps and you'll be ready to upgrade the PHP version of your WordPress site to reap all the benefits it brings!

If you encounter any difficulties during the process or need help, then it is better for you to contact a professional web developer, support from your hosting provider, or the authors of your plugins and themes. Most of them should be happy to help you.

And now we can finally move on to updating the PHP version on your site.

How to update the PHP version on a website to make it faster and more secure

Now you are ready to update the PHP version on your website! You've done your due diligence, you have a backup and your site is prepared to be updated in the best possible way.

Since the PHP version is installed at the server level by your hosting, the update occurs either by changing the settings in the hosting panel or by contacting the hosting technical support with a request to change the PHP version.

So the exact steps to update will vary depending on the hosting provider. Below is , which provided us with instructions (in English) on how to update PHP for them.

If you do not find your hosting in the list, you can contact hosting technical support and ask them to help you. Below is a request template you can use:

Dear hosting support!

I want to make my WordPress site faster and more secure with the latest version of PHP.
If my site is not already using the latest version of PHP,
then please tell me what step by step I need to do to update.

Thank you!

If you have any difficulties at this stage, then either change the PHP version back yourself, or contact hosting support or a professional web developer. If you need to roll back to a backup, first restore the previous version of PHP you were using (possibly by contacting hosting support), then restore the site from the backup.

You now have all the information on the update! Great! With the latest version of PHP, your site will be faster and more secure, and your visitors will be happier.

Fast, Secure WordPress Websites for Everyone

With the latest version of PHP, you can be sure that your site is as fast and secure as possible.

You now have all the information to update PHP and you also know how to do it in the future. Keep an eye out for update notifications in your WordPress site console, or for updates from your hosting service.

Thank you for making the Internet better!

From December 2018, WordPress sites that use PHP 5.6 and 7.0 will no longer receive the update, which is 57.1% of the total number of WordPress sites. Website security patches will not be released on the above PHP versions.

This can result in decreased traffic and poorer search rankings for WordPress websites that are still using these old versions of PHP.

What is PHP?

PHP is a programming language that allows you to create websites. There are different versions of PHP, each of which is an improved version of the previous one. With the creation of new versions, it is possible to update to take advantage of all the benefits of the new version of PHP.

When will security updates end?

Security updates for PHP 5.6 end on December 31, 2018.Security updates and patches for PHP 7.0 end on December 3, 2018.

How many websites face a security problem?

According to official statistics, 57.1% of all WP sites use PHP.

Why is support ending?

Security support for each version is planned for a limited number of years until it reaches what is called the “End of Life (EOL)”. What does it mean that there will be no improvements or updates for WordPress sites running older versions of PHP, even if vulnerabilities are discovered? According to the official PHP website, the term EOL means:

“A release that is no longer supported. Users who are still using this version should update as soon as possible to avoid any vulnerabilities."

What happens if you can't update PHP?

All websites that cannot update to the latest version of PHP will be insecure and vulnerable to hacking after the end of support for versions 5.6 and 7.0. This means that if CMS system vulnerabilities are found, no one will be involved in eliminating security holes in the PHP version at the EOL stage. Also, many WordPress plugins and themes will stop working.

If you have a website written in WordPress, then you should find out as soon as possible which version of PHP you are using and, if possible, update it. To do this, contact the technical support of your hosting provider.

How to check which version of PHP you are using?

The easiest way is to go and find the section related to PHP.

There are also many tools for checking the PHP version online, but we recommend checking through the hosting control panel. HyperHost hosting uses two popular control panels Cpanel and ISPmanager; you can check the PHP version in the corresponding section as in the screenshots:

in the cPanel control panel

in the ISPmanager control panel

There are plugins within WordPress itself that can tell you which version you are using. For example, the WordPress phpinfo plugin is used to determine the PHP version of a site. After determining your PHP version, don't forget to remove this plugin.

Well, the easiest way to determine the PHP version is to contact our technical support, we can tell you exactly what version you are using and help you update it.

How to upgrade from PHP 5.6/7.0 to the latest versions?

Back up your site

It's a good idea to make a backup before making any changes. You can create a backup using the UpDraftPlus plugin, yourself through the control panel or by writing to our technical support.

Check plugin compatibility

Check or update all plugins to the latest version. The last update to the plugin should be no more than a year old. If the plugin has not been updated for a long time, contact the plugin author or find information about whether the plugin works with the latest version of PHP 7.2.

If the plugin is not compatible with this version, then it should be replaced with a similar one that supports updates and is compatible with the latest version of PHP. Plugins that are not updated pose a serious security risk.

Updating PHP Version

Go to your cPanel or ISPmanager hosting control panel, go to the PHP section and update the PHP version for your site. If you know how to do this, write to us, we are always ready to help. Create a ticket in the “Tickets” section, “Open a new ticket”, select the technical support department and indicate which version of PHP you need.

Make security part of your SEO efforts

Security issues are usually not part of SEO as they do not directly affect rankings. At the same time, if the site is hacked, then the traffic to your site decreases, which directly affects the SEO. Therefore, you should not wait for force majeure, but add one more check point to your SEO list - checking the security of the site.

Translation from searchenginejournal.com

Best the enemy of the good? We looked at how to update the version of PHP your site is running on and why you need it.

Current PHP version

PHP 7.3, the latest release in this family, is currently undergoing beta testing. The current version is 7.2, which is superior in speed and functionality to all previous versions.

Here is a partial list of PHP 7 features:

scalar parameter types and hints (hints) by return types;
two new features CSPRNG;
anonymous classes;
operator return in generators and other updates in them;
improvement of function assert() while maintaining backward compatibility.

How to update PHP on Windows

Everything here is very simple and prosaic:

1. Download the latest version of PHP

2. Delete the old one

3. Install a new one.

4. We re-register the settings in Apache and PHP.

But before updating, you need to carefully study the Appendices section in the documentation for the new version. It describes deprecated functionality that is no longer used in the language. New versions do not support the old code: migration from the fifth to the seventh, which has very weak backward compatibility, is especially difficult.

If a developer uses unsupported functions, then the piece of code that contains them simply will not work. Therefore, before updating, you need to seriously analyze this section and, in accordance with it, your code.

Why update if everything works?

A reasonable question that many programmers ask. If you do not update the language on your own server, you are simply depriving yourself of the benefits and capabilities of the next version.

With each PHP release, new features and functions appear, and vulnerabilities are also closed. For example, is_countable allows you to determine the type of a variable - enumerated or not. This is a very convenient feature for web developers. Now we have to use it to determine the type of a variable if, and in PHP 7.3 this can be done with one function.

However, updating a PHP version is a painful process for the development team, meaning days of code refactoring and bug fixes - all due to backward compatibility issues in the language. Previously installed plugins and scripts may conflict with the new version, work incorrectly or not connect at all, adding headaches to developers.

Web hosting Plesk posted statistics on its blog on Habré about which versions of PHP their users use on their websites. At the beginning of March 2018, the situation looked like this:

Statistics on the use of different PHP versions

As you can see, very few people use the latest version. The conservative majority remains faithful to reliable technologies - from PHP 5.1 to 5.6.

To update or not to update: that is the question

Let's put it this way: there is no Holy Grail in the update problem. It must be approached from a position of expediency. It will be difficult to transfer a large project to PHP7: you will have to refactor the entire code base, but for what? Any change must be based on work needs.

If there are no problems with maintaining the functionality of the site and loading speed, then switching to a more modern version is a waste of time and money. If the developers lack everything in functionality, there is no point in updating either. The transition to a new version should not be justified by the fact that it is cool, fashionable and youthful.

On old sites where there is solid

If you use Denwer, then you know that package updates do not happen very often. If the server itself may not worry us much, then here is the version php could become a critical problem. That's about how to update PHP on Denwer, we'll talk today.

In fact, there is nothing difficult here. First you need to download thread safe version php on the website http://windows.php.net/download/. I advise you to download the 32-bit version, because... with 64-bit you may have problems, and this build is currently experimental.

Now stop the server using the script stop.exe And switchOff.exe, then follow the path usr/local/php5 and delete all binary files there, replacing them with the ones you just downloaded. Restart Denwer.

Now in the folder php5 you don't have a file php.ini, however, instead of it there is php.ini-development And php.ini-production. You can rename any of them to php.ini and configure the server as you need. Don't forget to also see that the directive is uncommented extension_dir="ext" to avoid problems with plugins in the future.

PHP Update for WordPress in simple words with an example, pictures and safely, similarly for other CMS with some exceptions, but if you think a little, you can update easily.

Updating PHP for a blog on WordPress, step-by-step instructions using the example of my site for beginners.

Hello, dear readers.

Yesterday I opened my site's admin console and read a warning from the Yoast SEO plugin that PHP version 5.2 which my blog works with is already out of date and this may lead to problems with the security of my blog.

I understand how important the security and speed of blogs and websites are, and I listened to this recommendation and today I updated PHP 5.2 with which my blog worked to version PHP 7.1.

And so to speak, hot on the heels, I decided to write the instructions “Updating PHP for WordPress” as a “reminder” for myself and maybe it will be interesting to other people.

Let's start.

I will write this instruction step by step as I did PHP update for my blog on WordPress, which is hosted Beget.

But apart from the hosting interface for updating PHP, there are no other differences and therefore I will hardly add images to this article so as not to confuse readers with the differences in interfaces in the administrative panels of different hostings.

I’ll just write it step by step and you’ll understand how you can update the PHP of your site by repeating my steps.

Let's update the PHP of the site using the example of updating PHP for a blog created on WordPress from PHP 5.2 to PHP 7.1

Important: At the time of writing, the latest version was PHP 7.1 on my hosting. If in your case the version is more recent, that’s good, update to the latest version. The steps to update PHP will be exactly the same, regardless of version.

Step 1. Need to open the site administrator console on WordPress http://your website address/wp-admin/.

There open the Plugins tab, select all installed plugins and Deactivate or remove them completely.

On the one hand, with complete removal, certainly nothing will interfere with the correct update of PHP, but on the other hand, there will be extra work to re-install all the necessary plugins.

I chose the Deactivate plugins option, but after updating PHP, some plugins did not want to be activated and I had to completely remove them.

And then install from scratch, only then the plugins were installed and activated without problems.

And everything would have been fine if one of the plugins that did not want to be activated was not the Redirect plugin, all previously created link redirects disappeared. But this is not critical, later I will correct everything from the saved file.

Checking plugin compatibility in WordPress version 5.2 “Jaco”

Important: The version of WordPress 5.2, called “Jaco” (named after the jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius), adds many good security features to WordPress. One of which is checking plugin compatibility. WordPress will now automatically detect if your site's PHP version is compatible with your installed plugins. If a plugin requires a higher version of PHP than your site currently uses, WordPress will not allow you to activate the plugin, preventing possible compatibility errors.

So, I deactivated all installed plugins.

Step 2. I open mine hosting administrative panel, there I open the option BackUp(creating backup copies).

AND creating backups, both folders with files of the site itself and the database, and I download these two archives to my computer, if suddenly something goes wrong.

After creating the backups, I select the tab Websites and point the mouse arrow at PHP icon, the desired site, so I can see the current PHP version

See what version of PHP or select and update for a new version of PHP

A by clicking on the icon From the drop-down list of PHP versions, I select the version I need for which I want to update PHP. I am for myself chose PHP 7.1.

When compared with older versions of PHP, versions above PHP 7.0 are better in three areas: security, speed and future-proofing.

1. PHP 5.2 has not been updated for many years and has serious problems.

2. PHP 7 is up to 400% faster than 5.2, which means you can use up to 50% less server load while getting the same result.

3. Last but not least, developers will be able to use all modern technologies to take the site to the next level.

Step 3. Yes, yes I am chose PHP 7.1. and pressed the button Apply, appeared a second later PHP update success message.

Step 4. I I return to my site's admin console, open a tab Plugins And activating Plugins or install all the necessary plugins again.

That, in fact, is all the simple instructions about “ Updating PHP for a WordPress Blog«.

In custody

I want to remind you for those people who have not updated the WordPress CMS manually and decide to do it themselves, rather than wait for WordPress to update itself.

Before updating WordPress, do not forget, just in case of emergency, to make backup copies of the site and deactivate all plugins before updating.

To update a WordPress template, WordPress plugins, you just need to select the desired template or plugin and update it. It’s best to simply delete unused WordPress templates and plugins.

And don't forget about the basic methods for .

As always, write your questions in the comments.

P.S. But, if you are still unsure, contact your hosting provider’s support service and ask for help in updating PHP.

If you found the article useful “ PHP Update for WordPress"please share. For you, this is one click on the social media button, but for me, this is a great motivation to create useful content.

Free Hosting Review from one of the largest hosting providers in Russia with excellent characteristics: MySQL, PHP, CMS installation in 1 click and more. Quick registration for citizens of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. An excellent option for new sites or training and testing your knowledge, plugins and themes.