Why PHP Matters To You
PHP is the coding language WordPress is built on, and its version is set at the server-level by your hosting company. Whilst you may be familiar with the importance of keeping WordPress, and your themes and plugins up-to-date, keeping PHP up-to-date is just as important.
There are two main benefits to keeping PHP up-to-date:
- Your website will be faster as the latest version of PHP is more efficient. Updating to the latest supported version can deliver a huge performance increase; up to 3 or 4x faster for older versions.
- Your website will be more secure. PHP, like WordPress, is maintained by its community. Because PHP is so popular, it is a target for hackers – but the latest version will have the latest security features. Older versions of PHP do not have this, so updating is essential to keep your WordPress site secure.
And then there are a number of secondary benefits:
- A faster WordPress website will be rewarded by search engines, so you’ll rank higher in search!
- A faster website will retain visitors better (they’ll leave if it takes too long to load), making your website more effective.
- A more secure website is better protected against hackers, and the cost and reputational damage associated with a hacked website.
The latest WP Cloud Plugins require PHP version to 7.4+ and does support PHP 8.x. PHP 7.4 was released three years ago in 2019 and is the recommended version of WordPress in general. Support for older PHP version will be dropped soon by WordPress.
How to update your website’s PHP version for a faster, more secure website
Switching to PHP 7.4. should be quite easily done via your server configuration panel on your webhost. You’ll find a list of hosts who have PHP update instructions available here. Once your server is running PHP 7.4, you can simply update the plugin via your WordPress Plugin Dashboard.
Before you update your PHP version
Updating your PHP version should not be a problem, but we can’t guarantee that it’s not. Before you update your PHP version, there are few things you can do. Check https://wordpress.org/support/update-php/#before-you-update-your-php-version for more information.