IMPORTANT! EasyWP will stop supporting PHP 7.4 in June 2023. This decision aligns with our commitment to providing customers with the best performance and security. If you are using a PHP version lower than 8.0, you may need to ensure that the website is compatible with the latest versions of PHP. Please read the rest of this post for more information.

We will upgrade our servers to PHP 8.0 in January to bring you the best WordPress hosting and support, and we’re excited to bring this updated security support to our existing customers. New EasyWP users looking for top-quality WordPress hosting will also recognize the value of this upgrade. As a result of these changes, we’ll support new standards that will help us create faster server processes in the future.

Why are we upgrading to PHP 8.0?

We’re always looking for ways to enhance the EasyWP experience for our hosting customers. Therefore, PHP 7.4 will no longer receive security updates or bug fixes as of November 28, 2022. Instead, we can reduce vulnerability risks for our WordPress hosting customers by upgrading to PHP 8.0.

Additional benefits include: 

• Better data processing
• Improved site speed
• Improved site performance

The PHP 8.0 release includes numerous improvements and enhancements, including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expressions, nullsafe operators, JIT, type system improvements, error handling, and consistency. 

How does this upgrade impact performance on EasyWP-hosted sites?

PHP 8 was released for general users on November 26, 2020. Since then, WordPress core developers have adapted to it, introducing PHP 8 support from WordPress 5.6 version onward. Many theme and plugin developers have also included PHP 8 support in their products. 

If you keep your WordPress, plugins, and themes up to date, the upgrade should go seamlessly. However, if you use older WordPress versions and outdated plugins or themes, they may have compatibility issues and break a website. 

What do I need to prepare for the upgrade?

It’s recommended that you update plugins, themes, and WordPress core to the latest versions and double-check the compatibility of plugins and themes with PHP 8.0. You may already have your site and plugins set to auto-update, and if so, you won’t likely have any issues. If you haven’t updated your WordPress site in a while, here is a simple checklist you can follow:

• Create a backup before you explore any changes. This crucial step can help you resolve problems if any of your themes, plugins, or WordPress core encounter issues during the update. 
• Check the compatibility of the plugins and themes with the latest WordPress version. You can try installing a plugin such as Plugin Compatibility Checker, which works well, but may not catch everything. Since we cannot guarantee the 100% correctness of this plugin’s reports, we advise anyone concerned about compatibility to check the version details on wordpress.org. 
• If some plugin or theme is incompatible with the latest WordPress version, it is recommended to either look for an alternative or contact the developer to request its update. Using themes or plugins incompatible with the latest WordPress version may cause security and performance risks.
• Finally, update all components when new versions are available.

Still have more questions?

This information should answer most of your questions related to EasyWP’s upgrade to PHP 8.0. If you have any questions about backups, plugin updates, or anything else, please feel free to check out our searchable Knowledgebase. If you still can’t find answers there or need to test how your website will work with the new PHP version, please don’t hesitate to contact our customer service team.