PHP 7.3 series now available

The PHP developers recently released a brand new version, PHP 7.3, so PHP 7.3.0 is now available in our control panel (in addition to the PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 series).

We don’t yet recommend PHP 7.3 for most customers. It’s fairly new and some third-party scripts aren’t yet compatible with it. If you want to try it anyway:

  1. First, update your site’s PHP scripts (including WordPress, Joomla, any plugins or themes you use, and so on)
  2. Login to our My Account control panel
  3. Click PHP Settings
  4. Click PHP 7.3 series
  5. Click Save Settings

After updating, test your site carefully to make sure there aren’t any problems.

By the way, if all this seems confusing, we have a page explaining more about PHP versions and updates.

PHP 7.2 is now the default for new accounts

The somewhat older PHP 7.2 series has been out long enough that all modern script software should be compatible with it, and the authors of popular scripts like WordPress recommend using it. Because of that, we’re making PHP 7.2 the default for new customers.

We haven’t changed the version for any existing accounts, but we recommend that all customers use PHP 7.2 if possible (the instructions above explain how to choose the version your site uses). PHP 7.2 is slightly faster than PHP 7.1 and almost twice as fast as PHP 5. If you care about your site’s speed (and you should), always use the newest version of PHP that’s compatible with your scripts.