Should You Update PHP on Your WordPress Site?

PHP is the language WordPress runs on, and keeping it updated is one of the most impactful — and most overlooked — maintenance tasks for any WordPress site.

What Is PHP and Why Does It Matter?

PHP generates your WordPress pages server-side on every visit. The version of PHP your server uses directly affects your site's speed and security. Each version receives security updates for a defined period, then reaches End of Life — meaning no more patches, forever.

What Version Should You Run?

As of 2025: PHP 8.2 or 8.3 are actively supported. PHP 8.1 reached End of Life December 2024. PHP 7.4 and earlier have been unsupported since 2022. If you're on PHP 7.x, you are on an unpatched, vulnerable version. Check: WordPress Dashboard → Tools → Site Health → Info.

Benefits of Updating to PHP 8.x

Security: Receives active patches. Older versions do not. Non-negotiable. Performance: PHP 8.x is 10–30% faster than PHP 7.x on identical code — faster page generation with the same server resources. WordPress compatibility: Required for current and future WordPress versions.

Risks of Updating

PHP updates can break poorly coded plugins or themes. PHP 8.x introduced stricter error handling that catches coding patterns PHP 7.x accepted silently. Test PHP version changes on staging first — always.

How to Update

Through your hosting control panel (look for "PHP Version" or "MultiPHP Manager"), by asking your host's support, or through a managed hosting/maintenance plan that handles PHP version management for you.

What Typically Breaks When You Update PHP (and How to Catch It Early)

The most common casualties of a PHP update are older or poorly maintained plugins and themes that use deprecated functions PHP 8.x no longer supports quietly — instead of failing silently the way older PHP versions did, PHP 8.x often throws a visible error. Custom code written years ago by a previous developer is another frequent culprit. The way to catch this before it hits your visitors is straightforward: update PHP on a staging copy first, then click through your site's key pages and functionality — contact forms, checkout if you run WooCommerce, any custom features — before touching your live site. If something breaks, you'll usually see a clear PHP error message identifying the exact file and line, which makes finding a fix (or a plugin replacement) much faster than guessing.

Understanding php.ini and the Server Settings That Affect WordPress

Beyond the PHP version number itself, a handful of PHP configuration settings — controlled by a file called php.ini on your server — directly affect what WordPress can and can't do, independent of which version you're running. Three come up constantly in day-to-day WordPress troubleshooting.

memory_limit caps how much RAM a single PHP process can use to generate a page. A low limit is a common cause of the "white screen of death" or a memory exhaustion error in your debug log, especially on plugin-heavy sites or during large imports. max_execution_time caps how long a single PHP script is allowed to run before the server kills it — set it too low, and a large import, backup, or bulk plugin update can time out partway through. upload_max_filesize (alongside the related post_max_size) caps the size of any single file you can upload through the WordPress admin, which is why a large media file or a plugin/theme zip sometimes fails to upload with no clear error message.

These aren't settings you change inside WordPress itself — they live at the server level, and how you adjust them depends on your host. Some hosting control panels expose them directly as editable fields; others require a custom php.ini file, an .htaccess directive, or a line added to wp-config.php, and some managed hosts don't allow changing them at all without contacting support. If you're regularly running into memory or timeout errors that a plugin recommends "increasing your PHP limits" to fix, this is the layer they're referring to.

Common Questions