Should one update PHP version?

  • Hello Everyone,
    I installed my WordPress site 3 years ago, and it works very well. It in a Windows 2008 R2 server runing IIS. The version of PHP it installed is 5.3. I see that the latest version is 7.00. Is it a good preactice to continually update PHP – or if everything is working well – should you just leave it alone. I would think that there are possible pitfalls. Any help would be appreciated.

    Greg

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  • Hello Greg,

    It is always wise to upgrade your version of PHP for security reasons. See PHP Supported Versions, which indicates that security updates to 5.3 are no longer being made.

    That said, upgrading all the way from 5.3 to 7.0 might cause you problems. You should consider trying the latest version of 5.6 for now, especially if you are using third-party plugins, which could break due to incompatibilities between 5.3 and the later versions of PHP. Then test your site thoroughly. WordPress Core should work with any of the currently supported versions of PHP, including 7.0, but third-party plugins are a different matter, and many do not yet support 7.0.

    In any case, you should make a backup of everything first, including both your site and your old version of PHP.

    Hope that helps,
    Eric

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