PHP 7.4 New Default PHP Version

At Hawk Host we always value security and compatibility and with that we typically set the default PHP version to the oldest version that is still supported. PHP 7.3 is close to end of life status ( http://php.net/eol.php ) and many applications are now recommending users switch to PHP 7.4. ahead of this end of life. We thought this would be a great opportunity to move to PHP 7.4 before the holiday season starts.

For the majority of users our change from PHP 7.3 to 7.4 will have absolutely no affect on your web site. If you’re already a customer and haven’t changed your PHP version you will remain on the current PHP version you have set. If you’re a new user then you will by default be on PHP 7.4 but you can still easily change your PHP version through our PHP selector.

The advantage of using PHP 7.4 compared to PHP 7.3 is our shared, reseller, semi-dedicated, and cloud web hosting accounts is there is a slight performance increase and the version has not reached end of life. This means lower response times for your pages as well as reduced memory usage. Depending on your application it may also advise you that you should be using PHP 7.4 or newer already.

If you’re currently on a version older than PHP 7.4 and you’re unable to use a newer version you do not have any immediate worries even with the PHP 7.3 end of life announcement. With the help of CloudLinux we utilize their HardenedPHP which secures old and unsupported versions of PHP 4.4.9, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3.

Our team is also aware PHP 8.0 and 8.01 are available at this point in time and the majority of applications are compatible. We believe regardless of further performance and feature improvements it would be unwise to expose users to compatibility issues (as rare as they may be) by using the newest PHP versions as our system default. There are also some common PHP extensions that are not yet supported in versions 8.0 and 8.01. While PHP 7.4 provides everything users need but we do make 8.0 available in cPanel if you’d like to run it! We will continue to monitor PHP supported versions ( https://php.net/supported-versions.php ) and recommended versions for the most common applications on our services and adjust our default PHP version as necessary.