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Is it worth upgrading PHP 7 for Joomla 4?

As we have known, Joomla 4 Alpha version released on middle November 2017 for testing purpose. Accompany this huge upgrade is many amazing updates and features of Joomla 4 that we are all hopefully expected, especially we have to talk about Joomla 4 minimum PHP version required. In today blog post, we are going to discuss more about PHP 7 and its benefits.

The minimum PHP version supported in Joomla 4 – PHP 7

It is the fact that PHP 7 is the most popular and latest programming language to build online websites and applications (up to 80% websites using PHP). To test Joomla 4 Alpha version, your server has to run at least at PHP 7 version.

Joomla and PHP release route

Joomla long-term support release route

According to this route, we can refer to a period of time (4-6 years) for having a new version of Joomla

• 2008:  the first long-term support Joomla 1.5 released
• 2012: the second long-term support Joomla 2.5 released
• 2018:  the third long-term support Joomla 3.9 will be launched soon.

This year 2018, Joomla 4 will be released, it is time for us to go to the future! And no more longterm support version will be released till 2022, hopefully!

PHP release route:

• PHP 5: no longer develop
• PHP 5.6: the latest version in PHP 5 branch,  this version will maintain security updates till this year end.
• PHP7:  in active development, it is hoped to be supported until 2023.
• PHP7.2: the latest PHP version up to now, it will be supported until 2020.

There is no doubt that PHP 5 is no longer working well with the latest website technologies. This is an appropriate time for Joomla to use the latest platform which will be maintained actively along with Joomla 4 until the next longterm support version launches.

Joomla required PHP version for each version:

Joomla 2.5 – is PHP 5.3.x
Joomla 3.0 – is PHP 5.3.11
Joomla 3.5 – is PHP 5.3.11
Joomla 4.0 – is PHP 7.

What will we get with PHP 7?

Performance:  2x faster than PHP 5.6

PHP7 offers a superior performance (up to 2 times in speed) when comparing to PHP 5.6. PHP 7 can compete with many other latest “enemies” to pure PHP. Just for an example, PHP 7 provides a greater performance than Facebook Hip hop Virtual Machine because it doesn’t need to run Virtual Machine to execute PHP code.

Request Execution

PHP 7 in Joomla 4 can execute 2x as many requirements per a second when comparing with PHP 5.6 on Joomla 3.

Plus, it is the greatest growth in the amount of users who connect to the Internet with slow 3F mobile connection. This is a reason for website servers to react more flexible.  Many core changes in PHP are encouraging web performance when running on PHP 7. It allows developers to build more attractive and interactive responsive sites with quick react to user input.

Work perfectly without  many resources

Although this benefit is not mentioned often, PHP 7 works really well with few resources, which makes maintenance fee as well as energy consumption decrease.

HOW TO UPGRADE PHP 7?

This is a straightforward work for upgrading server, just go and ask your hosting provider, but don’t forget to assure all of your website extensions are perfectly compatible with PHP 7.

CONCLUSION

That’s all of our article today! Be sure you have a great preparation for Joomla 4!

Thank you so much for reading! If you have any question, please feel free to let us know by leaving a comment below, we will reply as soon as possible!

ET Digital Team

We’re a Digital Team from EngineTemplate with 5 content experts. Our team has 5 years exp in open source Joomla and WordPress, we make daily blogs and build useful resources for everyone who is having issues with open source while using it.