When to Upgrade to Latest PHP Version

In the recent years, PHP has become a very popular language that is used by most software development companies to create powerful websites. This language is highly recommended for creating secured and dynamic web apps as it is very flexible, compatible and user-friendly.

An HTML embedded scripting language is widely used for the web application as it offers great ease to the developers. There are numerous benefits of using this language as it can be used as both the front end development and the back end development. It is due to this feature that the programmers can easily alter the present website simply by changing a single code.

Today, the newer versions of PHP offer huge performance, great features and ofcourse better security and the software is also available for free. Many companies think that up-grading to the latest version of PHP is pointless and painful, but it definitely has some benefits for your website.

Switch to The Latest PHP Version for Your Website?

• Availability:The first and foremost thing that the business owner should check is about the availability of the latest PHP version and the environment that it requires to run the site. At times the latest version may not yet be the advertised default on many hosts, but it may be available for option free upgrade. So, you can talk to your hosting service provider about the latest PHP support that they have to offer.
• Compatibility: This is another main concern that you need to consider before implementing or upgrading to the latest version of PHP. You need to check to ensure that the add-ons are running, whether they are in-built or from any third parties.
  It may have a few incompatible changes and even some depreciation might generate PHP error messages. For most add-ons there may be zero changes or a few minutes of work and some complex add-ons may need even a few hours to test and make changes. Your host’s PHP versions may have different environments and module availability. But these issues can be resolved with the proper support system.
• Performance: Another most important thing that you should consider is that of the performance of the site. In general upgrading to the latest version, any application can get an average of 100% increased performance. As a developer, you can very well understand that your apps are slower when they are run on older versions of PHP. And as a business owner, a slow website will only be a huge loss of opportunity if you hesitate to upgrade.
  So, it is important to check the performance of the site and the environment needed to upgrade to the latest version. Consider the resources and the energy that you need to run the application on the older version and then consider the enhanced performance of the site run on latest PHP version. Based on the two reports you can take a decision to upgrade your site.

Statistics have stated that updating the new PHP versions have made the site work faster and more efficient than the older ones. They also use a fraction of the memory, but generate results twice as fast as the previous versions.