End of PHP 5 Life (Drupal and PHP 5)

Are you still using PHP 5? If yes, then it’s the time to upgrade PHP version to newer one.

PHP is an open source scripting language and used by around 80% of all websites. According to W3Techs, 61% of all websites still use the PHP 5 and this version was released 14 years ago, though PHP 7.3 was released on 6 December 2018. Now it’s time to give up on PHP 5 because officially PHP 5 security support will be ceased from 31^st December, 2018.

Note: Some Linux distributions, such as Debian Long Term Support distributions, will still try to back port security fixes.

If you have not updated your PHP version then it’s the right time to make sure that your website runs on updated and supported PHP version.

It is not only about the security reasons, even though websites which are running on older version also miss the remarkable performance improvement, which come with new version.

Drupal and PHP 5

Drupal 8

Support for PHP 5 in Drupal 8 will be dropped by the 6^th march, 2019. It is recommended to update at least PHP 7.1 version and Drupal 8.5 (released in March 2018) supports PHP 7.2. PHP 7.3 will be supported by Drupal 8.7(Supposed to be released in May, 2019).

7.3 will be supported by Drupal 8.7(Supposed to be released in May, 2019).

Drupal 7

Drupal 7 will stop providing the support for the PHP 5 and older version from 31^st December, 2018, but they will keep providing support for the PHP 5.6 till the any of the third party organization is going to provide the reliable and extended security support for the PHP 5.

On 8th Nov, 2018, they released Drupal 7.61 which supports PHP 7.2. This has made upgrades easier from PHP 5. Drupal community is being working on for the Drupal’s support for the PHP 7.3, it will available soon.

Thank you!

We should really appreciate the PHP community for maintaining the PHP 5 for continuously 14 years, but for the sake of moving forward, it can’t go forever. It is time to move from PHP 5 to new PHP versions for improve and innovate faster.   

We are also thankful to Drupal community for contributing to Drupal 7 and 8 for keeping Drupal compatible with new PHP versions; and it also helps in making PHP upgrades easy.

We provide Drupal web development services since 2010. We are recognized as a top Drupal Development Company on DesignRush. Recently PHP 7.3 was released on 6 December, 2018. According to survey upgrading the site along with the technology always improves the performance and compatibility.