It’s highly unlikely anything will go wrong but its best to be safe. If you have the all clear then great lets update to PHP 7.2 The first step in this process is to back up your WordPress website.

The benefits are there and you can ensure your WordPress website is future proof but before you update to PHP 7.2 you need to do one thing, that is check your theme and plugins for compatibility.ĭownload and run PHP compatibility checker this plugin will check your theme and installed plugins to see if they will work on 7.2 or if there may or will be issues. Updating to 7.2 gives you the ultimate benefit of a speedier website, that is if you are still following proper principles. You can see that 7.2 is almost 3 times quicker than 5.6 for WordPress requests.

PHP 7.0 removed many old and unused functions as well as making existing functions more efficient. Once security support ends you wont just instantly be hacked but your website will be on unstable grounds.Īnother reason to update to the modern PHP 7.2 is performance. PHP 5.6 through to 7.0 has its security support end December 2018Īs from the image above not only is the common 5.6 PHP version years outdated it is also on its last legs for security support.

The latest version of PHP is more secure and quicker than its older versions. If your WordPress hosting isn’t using PHP 7.2 you should look into updating.

Download SEO Checker 7.2