How-to · Beginner · 10 minutes
How to Change Your PHP Version
Move your sites onto a faster, supported PHP release without breaking them — a practical, jargon-free walkthrough with the classic mistake flagged before you make it.
Straight answer first
In a line: move your sites onto a faster, supported PHP release without breaking them — a beginner-level task that takes 10 minutes.
Below you get the exact steps, the classic snag, and a tip from the support desk. Where our platform handles a step for you, the guide says so rather than making you do the robot's work.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Beginner
Skill needed
5
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
This guide assumes no expertise at all — just a hosting account, a browser and 10 minutes of attention. Every instruction works on our platform exactly as written, and carries over to any standard cPanel host.
Rule of the road: read the snag section before you begin rather than after. It is harvested from the tickets of people who did it the other way round.
The whole job at a glance
Here is the route in full: see what each domain runs today, check the software can keep up, switch, then click round the site, drop back if something objects and fix the component that complained, then go again.
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking — the time it takes depends mostly on how familiar the control panel already feels. The detailed steps sit further down this page; skim the whole route once before you begin.
Read this before the first click
Sitting on an end-of-life PHP release because the site works. Unsupported versions stop receiving security fixes, so the stability you are protecting is the stability of holes that nobody is patching any more.
It is worth learning because it is not some rare edge case — it is the single most common reason this task turns into a support ticket. Knowing it up front turns the whole job from risky into routine.
The trick worth borrowing
Changing PHP version is the cheapest speed gain in hosting. WordPress runs measurably quicker on 8.x than on 7.4, and the whole job is one dropdown followed by a walk through the site.
It costs a minute now and pays that back every time the job comes round again — which, like most hosting jobs, it certainly will.
How our platform shortens this
Several steps in this guide exist only because hosting historically made you do them. On our plans SSL issues itself, backups run daily without being asked, and one-click installers replace the manual setup entirely. What is left is the part that is genuinely yours.
Stuck halfway through at an odd hour? That is exactly what round-the-clock human support is for — tell us where you are in this guide and we will pick it up from there.
Why the job is simpler on our plans
Tutorials age badly when they are written against imaginary hosting. These are written against ours: the same panel, the same installer and the same defaults you will meet.
Real people answer the counter at any hour, including the awkward questions other hosts wave off as out of scope.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
The snag, named early
The classic mistake for this exact job is flagged before step one, so 10 minutes stays 10 minutes.
No jargon toll
Terms are explained where they appear or linked to the glossary — nothing assumes you already know.
Scoped honestly
Move your sites onto a faster, supported PHP release without breaking them is a beginner-level task — this guide budgets 10 minutes and says which steps the platform absorbs.
Automation where it belongs
SSL, backups and installs run themselves here, so the guide covers only what is genuinely yours to do.
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
The undo is always named
Where a step could bite, the guide says so and tells you how to put it back again.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
See what each domain runs today
The panel's PHP selector lists the version in use per domain. Sites carried over from a previous host are often several releases behind what they could comfortably be on.
- 2
Check the software can keep up
WordPress core is happy on current PHP; the risk sits in old plugins and older themes. Read their tested-up-to notes, or lean on the next step instead.
- 3
Switch, then click round the site
Pick the new version and walk through the pages that matter. The change applies straight away, so anything unhappy announces itself within a minute or two.
- 4
Drop back if something objects
The same selector switches you back just as quickly. A failed upgrade costs two minutes, which is exactly why trying beats worrying about it for a year.
- 5
Fix the component that complained, then go again
The error names the piece that could not cope. Update it or replace it, then take the version jump a second time and finish the job.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- Site migration done for you by our staff, at no charge
- A backup taken daily, with restores you run yourself
- DDoS filtering handled out at the network edge
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- Staging copies so changes get tested before they go live
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Is a PHP upgrade likely to break anything?
On a site that is kept up to date, almost never. The trouble lives in abandoned plugins and very old themes. Because the selector rolls back instantly, the sensible test is to do it and click around — though a store deserves a staging copy first.
Can two sites on one account run different PHP versions?
Yes. Version is set per domain, so a stubborn legacy site can hold its position while everything else moves forward. Treat that as a ramp toward the upgrade, not a permanent parking space for the stragglers.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
Does hosting come with mailboxes?
It does — mailboxes on your own domain ship with every hosting plan, with webmail, IMAP, POP and SMTP access and spam filtering fitted as standard. There is also standalone email hosting for domains whose website lives somewhere else entirely.
Can I test changes somewhere safe first?
Yes — plans with staging let you clone the live site, work on the copy, then push it across when you are satisfied. It is the difference between hoping an update behaves and knowing that it does before any customer meets it.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
Can I bring a domain I already own?
Yes, and transfers in are routine. Unlock the name at your present registrar, collect the auth code, then start the transfer from your client area. Whatever registration time is left comes across with it, and DNS keeps answering the whole way through.
Read next
How to Set Up 301 Redirects
Move addresses around without losing the visitors or the rankings attached to them — intermediate level, about 20 minutes.
How to Check DNS Propagation
Find out whether the world can see your DNS change yet, and why parts of it cannot — beginner level, about 5 minutes.
Web Hosting
cPanel hosting on NVMe disks, with SSL, migration and year-one domain included.
Business Hosting
Shared hosting with the developer kit: SSH, Node.js, Python and PostgreSQL.
Packing up and moving host? Take our checklist.
A plain running order for a move nobody notices: what to copy first, how to carry email across without dropping a single message, when to point DNS, and the two slips behind nearly every hour of downtime we get called about.
Start on a plan with a plain price tag.
Quick NVMe hosting, SSL and the move in included, and real people on the counter at any hour — on a price that doesn't shift.
See the plans