We’re pleased to announce that the latest and greatest version of PHP – 8.1 – is now available on all our currently available web hosting plans.
PHP is the language behind millions of websites, powering WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento and loads more off-the-shelf and custom web applications.
The improvements and new features include:
- Enumerations
- Readonly properties
- Fibers
- Pure Intersection Types
- Never return type
- First-class Callable Syntax
- “final” modifier for class constants
- New fsync and fdatasync functions
- New array_is_list function
- Explicit Octal numeral notation and much more…
You can easily switch your hosting on an individual domain or even subdomain basis to use PHP 8.1, if you know that the website you’re running or building supports it, or if you just want to try it out. Simply log in to your hosting cPanel (directly, or via your Enbecom Account) to make the switch.
Over the coming months and years, website platforms, themes and plugin modules will be updated to run on PHP 8.1. We’ll be supporting PHP 7.4 until it’s discontinued in November 2022, so there’s plenty of time to make sure your sites are ready. Please be aware that as PHP 7.4 is the final version of the 7 series, there’ll be a bigger leap than usual when it comes to compatible PHP code, so there’s an increased chance that your website needs to be updated before November 2022.
Once the festive season is done and you’re into the New Year, we recommend starting to check – if your site is still running any PHP 7 version – that it will continue to function. If you’re a hosting client you can easily switch your site to PHP 8.0 or 8.1 in your control panel to see what happens.
If you’d like to bring your website to a UK-based hosting plan where the key software components are regularly updated for performance and security, take a look at our transfer offer.