Choosing the right PHP version is crucial to keeping your website secure, performant, and compatible with modern frameworks, especially when hosting on a managed platform like Cloudways.
In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about PHP compatibility on the Cloudways Platform, which versions are currently supported, what’s deprecated, and which applications and extensions work (or don’t) with each version.
Whether you're running WordPress, Magento, Laravel—or something else—this will help you plan your upgrades and avoid compatibility issues.
Table of Contents:
In this article, you will get information about different web applications’ compatibility with different PHP versions available on Cloudways.
Your new server is configured to use PHP 8.2 by default. You can always upgrade to the latest version, e.g., PHP 8.4, as per your requirements.
Downgrading the PHP version has some limitations, so you can view which PHP versions you can upgrade or downgrade to currently.
Important Announcement for Older PHP Versions
Cloudways currently supports PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4; and the older versions (5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3) are deprecated as of August 15th, 2022. As a result, new and existing servers with the default PHP 7.4/8.4 or newer versions will not have the option to downgrade to older and deprecated versions; however, existing servers with deprecated versions will continue to work for the time being.
Existing servers with deprecated versions will continue to work for the time being. The deprecated versions will reach the end of life on March 31st, 2024; therefore, you are requested to upgrade to the latest version. Please refer to the Cloudways deprecation process and policy for more details.
Prerequisites
The latest version is PHP 8.4, which requires Debian 11 or 12 servers only. It is not compatible with older Debian versions.
PHP 7.4
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress 4.3.x and higher
✓ Magento 2.4.0 ~ 2.4.3
✓ Laravel 6.x and higher
Unsupported Applications
✕ Magento 1.9.x
✕ Magento 2.4.4 and higher
✕ Laravel 5.2 ~ 5.8
Unsupported PHP Extension
PHP memcache is not supported, though PHP memcached is available to use.
PHP 8.0
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress 5.6.x and higher
✓ Magento 2.4.4 and higher
✓ Laravel 6.20.x and higher
Unsupported Applications
✕ Magento 1.9.x
✕ Laravel 5.2 ~ 5.8
Unsupported PHP Extension
PHP memcache is not supported, though PHP memcached is available to use.
PHP 8.1
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress 5.6.x and higher
✓ Magento 2.4.4 and higher
✓ Laravel 6.20.x and higher (incl. Laravel 10)
Unsupported Applications
✕ Magento 1.9.x and higher
✕ Laravel 5.2 ~ 5.8
Unsupported PHP Extension
PHP memcache is not supported, though PHP memcached is available to use.
PHP 8.2
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress 5.6.x and higher
✓ Magento 2.4.4 and higher
✓ Laravel 6.20.x and higher (incl. Laravel 10)
Unsupported Applications
✕ Magento 1.9.x and higher
✕ Laravel 5.2 ~ 5.8
Unsupported PHP Extension
PHP memcache is not supported, though PHP memcached is available to use.
PHP 8.3
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress 5.6.x and higher
✓ Laravel 6.20.x and higher (incl. Laravel 10)
✓ Magento 2.4.7
Unsupported Applications
✕ Magento 1.9.x
✕ Laravel 5.2 ~ 5.8
Unsupported PHP Extension
PHP memcache is not supported, though PHP memcached is available to use.
PHP 8.4
Supported Applications
✓ WordPress (latest 6.x versions)
✓ Magento 2.4.8 / Adobe Commerce 2.4.8
✓ Laravel 11 officially supports PHP 8.4 (Laravel 11 supports PHP 8.2–8.4)
Unsupported Applications
✕ Older WordPress versions before 6.7 do not support PHP 8.4
✕ Magento versions earlier than 2.4.8 (e.g., 2.4.7 and lower)
✕ Laravel 10 and earlier only officially support up to PHP 8.3
Unsupported PHP Extensions / Known Removal:
PHP 8.4 deprecations and removals include:
Pspell, IMAP, OCI8, PDO-OCI extensions have been moved from PHP core to PECL, meaning they're no longer included by default
Implicit nullable types, E_STRICT constant, session-based GET/POST, certain DOM methods, various mysqli functions,
CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, and others have been deprecated or removed in PHP 8.4
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That’s it! We hope this article was helpful.
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