Php 5.3

Hosting
1

I am just curious as to how many web hosting providers are still using PHP 5.2 as their default PHP version. How many have made the leap to offering PHP 5.3 as their default PHP version?

I know PHP just recently released version 5.4. I don’t suspect a lot of web hosts have moved to PHP 5.4. But I am just wondering what the numbers are for web hosts that use PHP 5.3 vs. web hosts that use PHP 5.2.

We still have PHP 5.2 by default on our servers, but want to upgrade it to PHP 5.3. But if most web hosts are still using PHP 5.2, then maybe we don’t need to be in a huge rush to upgrade to PHP 5.3.

For web hosts that have upgraded to PHP 5.3, what kind of issues did you experience with the upgrade? What sort of script compatibility issues did you face? Our web hosting users seem to use mostly WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, Zen Cart, SMF, Coppermine, 4images, and Gallery. Did you experience any compatibility issues with any of these scripts?

2

Most of them are compatible with PHP 5.3, with the newest releases. However, the old versions that are still maintained might not. For example, Drupal 6 having some modules doesn’t compatible with PHP 5.3

3

Very little issues moving from PHP 5.2 to 5.3 on all the servers / sites I run, I had one really old site that didnt take kindly to the update, we retired that site instead as it wasn’t being used anymore.

4

Hi,
When the customers will ask for new php version, or go to other company, they will think to make the update.

5

On shared hosting php upgrade is not so easy as that can affect on hundreds of website. This is why you will find hosts that are using still php 5.2.

6

Actually, it’s not that hard. If customers are serious by using their websites, they will keep their websites updated. And most of open source scripts today are compatible with PHP 5.3. The only script I had issue is vTiger. Other hand-codes sites can adjust easily too.

Another issue is Zend Optimizer. Zend doesn’t provide Optimizer for PHP 5.3. Tried to install OptimizerPlus 4.1, but the files encoded in 5.2 are still not compatible.

7

PHP 5.3.x doesn’t use Zend Optimizer, it uses Zend Guard Loader instead:

We currently run PHP 5.2 as the default PHP version, but will be switching this to PHP 5.3 in 30-45 days. However, we also run PHP 5.3 and PHP 5.4, so clients can choose which version they want to run, and even run all three versions under one account.

8

If you read my post again, the point is: files encoded in 5.2 are not compatible with Zend Optimizer Plus, or Zend Guard Loader.

9

Sorry, I misread what you wrote. I don’t run across many (actually I can’t think of any) clients that have Zend encoded files, they all use ionCube, which is supported in 5.3. Most applications that do encode offer both as a download option as well, so there’s always that alternative.