Is PHP 5.6 still supported?

The short answer is “No”.

PHP 5.6 is no longer supported. Support for PHP 5.6 ended on December 31st, 2018.

Let’s clarify. The answer to this question depends on what you mean by “support”.

Define “Supported”

If the definition of “support” is, “Can you set up a hosting account today with PHP 5.6 and install outdated software?”. Then the answer is yes, you can. It’s a really bad, horrible idea, but you can.

I found a number of hosting companies that are not only providing PHP 5.6 on their hosting servers but are marketing and selling PHP 5.6 hosting and have it listed as a technology feature. This is fine and a good idea if you are setting up a PHP 5.6 development server to test and upgrade PHP 5.6, but not for production.

Is PHP 5.6 still Supported by the Developers of PHP?

No. The developers of PHP are no longer supporting PHP 5.6.

There will not be any more security updates to PHP 5.6, there will not be any more bug fixes to PHP 5.6. You should not use PHP 5.6 (or any version of PHP 5) in a production environment. There are a number of deprecated and out-of-date functions and libraries that should no longer be used, for security reasons.

Here’s a list of the End of Life versions of PHP: http://php.net/eol.php

If you are running any of these versions, contact your developer or us and plan on an upgrade.

How should I go about upgrading?

We published a long article at the end of last year on how to go about upgrading PHP 5.6 to the latest version. This is a great place to start. Upgrading PHP in the hosting control panel may cause the application to stop working. Although it may be fine, it’s best to test and upgrade any code that may be required before upgrading PHP on the server to make sure the PHP code is compatible with the PHP version running on the server.

If you need any additional information about PHP 5.6 end of life or assistance in upgrading your application or website to the latest PHP, feel free to contact and we can help.

 

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