Behind the name · Beginner · 10 minutes
How to change your PHP version — PHP Is a Setting on the Name, Not on the Account
An account with six names on it has six PHP settings, and the reason one site broke is almost never the reason the others are fine.
The short answer
The PHP selector is keyed to a name rather than to the account, so each domain and subdomain runs whichever release you set for it. That is what lets you move five names onto a current release this afternoon and leave the sixth, the one running something nobody maintains any more, exactly where it is. Allow 10 minutes at beginner level.
It also means you never have to gamble. Change one name, click through its pages, and reverse it from the same dropdown in the same few seconds if anything complains — the loop costs two minutes, which is why testing beats a year of hesitation.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
Beginner
Assumed knowledge
5
Stages end to end
Free
Support cost
Proven
Verification
What you need: control of the name, access to whichever panel holds its zone, and 10 minutes. Every instruction is written against cPanel as we run it, and carries over to any standard cPanel account unchanged.
Read the part about what goes wrong before you open a zone editor. Nearly every ticket this topic produces arrives from somebody who reached that part second.
The selector follows the document root
The PHP selector lists your domains, not your account, because the setting attaches to each name's document root. Main domain, addon domains, subdomains: every one of them carries its own release, and none of them is affected by what you do to the others.
That is the useful fact here. A stubborn legacy site can stay on the release it needs while everything else moves forwards, and you never have to decide between the whole account and none of it.
End of life means the patches stopped
Sites sit on an end-of-life release because nothing appears broken, and nothing does appear broken — that is the entire problem. Once support ends the security patches stop, so the stability being protected is the stability of unpatched vulnerabilities.
The upside is worth having as well. WordPress benchmarks appreciably faster on 8.x than on 7.4, and the whole change is one dropdown and a walk through the site. Measured in speed per pound, nothing else in hosting comes close.
Change, click through, roll back
Current WordPress core copes with modern PHP without complaint; the exposure is in ageing plugins and elderly themes. Read their tested-up-to notes if you like, or simply lean on the fact that the change takes effect immediately and anything incompatible complains inside a couple of minutes.
Reversing it is the same dropdown and the same few seconds. A failed attempt costs two minutes, and the error message names the component that could not cope — so update or replace it, run the change again, and see it through rather than abandoning it.
After a rename, check which name got the setting
Because the setting is attached to the name's document root, moving a site to a new domain does not carry the PHP release with it. The new name arrives with the account's default, which may be several releases away from what the site was running yesterday.
Add it to the rename checklist, next to the certificate and the redirect. It is the sort of thing that produces an inexplicable fault a week later, when nobody is still thinking about the domain change as the cause.
Where the account does this part for you
Every walkthrough here was carried out on the platform we operate — cPanel, LiteSpeed, NVMe, one-click installs — against a domain delegated to our own nameservers, so the screens described are the screens you get.
Order an annual plan and the first year of the name's registration is included.
- Written against the account you will actually open
- Organised by the name, not by the server
- Anything with a clock on it called out up front
- Help at any hour, mid-walkthrough included
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
The silent failure, named first
The mistake this task actually produces is described before step one, which is how 10 minutes stays 10 minutes.
Registry, registrar, host — kept apart
Each term is defined where it first appears, or linked to the jargon buster. Nothing here uses the four words as though they meant one thing.
Honest about the size of it
Moving a name onto a newer PHP release is beginner-level work — allow 10 minutes, with the stages the account already handles marked as such.
The parts the account already handles
Certificates, daily copies and application installs look after themselves, so the page only covers what is genuinely yours to decide.
Checked at the panel, not imagined
Every instruction was carried out on the platform we run, against a name delegated to our own nameservers. No 'your provider may differ' hedging.
The way back, printed beside the way in
Anything carrying a clock or a lock is marked, together with exactly how to reverse it.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
List every name in the account and the release each one runs
The selector shows a row per domain. Sites brought in from elsewhere are frequently several releases behind where they could comfortably sit, and nobody has looked since the migration.
- 2
Check the tested-up-to notes on what actually matters
Current WordPress core is fine; the exposure is in ageing plugins and old themes. Read their notes for anything business-critical, and rely on the instant rollback for everything else.
- 3
Change one name and click through its pages
One domain at a time, then a walk through the pages that matter to you. It takes effect immediately, so anything incompatible objects within a couple of minutes rather than a week later.
- 4
Roll it back if something complains
Same dropdown, same few seconds. A failed attempt costs two minutes, which is precisely why trying it beats another year of putting it off.
- 5
Fix what complained, then bring the remaining names up
The error names the component that could not cope. Update or replace it, run the change again, and work along the list until only the deliberate stragglers are left behind.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- NVMe SSD storage on every tier, not only the expensive ones
- Your existing site brought across by our engineers at no charge
- A daily copy of the account, restored from the panel by you
- DDoS filtering absorbed at the network edge
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer plans
- 30 days back on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
- Spam and virus screening on every mailbox by default
- The first year of the name included when you order annually
- A renewal figure identical to the one you registered at
- A desk staffed every hour of every day
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Can each of my domains run a different PHP release?
Yes. The setting attaches to each name's document root, so the main domain, every addon domain and every subdomain can sit on a different release inside one account. Treat a straggler as a bridge towards upgrading it rather than a permanent home, but there is no technical pressure to move them all at once.
I moved the site to a new domain. Did the PHP setting follow?
No — the setting belongs to the name's document root, so the new domain starts on the account default. Check it as part of the rename, alongside the certificate and the redirects, because a version change nobody made deliberately is a difficult fault to trace a week after the event.
Do plans include copies I can restore myself?
Yes — every plan takes a daily copy, and the restore runs from your own panel in minutes: files, databases or both, at three in the morning with no queue in the way. Keeping a further copy offsite remains a sound habit.
Are mailboxes included, or billed separately?
Included. Every hosting plan comes with mailboxes at the name you hold, plus webmail, IMAP, POP and SMTP and spam filtering on by default. Standalone email hosting exists as well, for a name whose website lives somewhere else.
Keep reading
How to Move a Website to a New Domain
Rebrand onto a new name while keeping the rankings and the returning visitors — intermediate, about an afternoon plus monitoring.
Drupal Hosting
Drupal with Composer, Drush and per-name PHP control to hand.
PHP Hosting
Set the PHP release per name, on quick NVMe hardware.
Changing provider? Work through this checklist beforehand.
A straightforward running order for a migration your visitors never spot: which files travel first, how to bring the mail across without dropping a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two errors that sit behind almost every outage we get called in to fix.
The name is still free. Take it.
NVMe hosting with the certificate and the migration included, people answering at any hour, and a renewal figure that does not move.
View PHP Hosting plans