What advantages will PHP 7 bring to Joomla 4 users?

Joomla 4 is coming really soon, currently, Joomla 4 Alpha 1 version has been launched for testing purpose. Along with this huge upgrade is many great updates and features to be expected. In today article, we are going to discuss benefits we have when upgrading PHP 7.

PHP 7 is must-have PHP version for Joomla 4

This is the most modern popular programming language (estimated up to 80% amount of websites based on PHP)  which is in used to develop online applications and websites. Joomla 4 Alpha version is now available, to test this version, your server will need to run PHP 7 at least.

Release Roadmap of Joomla and PHP

Release roadmap for Joomla long-term support 

It can be referred from this roadmap that we often get new Joomla version every period of 4-6 years

  • 2008: Joomla 1.5 first long-term support released
  • 2012: Joomla 2.5 – the 2nd long-term support released
  • 2018: Joomla 3.9 – the 3rd long-term support will be released.

We are all aware of Joomla 4 arrival, therefore, it’s time for heading to the future, also, it is expected that there will be no more long-term support release until 2022.

PHP roadmap

  • PHP 5: no longer develop
  • PHP 5.6: the latest version of branch PHP 5. This version will be maintained security updates till the end of this year 2018.
  • PHP 7: is in active development. It is expected to support till 2023.
  • PHP 7.2: the latest version of PHP, supported till year 2020.

Undoubtedly, PHP 5 is now out of date, it is reasonable for Joomla to support the latest platform which will be maintained actively with Joomla 4 lifespan until the next release of long-term support version.

Minimum required PHP version for each version of Joomla

Joomla 2.5 – PHP 5.3.x
Joomla 3.0 – PHP 5.3.11
Joomla 3.5 – PHP 5.3.11
Joomla 4.0 – PHP 7.

Benefits from PHP 7?

Performance benefits: headline changes always associate with PHP 7.

Performance: compare to PHP 5.6, it is 2x faster

PHP 7 is superior than PHP 5.6 in performance and it is able to compare with other latest competitors to pure PHP. For example, PHP 7 has a better performance than Facebook Hip hop Virtual Machine because PHP 7 doesn’t need to run virtual machine for executing PHP code.

Request Execution

PHP 7 on Joomla 4 can execute 2x as many requests/a second compared to PHP 5.6 on Joomla 3.

Moreover, when more and more people come to online world, there is a sharp increase in the number of users access internet with slow 3G mobile connection, therefore, website servers need to react flexibly. PHP main changes have encouraged website performance which run on PHP 7, which allows developers to build more interactive and attractive sites – responsive and fast react to user input.

Work efficiently and not require many resources

There is an advantage which is not always mentioned, that is PHP 7 runs efficiently with fewer resources, which decrease maintenance fee and even energy consumption.

How to upgrade PHP 7

This should be an easy task to upgrade server if you just ask hosting provider for how to do, but there’s a notice that it is necessary to assure all extensions on your website are compatible completely with PHP 7.

Conclusion

That’s all of our article today! Don’t forget to share with your friends if you find this post is helpful!

Thank you so much for reading! If you have any question, please feel free to let us know by leaving a comment below, we will reply as soon as possible!

Image Credit: Gavick

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