PHP is the underlying technology that runs CMS driven websites including Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, SilverStripe, CMS Made Simple and others. PHP 7 offers a significant performance boost over PHP 5. Websites running on PHP 7 are typically 2 to 5 times faster than they were on PHP 5. Every website will be faster on PHP 7 but your mileage may vary.
I want more speed, what do I need to do?
- First make sure your website is compatbible with PHP 7, check with your web developer or CMS vendor. If you run a CMS such as Wordpress, Joomla, SilverStripe, Drupal etc, then we recommend updating to the latest release to ensure compatibility. If you have multiple websites hosted on your account then make sure you update them all. If you need assistance please let me know.
- Once your websites are ready for PHP 7, log into your web hosting control panel and click the Select PHP Version link to change your php version. It's easy to do and if you have issues you can always change it back. For instructions see:
https://www.christopherbolt.com/support/knowledgebase/28/Changing-your-PHP-version.html - For even more performance you can enable the opcache module. This can be enabled from the Select PHP Version screen by ticking the opcache module after you have changed the PHP version to 7. Note that once opcache is enabled if you modify or update any PHP files on your website there will be a few seconds delay from when your file is changed to when that change actually comes into effect, so it's best to only use opcache on stable production sites, not on development sites.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
