PHP 7.3 is Available at SiteGround
One of the great things about our multiple-PHP server setup is that it allows us to provide the latest PHP versions safely to anyone who wants it, even before their official stable release. As a perfect example, we’ve added the new PHP 7.3 to the list of available PHP branches you can use on your SiteGround account. Right now, we support PHP 7.3 RC3, which will be replaced by the final version once it’s released (expected in Dec 2018). So if you write your website code, you can start testing it for the upcoming changes.
What’s New in PHP 7.3?
Most major PHP version updates include syntax changes, new features, and function depreciation. PHP 7.3 follows suit and has all three. If you’re writing code yourself, we strongly recommend that you check the PHP 7.3 changelog in detail, because you may find out a feature or a function you love is now deprecated (sorry).
Does your Application Support it?
Most web applications, including WordPress, don’t work on PHP 7.3 yet. According to the official WordPress 5.0 Schedule Post, full PHP 7.3 support will be added in the major 5.0 update or in a 4.9.9 release if 5.0 is pushed to January.
That being said, it’s highly recommended that you test new PHP versions on staging copies of your site because even if the core of your web app supports it, some plugins, themes, etc. may still cause issues. Don’t be a cowboy coder — always test in a staging environment to prevent downtime for your site.
How to Enable PHP 7.3?
Enabling PHP 7.3 is as easy as using any other PHP version at SiteGround. Simply add this line to your .htaccess file and the site residing in that folder and all sub-folders will start using this version:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php73 .php .php5 .php4 .php3
Comments ( 24 )
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Matt
That's great to hear Hristo. My current biggest issue with my cloud plan is that it's still running on MySQL Ver. 5.6.3 which means I can't convert all the database row tables to InnoDB (they're currently a mix with MyISAM) as full-text indexing is not supported yet by InnoDB and may result in issues with anything less than MSQL 5.6.4. Running all your table rows on InnoDB seems like a great boost in performance from my past experience (and others), which is why I'm surprised SiteGround focusing on that hasn't updated yet. When can we expect MSQL 5.6.4 or higher? Thank you. Matt
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
We have much higher MySQL versions on our shared and cloud servers, I am not sure what exactly you mean but it's 5.6.36-82.1. I can't find a cloud server associated with the email you used to post this comment to check it out but if you post a ticket in your Help Desk, my colleagues can take a look at it.
Matt
Thanks for the quick response. I was explaining the issue to one of your support reps (ticket 2891631) and he told me that cloud plans couldn't use that version, and that I'd have to upgrade to a dedicated server if I wanted to do that.
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
Your ticket will receive a follow-up shortly!
Matt
It did receive a follow up as I opened a new ticket inquiring whether the initial response I received was correct or what you mentioned in your comment was in fact right. They said that you guys don't know when you're going to upgrade the cloud hosting plans to 5.6.4 as I was asking for an ETA, so I'm not sure who or what to believe now.
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
As I said, we have much newer version than that and InnoDB is fully available everywhere. I think the last reply from our supervisor should clarify the version misunderstanding.
Matt
Thanks for looking into this for me, the response from the supervisor does help clear things up. :)
Lancer
Even when I changed my PHP version from 5.6.38 to 7.3 I'm still getting the old version in the folder that already updated. Any ideas why? And FYI there's no option to CHAT to any of your CSR's when you login to the member area. I need help ASAP.
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
Please, post a ticket in your Help Desk and my colleagues will assist you further. Most probably, you have another .htaccess in a subfolder modifying the active version.
Jake
Hi, How about MariaDB as database. When this be available in Siteground platform? Thanks.
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
At this time we do not have any plans to start using MariaDB. We use Percona on our accounts which performs great!
Robert
Site Developers are requesting we have MySQL 5.7.17 for our new site release in a couple months. Thoughts? I currently have half a dozen small sites on your service and love it. However, this is the first site coming from a national design and development firm...
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
At this time, I can't provide you with ETA when MySQL 5.7 will be available for our customers.
Chris
This is great news! so I can test my site in staging before put it to live. I read some PHP 7.3 Benchmarks it seems faster than previous PHP. I couldn't wait final PHP 7.3 GA to be shipped be end of this year.
Vincenzo
Nice to have php 7.3 but still not possible to use the Argon2 password hash algorithm on your shared server. What is the point then?
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
PHP 7.3 performs much better than previous PHP versions and has a lot more useful features than Argon2. We do not support it because we don't have libsodium active at this point. We plan to add it and when we do that, we will activate Argon2 too. However, I can't give you an exact ETA when that will happen. Meanwhile, you can use bcrypt for example.
Terri Zwierzynski
Updating to PHP 7.3.3 broke most (but not all) of my SiteGround sites. Most are Divi (and one is a custom theme). Asking for help in a Divi FB group (I initially thought it was only Divi), I got this advice: 'In cPanel, once you have selected php 7.3, check the checkbox "nd_mysqli"' There is no such checkbox, so I'm not sure what to do here (except I've set them all back to php 7.2).
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
That advice is not applicable to your issue since our PHP 7.3 already has it enabled. I would recommend reaching out to Divi's support team to get further help on that.
Terri Zwierzynski
Thanks Hristo. PHP 7.3 also broke one of my sites that is NOT Divi (it's a custom theme). So it's not just Divi...
Angelina Micheva
Hi Terri, To assist you further we suggest you submit a ticket and describe in details the errors and problems you have encountered after updating to php 7.3. We can see that you have the staging tool on your plan so you can use it to test the upgrade again without making changes to your live site.
Sam
With my account, I have MySQL 5.6.40 which does not support JSON data type. Do you guys have any updates of MySQL upgrade to 5.7 version ( in support of JSON data type) ? The latest MySQL version is 8.0. But it's quite disappointing to see SiteGround managed wordpress MySQL is stucked to 5.6 and not upgraded not even to 5.7
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
Currently we have 5.7.26-29 on all of our new Site Tools servers. Please, post a ticket in your Help Desk so my colleagues look into it.
Pete Clark
Are you planning to supply PHP7.4? If so, when?
Pete Clark
Just found the correct page, thanks.
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