PHP version 7

[Bittiez]

I see that we are still on version 5, is there any eta for upgrading to 7? It has enormous improvements and is well worth upgrading for both nfo(less resources for the same amount of code), and your clients(it's up to 2x as fast!)

I realize it would not be in the best interest to force everyone to upgrade but what about allowing people to switch their own version?

[kraze]

It's going to be a while before PHP 7 is supported since we must wait for everything to become compatible with it. Not only must we wait for just about all customer-end software to support it, we also must wait for some back-end stuff we use to also support it. Generally, though, it shouldn't be a problem as any experienced developer is going to make sure their stuff is backwards compatible.

Realistically we're liking looking at a year or two before it is the new standard.

[Bittiez]

Standard maybe, I was asking for nfo specifically, PHP 7 is one of the fastest versions to be "socially" accepted, and is almost 100% backward compatable already, although I do understand about needing your back end software to be updated for it, I do suggest putting a priority on that as PHP 7 is a huge deal and is going to quickly become the standard for all php hosts(My other web host already has it running, but they let you choose which version you want to use)

Anyways, thanks for the answer

[Edge100x]

Unfortunately, it's not an option for us to allow customers to choose which PHP version clients use, due to the way that it is set up on our shared webhosting machines (the choices we have made emphasize security and performance, but remove some flexibility). Everything served through normal Apache mechanisms has to be the same version.

The nature of shared webhosting means that changing everyone's version of a major system library is a big deal. Many old software packages will simply not run on the new version, and that means that customers need to manually upgrade them to new releases. We need to give everyone time to transition.

There will be a tipping point when customer demand for the new version of PHP 7 outweighs the impact of the breakages that it creates, and that's when we'll have to work on the upgrade. At the latest, that will happen when one of the more popular software packages starts considering PHP 5.x to be deprecated, or when Gentoo or the developers of PHP stop supporting 5.x. We're pretty far from it right now; we've heard very few calls for PHP 7 so far, many software packages still don't support it, and Gentoo still considers it to be in testing.

[Bittiez]

Well, as disappointing as it is, thanks for the quick replies, and your guys web servers are so fast anyway, way faster than my other web host(or should I say old web host? ), thank you guys for taking the time to answer!

[Edge100x]

Another option that might be worth considering is an unmanaged VDS. Even a single-core could handle most websites and would allow you maximum flexibility in terms of your package choices. You could also order it to be as close to your users as possible (our regular shared webhosting accounts are all out of Seattle).