PHP Web Hosting is a term for standard shared hosting. A good web host will allow you to pick the exact version of PHP that you want to run, and which extensions to include.
PHP is needed for nearly all CMS such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others.
If you are running an e-commerce website, you may be required to run the latest and most secure version of PHP to be in PCI compliance.
On the other hand, maybe you are working with a legacy application that requires a lower version of PHP.. well a good php web host should allow you to run older versions of PHP that are not end of life yet.
PHP Web Hosting Checklist
- Are you able to select multiple PHP versions?
- Do they have the latest PHP version?
- Are you able to have private php.ini files?
- Full support for cgi based scripts and server side includes. (cgi-bin)
Here is a screen shot of the Host Little cPanel where you are able to pick and customize the PHP version you desire.
PHP does not add any additional cost to your web hosting fees. Although we cannot always say the same about other hosts!
Different Versions of PHP
- PHP 4: Released in 2000, PHP 4 was a powerful programming language with limited object-oriented functionality. Although you can find PHP 4 around, it is no longer supported officially, and for any public coding, you should transition to version 7.
- PHP 5: Released in 2004, PHP 5 introduced a more sophisticated approach to object-oriented programming and better security. As of 2019, it is no longer supported.
- PHP 6: Shortly after the release of PHP 5, efforts began to make PHP fully Unicode supported. This effort failed and PHP 6 was never released.
- PHP 7: This is the current version of PHP, which was first released in late 2015. It is at version 7.4 of PHP.
- PHP 8: The next release of PHP is expected in 2020 or 2021 and will include just-in-time compilation and many other new features.
Different PHP Extensions
PHP extensions such as opcache, soap, imap, IonCube loader, and others can be enabled or disabled via the cPanel. This allows you to have full control. Or if you’d like, simply run the native PHP which works great for most websites! This is where Host Little is different from other web hosts.
- Zend Optimizer
- IonCube Loader
- Curl Support
- File Uploads
- PHP mail() and Sendmail
- fopen() and PHP sockets
- safe_mode OFF
- register_globals (configurable)
- allow_url_fopen ON
- And more!