As of today, all free hosting servers have been upgraded to PHP 8.3.
A new PHP version is released every year, and free hosting was still on PHP version 8.2, which was released in 2023. By now, almost all software has been updated to support PHP 8.3, and it won’t be long before more software will require a higher version. So with this upgrade, free hosting should be remain a great place to host the latest and greatest of software.
PHP 8.3 comes with a number of changes to the language, you can review the official announcement from PHP here: PHP: PHP 8.3.0 Release Announcement
I’m very glad to see that the PHP version is now on 8.3! As a person dedicated to hosting services that may handle sensitive data, I would prefer to stay on the latest and greatest versions of the software I use.
However, we know from experience that it can take a long time for script developers to update their software to be compatible with new PHP versions, as well as for website owners to update to those newer versions.
That’s why we generally lag behind the official releases for a while to ensure that the PHP upgrade doesn’t unnecessarily break websites.
I understand that there is a PHP 8.4 out there. But having PHP 8.3 is more secure than PHP 8.2, which is all that matters.
As @Admin said, it takes a while for developers to adjust their code to the newest PHP version. PHP 8.4 was released on 10 Apr 2025, and script developers aren’t very quick on supporting the latest version.
All I care about is security, really. PHP 8.3 comes with bug fixes, along with some other things, that help improve PHP. As a webmaster who handles sensitive data (like passwords) with PHP, having a PHP version that is improved is better.
And by the way, Welcome to the InfinityFree Forum!
I disagree. PHP3 is more secure than PHP2, but I don’t want to use PHP3 because it’s not secure. Likewise, a 2015 update to a 2013 application is more secure, but is not secure (if that makes sense).
Just because something is more secure then its predecessor does not mean it should be used.
Also, if all you care about is security, I’ll get you a webhosting account with no FTP/Panel access, it would be impossible for someone to hack!
That is just a dummy version code to show new vs old..
Security is one factor, but others include software compatibility.
The most secure code is print(‘hello world’); but you can’t run WordPress on that.
It just means that security is not the only thing that should be considered
If there is no breaking changes from your current version, like just a pure bugfix/security patch version, update asap.
But if the software update containes breaking changes, you better wait.
An example is NamelessMC (no affiliation, I just like it). Their newest version is 2.2.1 (just a bugfix over 2.2.0)
My websites are still running 2.1.4, this is because 2.2 has changes that will break themes and modules, their developers also advised us to wait.
If you say newer is better, your website would be done for after you update.
Now, as for NamelessMC, the developers are good enough to release a security patch before the 2.2 update (2.1.4 is just a security fix over 2.1.3, where I updated very quickly after it was announced) So that doesn’t make 2.2 very more secure then 2.1, but instead may be less secure due to new features being added.
Both PHP 8.2 and 8.3 are still getting security updates, so both are secure for now. PHP 8.2 still gets 1.5 years of security fixes, and PHP 8.3 will get security updates for 2.5 years. But of course, it’s good practice
We try to roll out updates in such a way that we don’t unnecessarily break sites that can’t work with newer PHP versions yet, while also trying avoid the situation where you can’t run the latest version of a script because it needs a newer PHP version.
There’re 5 version of PHP 8.
8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4.
If you just say that your project is built on PHP 8, then it’s impossible to tell for sure, but it’ll most probably work.
PHP 8.3 is still PHP 8 after all.
The release notes are indeed very boring. But then again, the only time I ever needed to change my code due to a PHP version was when upgrading to PHP 7, all other upgrades have been basically seamless.
Well written code for PHP 5.4 can work just fine on PHP 8. But a surprisingly large number of projects used outdated functions and dubious syntax that broke in later PHP versions.
Yet there was this case just today where the CMS e107 appears to be broken under PHP 8.3 while working fine under 8.2. So it can happen.
