WordPress PHP Statistics Journey

WordPress PHP Minimum Versions

WordPress 1.0.0 (2004-01) wants PHP 4.0.6 (2001-06) minimum.
WordPress 1.2.0 (2004-05) wants PHP 4.1.0 (2001-12) minimum.
WordPress 2.2.0 (2007-05) wants PHP 4.2.0 (2002-04) minimum.
WordPress 2.5.0 (2008-03) wants PHP 4.3.0 (2002-12) minimum.
WordPress 3.2.0 (2011-07) wants PHP 5.2.4 (2007-08) minimum.
WordPress 5.2.0 (2019-05) wants PHP 5.6.20 (2016-03) minimum.
WordPress 6.3.0 (2023-08) wants PHP 7.0.0 (2015-12) minimum.
WordPress 6.6.0 (2024-07) wants PHP 7.2.24 (2019-10) minimum.

Notice that WordPress 2.5.0 seems to be when the fast-pace keeping up with the latest PHP releases has been officially decoupled.

A good choice, thank you, because forcing many-many minor PHP (runtime layer) upgrades to apply WordPress (application layer) fixes should be an environment owners choice; able to be planned, scheduled, executed in alignment with the websites owners outage window policies.

Decoupling runtime (PHP) from application (WordPress) updates has clear benefits; like reduced regression testing scope for all applications in that runtime environment and smaller outage windows that minimise service interruption (a brand reputation factor).

WordPress PHP Installation Share

The official WordPress PHP statistics tells a short story (November 2024).

WordPress PHP Installations – By Version (2024-11)

Unfortunately, only reporting PHP statistics for WordPress >= 3.2.0.

Which skews reporting % distribution (a little) by not including >= PHP 4.3.

These WordPress PHP Statistics do not appear to cover the WordPress 3.0.0 to 3.1.4 PHP minimum requirements (>= PHP 4.3.0).

Does ~0.5 million websites out of ~493 million, skew it enough to matter?

WordPress PHP Installations – Version by % Table (2024-11)

Version Installations (%)
8.4	0.02%
8.3	4.92%
8.2	21.24%
8.1	19.47%
8.0	9.82%
7.4	33.23%
7.3	3.30%
7.2	2.77%
7.1	0.70%
7.0	1.12%
5.6	2.28%
5.5	0.26%
5.4	0.31%
5.3	0.39%
5.2	0.17%
5.1	(unknown)
5.0	(unknown)
4.4	(unknown)
4.3	(unknown)

With PHP 4.3 to 4.4 on (unknown) million websites.
With PHP 5.0 to 5.1 on (unknown) million websites.
With PHP 5.2 to 5.5 on ~5.571 million websites (~1.13%).
With PHP 5.6 to 5.6 on ~11.240 million websites (~2.28%).
With PHP 7.0 to 7.4 on ~202.722 million websites (~41.12%).
With PHP 8.0 to 8.4 on ~273.467 million websites (~55.47%).

With ~5.571 million PHP <= 5.5 WordPress websites officially not supported.

Question and Comments

Given the combined complexity of ‘WordPress + PHP’ features, what are your thoughts on how to choose which versions you are going to support?

Landscape Tiers