PHP 7.3 end of life / default PHP

Edit – November 28, 2021 – there is updated information about this in our new post.

Some of you may be seeing warning or notices in your web scripts or applications about the upcoming end of life for PHP 7.3. These concerns are true and valid. Official support for PHP 7.3 will end on December 6, 2021. This does not mean that PHP 7.3 will stop working on December 6, 2021 – it simply means that the PHP developers will no longer release any security fixes for the 7.3 branch of PHP.

All accounts on our servers are using PHP 7.3 by default. The term “by default” means that unless you have made arrangements with us to change the PHP version – then your account is using PHP 7.3.

We prefer to hold true to these development environments as much as possible. That means we would prefer to move off of PHP 7.3 by default before the December 6, 2021 cutoff. But we haven’t yet done that. Why?

The majority of the reason revolves around Ioncube. Ioncube is a very popular PHP encoding system – think of it as a way to distribute code without exposing the exact source code for that project. As of now, Ioncube still hasn’t released updated encoders and loaders for PHP 8.0. Why? We have no idea. Ioncube is severely dragging their feet in resolving this. As a leading encoder for PHP, Ioncube should have been working on a PHP 8.0 encoder/loader well before PHP 8 was release to the general public. The first alpha of PHP 8 was released on June 25, 2020. And Ioncube still has no answer for PHP 8.

Ideally we expected Ioncube to release an encoder/loader in late Summer 2021 at the latest. We had plans to begin shifting PHP by default to PHP 8.0 around the first of October 2021. But Ioncube never released an encoder/loader and now we’re knocking on the door to December and the December 6, 2021 deadline for PHP 7.3.

What about PHP 7.4?

PHP 7.4 is also out there and in life (until November 28, 2022 – so about a year from now) and an Ioncube encoder/loader is available for PHP 7.4. Typically we like to skip versions when setting a default PHP version, otherwise we’re changing default PHP versions once a year or less. We did this with the PHP 7.1 to PHP 7.3 release cycle, we skipped over PHP 7.2 as a default version. This was our intended target for PHP 8.0 – go from PHP 7.3 to PHP 8.0, skipping PHP 7.4.

Believe me when I say that Ioncube dragging their feet on this has been a huge obstacle for us, because we really did not plan for Ioncube to take this long to release an encoder/loader for PHP 8.0.

What are we going to do now?

We don’t really know. We’re playing this by ear now. From the looks of things, unless something unexpected happens with Ioncube and PHP 8.0 within the next couple of weeks, we’ll probably continue with PHP 7.3 by default after the December 6, 2021 end-of-life and re-evaluate all of this about a month later at the first of January 2022. At that time we’ll probably switch to either a PHP 7.4 with Ioncube by default or a PHP 8.0 without Ioncube by default.

Continuing to use PHP 7.3 after it’s end-of-life isn’t the end of the world. The chances of a security concern to arise in PHP 7.3 soon after it’s end-of-life is very small. However it is not a good idea to continue using PHP 7.3 long term after it’s end-of-life. We’re aware of this. But we were just really hoping to have PHP 8.0 with Ioncube available by now.

How do I know if I am using Ioncube?

If you purchased any software to use on your website then it’s a good bet that your PHP scripts are encoded with some encoder. Ioncube is not the only PHP encoder, but it is the most popular one. Just how many of our clients are using Ioncube encoded software will factor into our decision to my to PHP 7.4 with Ioncube vs. PHP 8.0 without Ioncube as the default option.

If you are using a piece of software that is encoded with Ioncube I would strongly encourage you to discuss this with that software’s developer and ask them if it’s possible for them to move the encoding to a different encoder – one that supports PHP 8.0.

This is not the first time Ioncube has dragged their feet on this. When PHP 7.0 came out they were just as slow at releasing an encoder/loader for PHP 7.0 as they are now.

I understand that users may be disgruntled with this. Believe me, we are too. But I do not know of anyway to get Ioncube to speed up their development and release process.