The Joomlashack Blog

Switch Joomla to PHP 7 on Shared Hosting

Written by Valentín García Valentín García
Published: 22 March 2016 22 March 2016
How to Update Joomla to use PHP 7

We recommend that you run your Joomla 3.5 sites on PHP 7.

PHP 7 is faster, more secure and will be supported for much longer than any other version

However, many shared hosting providers will not upgrade your PHP version automatically. If you run Joomla 3.5 on shared hosting and want to use PHP 7, I'm going to show you how.

Note: the availability of this setting will depend on your hosting provider.

  • Login to your site's cPanel.

Cpanel login screen

  • Look for the PHP Version Manager icon.

PHP Version Manager icon in cPanel

  • Click on the folder where your Joomla installation lives. Commonly this will be "public_html" but you can also choose a subfolder.

PHP Version Manager, choosing a folder

Select the most recent version of PHP. Hpefully 7.x will be available, as in the image below where 7.0.4 is provided. Then, click the "Save" button.

Changing the PHP version inside cPanel

That's it! Now, your site is using the latest and greatest PHP version.