Differences Between PHP Versions 7.4, 8.0, and 8.1

With BionicWP, all sites can now switch between PHP versions 7.4, 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2 with just one click in MyBionic Control Panel.

To change your PHP version:

• Login to MyBionic Control Panel
• Go to Settings for your website
• Switch the PHP version under Site Information 

We’ve outlined some information and the improvements between the three available PHP versions below:

PHP 7.4
Released: November 28th, 2019

PHP 7.4 significantly boosts performance and improves code readability. The preload function is able to preload functions and classes to speed up the loading of scripts by 30-50%. PHP 7.4 also brings lots of additional features, fixes, and syntax additions. This is the last version before PHP 8 is released.

New features include:

• Arrow functions for cleaner one-liner functions
• Preloading to improve performance
• Support for typed properties
• Custom object serialization
• Unpacking inside arrays
• Weak references
• Improved type variance

Please Note: Support for PHP version 7.4 will continue until November 2022, when the version reaches End of Life. Bionic will be retiring PHP 7.4 as an option for new sites on August 9, 2022, and all sites using PHP 7.4 will be automatically upgraded to PHP 8.0 on November 2, 2022.

PHP 8.0
Released: November 26th, 2020

PHP 8.0 is a major update that attempts to resolve past problems and makes PHP more developer-friendly by improving transparency.  It also contains new features and optimization improvements.

New features include:

• Named arguments
• Union types
• Constructor property promotion
• Custom object serialization
• Match expression
• Nullsafe operator
• Improvements in the type system and error handling

PHP 8.1
Released: November 25th, 2021

PHP 8.1 is a major update of the PHP language that brings better performance, better syntax, and improved type safety.  It also contains new features and optimization improvements.

New features include:

• Enumerations
• Read-only properties
• First-class callable syntax
• Initializer updates
• Fibers
• Intersection types
• Performance improvements
• New classes, interfaces, and functions