increase PHP version required (to 7.0) #782

New Issue

2026-10-05T00:17:05+02:00

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:05 +02:00

Piwigo 2.9.3 is still marked as compatible with PHP 5.2. Oldest officially maintained branch is PHP 5.6. Wordpress.org statistics https://wordpress.org/about/stats/ currently says that 5.4+ is 89% of users and 5.5+ is 76%.

I think increasing the required version to 5.4 is "nearly painless".

Piwigo 2.9.3 is still marked as compatible with PHP 5.2. Oldest officially maintained branch is PHP 5.6. Wordpress.org statistics https://wordpress.org/about/stats/ currently says that 5.4+ is 89% of users and 5.5+ is 76%. I think increasing the required version to 5.4 is "nearly painless".

adam closed this issue

2026-10-05 00:17:05 +02:00

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:06 +02:00

Interesting study on PHP versions https://seld.be/notes/php-versions-stats-2018-1-edition

Interesting study on PHP versions https://seld.be/notes/php-versions-stats-2018-1-edition

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:07 +02:00

Considering the following facts:

Piwigo 2.10 is not for "soon" (not this summer I'm afraid)
compatibility with PHP 7.2 is becoming problematic (Ubuntu 18.04 comes with PHP 7.2)
compatibility with PHP 7.2 breaks compatibility with PHP 5.2 (requires PHP 5.3)

I'm trying to merge the current pull-request #834 for branch 2.9, which will require PHP 5.3.

Considering the following facts: - Piwigo 2.10 is not for "soon" (not this summer I'm afraid) - compatibility with PHP 7.2 is becoming problematic (Ubuntu 18.04 comes with PHP 7.2) - compatibility with PHP 7.2 breaks compatibility with PHP 5.2 (requires PHP 5.3) I'm trying to merge the current pull-request #834 for branch 2.9, which will require PHP 5.3.

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:08 +02:00

See b1cb4e48c0

See b1cb4e48c03f4ce62b3de66c3337d8b9ef656477

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:09 +02:00

Note that PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.0 are now no longer maintainted.
Sources: http://php.net/eol.php and http://php.net/supported-versions.php

Note that PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.0 are now no longer maintainted. Sources: http://php.net/eol.php and http://php.net/supported-versions.php

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:09 +02:00

@J0celyn that's right... in theory. In practice however, there are still a vast majority of users running a PHP version older than 7.1. See https://wordpress.org/about/stats/ : 76,2% of users are running an "officially unsupported" version of PHP. We have to deal with that :-)

@J0celyn that's right... in theory. In practice however, there are still a vast majority of users running a PHP version older than 7.1. See https://wordpress.org/about/stats/ : 76,2% of users are running an "officially unsupported" version of PHP. We have to deal with that :-)

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:10 +02:00

@plegall
My previous message is not theory, it is factual information given on http://php.net about which PHP versions they still support as well as an update to your first post stating "Oldest officially maintained branch is PHP 5.6".

After looking at the Wordpress usage stats I understand your motivation to maintain PHP 5.x compatibility in Piwigo and providing support for users running an old version of PHP.

Wordpress requirements page clearly warns about the risks when running old versions of PHP/MySQL:

Note: If you are in a legacy environment where you only have older PHP or MySQL versions, WordPress also works with PHP 5.2.4+ and MySQL 5.0+, but these versions have reached official End Of Life and as such may expose your site to security vulnerabilities.

@plegall My previous message is not theory, it is factual information given on http://php.net about which PHP versions they still support as well as an update to your first post stating "Oldest officially maintained branch is PHP 5.6". After looking at the Wordpress usage stats I understand your motivation to maintain PHP 5.x compatibility in Piwigo and providing support for users running an old version of PHP. [Wordpress requirements](https://wordpress.org/support/article/requirements/) page clearly warns about the risks when running old versions of PHP/MySQL: > Note: If you are in a legacy environment where you only have older PHP or MySQL versions, WordPress also works with PHP 5.2.4+ and MySQL 5.0+, but these versions have reached official End Of Life and as such **may expose your site to security vulnerabilities**.

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:11 +02:00

@J0celyn OK, we will add this warning

@J0celyn OK, we will add this warning

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:11 +02:00

@J0celyn see https://piwigo.org/guides/install/requirements

PHP 7.3+. Piwigo can run with PHP 5.3+ but these end-of-life versions
are no longer maintained and may expose your site to security vulnerabilities.
See officially PHP supported versions.

@J0celyn see https://piwigo.org/guides/install/requirements > PHP 7.3+. Piwigo can run with PHP 5.3+ but these end-of-life versions > are no longer maintained and may expose your site to security vulnerabilities. > See officially PHP supported versions.

adam commented

2026-10-05 00:17:12 +02:00

Let's increase to PHP 7.0 for now.

Let's increase to PHP 7.0 for now.

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Reference: adam/Piwigo#782