PHP on Flywheel

PHP is the open-source scripting language that WordPress is built on. Keeping your site’s PHP version up-to-date allows your site to utilize all of PHP’s latest features and improvements, resulting in optimized security and speed.

PHP versions available on Flywheel

Flywheel currently supports the following PHP versions, which are fully compatible with WordPress and receive periodic updates from the PHP group:

PHP 8.2
PHP 7.4

How to check a site’s PHP version

1. Click Sites in the main menu to view all your sites.
   
2. Click on the desired site name.
3. Go to the Advanced tab, the site’s PHP version is on the right sidebar. This will under the Staging Tab for a staging site.

How to filter your sites by PHP version

1. Click Sites in the main menu to view all your sites.
   
2. Click Filter Sites.
   
3. Under Site Settings, select a PHP version and only the sites on that version will display.
   

Upgrade/downgrade PHP

Under the Advanced tab on your site in the Flywheel dashboard there will be an option to upgrade or downgrade the PHP version on the right bottom side like the screenshot below. You can also upgrade or downgrade the PHP version on your staging site under the Staging Tab.

Installed PHP modules

Flywheel offers a specific set of platform-wide server modules which cannot be modified, removed, or added. The list below includes all modules installed on our cloud platform.

Unsupported PHP modules

ionCube

Flywheel does not support ionCube on PHP 7.4 and above. The ionCube Loader module is not available on Flywheel due to the significant performance issues it causes.

Disabled PHP functions

Like many hosting providers, Flywheel disables a handful of PHP functions to help ensure secure and performant servers for all of our clients. Because we take security very seriously, our settings are somewhat more locked down than most.

phpMyAdmin

Flywheel does not have phpMyAdmin installed, but does provide web-based access to the MySQL databases of each site via our own custom (and beautiful) database manager.

The Flywheel Database Manager provides all of the access that you would normally find with phpMyAdmin including running queries, updating values, importing SQL files, and exporting your entire database.

File locking or flock

When a plugin uses the PHP function “flock”, it sends a request to the file system to “lock” a specific file and restricts other processes from changing that specific file. This causes a wait time while the plugin completes the operation.

When there are multiple file locks, the amount of latency begins to increase.

Our file system uses a multi-threading mechanism in order to deliver efficient input/output processing. Using the flock function is not compatible with many file systems and can result in site errors with the file system and possible downtime.

As a result, modern plugins have started to move away from using flock. For example, ShortPixel Image Optimizer versions 4.14.3 and lower utilize flock() (which results in latency) while newer versions no longer use flock.

The plugin Wordfence uses flock for their Advanced Firewall Feature, however they have the option to switch to MySQLi Storage Engine. Please contact our support team to help with this switch.

Due to the high likelihood of file system issues and latency caused by flock, we would highly recommend not using this PHP function on your site.

FAQ

Can I use PHP 7.0-7.3 on Flywheel?

No. These versions have been (or will soon be) deprecated and are no longer supported or maintained by the PHP Group, so they are not available on Flywheel.

Does Flywheel support ionCube?

No, Flywheel does not support ionCube on PHP 7.4 and above. The ionCube Loader module is not available on Flywheel due to the significant performance issues it causes.

Need help?

If you have any questions our Happiness Engineers are here to help!