[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #58719: Bump the minimum PHP version to 7.2

[WordPress Trac]

#58719: Bump the minimum PHP version to 7.2
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 Reporter:  justlevine   |       Owner:  johnbillion
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  6.6
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:  fixed
 Keywords:  has-patch    |     Focuses:
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Comment (by samiamnot):

 Updated for early Aug based on [https://wordpress.org/about/stats/ stats].
 While the ticket is closed, I will continue updating since I find these
 stats interesting.
 We are now about 3 weeks past the WordPress 6.6 release, and 50% of sites
 are now on 6.6 that does not support PHP 7.0 and 7.1. I had expected a
 drop in those versions as people upgrade, but it is likely that either
 they are abandoned, or it takes more time to upgrade. As seen below,
 7.0+7.1 only dropped by 0.09% since last month, a figure that is inline
 with previous drops. As we stand now, 5.91% of sites are on unsupported
 PHP versions.

 7.2+7.3 are still dropping at about 0.35% a month, so dropping those
 versions will take a while (a year or more is my guess). We may want to
 proactively start warning admins in a more clear manner.


 ||='''Month/Year'''=||='''PHP 7.2'''=||='''PHP 7.3'''=||='''PHP 7.2 +
 7.3'''=||
 ||Jul 2023|| 6.48|| 8.16|| '''14.64%'''||
 ||Aug 2023|| 5.64|| 7.62|| '''13.26%'''||
 ||Sep 2023|| 5.55|| 7.18|| '''12.73%'''||
 ||Oct 2023|| 5.31|| 6.87|| '''12.18%'''||
 ||Nov 2023|| 5.20|| 6.51|| '''11.71%'''||
 ||Dec 2023|| 5.08|| 6.17|| '''11.25%'''||
 ||Jan 2024|| 4.79|| 5.90|| '''10.69%'''||
 ||Feb 2024|| 4.67|| 5.54|| '''10.21%'''||
 ||Mar 2024|| 4.30|| 5.11|| '''9.41%'''||
 ||Apr 2024|| 3.80|| 4.79|| '''8.59%'''||
 ||May 2024|| 3.63|| 4.52|| '''8.15%'''||
 ||Jun 2024|| 3.46|| 4.30|| '''7.76%'''||
 ||Jul 2024|| 3.33|| 4.10|| '''7.43%'''||
 ||Aug 2024|| 3.18|| 3.90|| '''7.08%'''||

 For historical reasons, here are the stats for no longer supported
 versions (as of WP 6.6) going back to PHP 5.2. This is not changing much
 (going down about 0.20% a month) and many are likely "abandoned" sites
 that are on old versions of WP.

 ||='''Month/Year'''=||='''PHP 5.2'''=||='''PHP 5.3'''=||='''PHP
 5.4'''=||='''PHP 5.5'''=||='''PHP 5.6'''=||='''PHP 7.0'''=||='''PHP
 7.1'''=||='''Total'''=||
 ||Jan 2024|| 0.21|| 0.50|| 0.44|| 0.35|| 3.21|| 1.67|| 1.08||
 '''7.46%'''||
 ||Feb 2024|| 0.21|| 0.49|| 0.42|| 0.35|| 3.12|| 1.62|| 1.04||
 '''7.25%'''||
 ||Mar 2024|| 0.21|| 0.48|| 0.39|| 0.34|| 3.02|| 1.55|| 0.99||
 '''6.98%'''||
 ||Apr 2024|| 0.20|| 0.47|| 0.38|| 0.33|| 2.93|| 1.50|| 0.95||
 '''6.76%'''||
 ||May 2024|| 0.20|| 0.46|| 0.37|| 0.32|| 2.84|| 1.45|| 0.92||
 '''6.56%'''||
 ||Jun 2024|| 0.20|| 0.45|| 0.36|| 0.31|| 2.76|| 1.41|| 0.89||
 '''6.38%'''||
 ||Jul 2024|| 0.19|| 0.44|| 0.35|| 0.30|| 2.63|| 1.36|| 0.86||
 '''6.13%'''||
 ||Aug 2024|| 0.19|| 0.43|| 0.34|| 0.29|| 2.53|| 1.31|| 0.82||
 '''5.91%'''||

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58719#comment:55>
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