Perch 2 requires PHP 5.2

When we launched the first version of Perch back in June 2009, we took the step of requiring PHP 5.0 or greater. We though that it might exclude some folks on shared hosting, but that it was worth it in order to start the system on a good, modern coding base.

As it turns out, this was never a practical issue. Those with older hosting accounts were able to ask their host for an upgrade, and any good hosting company is pleased to be able to remove older, less secure versions of software from their servers.

Three years later, with Perch 2 being a major upgrade in all areas, we’ve taken the opportunity to re-examine those basic system requirements. As a result, Perch 2 will require PHP 5.2 or greater to run. Version 5.2 was a major update which not only signified the sorting out of a lot of the problems that existed with early versions of PHP 5, but also introduced a lot of new features and improvements. Key to that was the introduction of some previously optional libraries as standard, including native JSON (which Perch uses a lot) and Filter (for improved filtering of user input – a security feature).

PHP also gets faster and more stable (with things like improved memory management) with each release, so a newer release generally results in an over all better experience.

The good news is that PHP 5.2 is not a new version by any means. It was released in 2006, and has already been end-of-lifed. As a minimum requirement, it’s really not asking much. The current version of PHP at the time of writing is 5.4.3, and we’d always recommend running the most up to date stable release that you can.

In accordance with this new requirement, we have a new server compatibility test, so you can check to see whether you’re ready to run Perch 2. If you have an older version of PHP than 5.2, your hosting company should be delighted to update your account. If they’re not happy to do so, and would rather you continued to run a version of PHP more than five years old and for which support and security fixes have ended, you should think hard about your hosting arrangements.