Myth: "They keep me on PHP 7.4 to protect my site's stability."
They keep you there because upgrading the fleet is work, and old PHP lets them pack more legacy accounts per box. You eat the cost: slower execution, missing JIT and performance gains, and a runtime that stopped getting security patches.
"For compatibility" is the polite version of "we haven't bothered." A competent host gives you a one-click version switch; a stagnant one hides the toggle or doesn't have it.
Follow the money: maintaining ancient software is cheaper than maintaining current software, and "stability" is a great word to hide behind.
Reality: if you can't pick your own PHP version, the host froze it for their workload, not your safety.
Hosting Heresy
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Stuck on old PHP "for compatibility" — for their convenience
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