Contact Form 7 6.2 raised its PHP requirement from 7.4 to 8.3. This decision was made based on our policy that our products only support PHP versions that WordPress recommends.
Some weeks ago, I read a post on the Make WordPress Core blog that was a note from an informal conversation held at WordCamp US 2026. The part I found the most interesting was:
Many in the PHP community don’t consider WordPress developers to be “PHP developers.” Part of this is due to WordPress being seen as dragging PHP backwards because of its backwards compatibility commitments.
It also made me a bit sad. WordPress developers are PHP developers, of course. And WordPress has committed to backward compatibility so seriously because that is the responsibility of the most popular CMS, which sustains a tremendous number of PHP sites.
That said, as mentioned in the post, 18% of WordPress sites still run PHP 7.4, which had its end of life 4 years ago. Those sites are facing unimaginably serious security risks. However, until this percentage sinks below 5%, it will be difficult for WordPress to raise its PHP requirement from the current 7.4. On the other hand, if WordPress continued to support PHP 7.4, it could disincentivize users from upgrading PHP.
It seems like a chicken-and-egg situation.
Pave the road to allow WordPress to raise PHP requirement
I want to call on colleague plugin developers to take concerted action to raise the PHP requirement of our plugins. By joining this action, you can enjoy benefits such as:
- You can use cutting-edge techniques supported by the latest PHP versions.
- Narrowing the PHP support range reduces your testing and user support burden.
- It also minimizes the attack surface you have to protect.
Plugins can decide their PHP support range more flexibly than the WordPress core can, because each plugin’s user base is far smaller than the core’s. And if popular plugins raise their PHP requirements, that can incentivize their users to upgrade PHP on their sites. The number of sites that use outdated PHP versions will decrease. Ultimately, it will make it easier for WordPress to raise its PHP requirement.