[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #62622: Bump minimum PHP version to 7.3 or 7.4

[WordPress Trac]

#62622: Bump minimum PHP version to 7.3 or 7.4
-------------------------+------------------------------
 Reporter:  justlevine   |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:               |     Focuses:
-------------------------+------------------------------

Comment (by samiamnot):

 Updated for early Feb 2025 based on [https://wordpress.org/about/stats/
 WordPress stats].

 For the first time in a while, the combined percentage of site on
 unsupported PHP versions has dropped below 5%. As we stand now, 4.96% of
 sites are on unsupported PHP versions, something that dropped 0.10% in the
 past month, vs 0.14% in the previous month.

 7.2 + 7.3 that are slated to be dropped next, are still decreasing, but at
 a much slower pace. This month it was down 0.15%, vs 0.20 last month and
 0.21% the previous month, and stands at 5.67%. Based on this slowdown,
 @johnbillion's [https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62622#comment:2
 projection] that we could make the move in in v6.9 will likely be too
 early. I assume that by v7.0 we will have numbers low enough to consider
 making the move.


 ||='''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%'''||
 ||Sep 2024|| 3.05|| 3.73|| '''6.78%'''||
 ||Oct 2024|| 2.93|| 3.56|| '''6.49%'''||
 ||Nov 2024|| 2.83|| 3.40|| '''6.23%'''||
 ||Dec 2024|| 2.76|| 3.26|| '''6.02%'''||
 ||Jan 2025|| 2.68|| 3.14|| '''5.82%'''||
 ||Feb 2025|| 2.63|| 3.04|| '''5.67%'''||

 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%'''||
 ||Sep 2024|| 0.19|| 0.41|| 0.33|| 0.28|| 2.45|| 1.25|| 0.79||
 '''5.70%'''||
 ||Oct 2024|| 0.18|| 0.40|| 0.32|| 0.27|| 2.38|| 1.20|| 0.76||
 '''5.51%'''||
 ||Nov 2024|| 0.18|| 0.39|| 0.31|| 0.26|| 2.32|| 1.15|| 0.72||
 '''5.33%'''||
 ||Dec 2024|| 0.17|| 0.39|| 0.31|| 0.26|| 2.27|| 1.11|| 0.69||
 '''5.20%'''||
 ||Jan 2025|| 0.17|| 0.38|| 0.31|| 0.25|| 2.21|| 1.07|| 0.67||
 '''5.06%'''||
 ||Feb 2025|| 0.17|| 0.38|| 0.30|| 0.25|| 2.16|| 1.04|| 0.66||
 '''4.96%'''||

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62622#comment:5>
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