We’re excited to announce that we’ve started to rollout PHP 7 with OpCache across all of our hosting packages here at DOWO Digital. PHP 7 is a big step forward, and provides significant improvement in performance over PHP 5, with WordPress able to process nearly twice as many requests per second whilst running on PHP 7!
Most commonly used applications such as WordPress and Drupal are already compatible, but if you have any custom-written PHP code on your web site then you may need to make changes to make it compatible – have a look at the graph below to see what impact moving to PHP 7 has on WordPress:
As you can see, PHP 7 is significantly better at handling requests than PHP 5, and this means much faster times for your website!
PHP 7 – OpCache as Standard
Another key component of PHP 7 is that it uses opcode caching as standard. Without OpCache, when PHP code is run it is compiled into opcode and then executed. With OpCache, it is compiled and then the compiled version is stored on disk, so the next time it is run it can skip the compilation step. This means your site will load faster as each request by each visitor for doesn’t have to be re-compiled.
We’re storing the OpCache in your cPanel user folder, under: /home/user/.opcache
The cache will refresh in the event a file change is made to the original PHP file, but by storing the cache directly in your home directory, you can also manually clear it at any time by simply deleting the folder or a specific page. It will then be automatically re-cached next time someone views your site.
How to enable PHP 7
The easiest way to test whether your site works under PHP 7 is to use our PHP Version Manager in cPanel. You can select the version of PHP that you want to use at a folder level, so if you have some applications that are compatible, and others that are not, provided those applications are stored in different folders, you can select the version of PHP you want to use for each application.
Check out our knowledge base on how to switch PHP Versions: https://www.dowo.digital/clients/knowledgebase/20/How-to-change-the-PHP-version-in-cPanel.html
If you have any questions please contact the DOWO Digital Team at: https://www.dowo.digital/support