WordPress site operators who want to adopt the very latest version of PHP can make the move within the MyKinsta dashboard or via the Kinsta API.

Before you switch to PHP 8.4

PHP has some new features you might be eager to use in your projects, but there are a few things to consider before making the jump.

• This latest version of PHP is billed as having just beta support within WordPress 6.7 (currently the most recent) and is officially unsupported in earlier WordPress releases. (Even PHP 8.3, released last year, is supported only in beta back through WordPress 6.4, so that’s why our recommendation for most WordPress customers at this time is PHP 8.2.)
• The New Relic monitoring and ionCube Loader tools do not currently support PHP 8.4, so those will remain disabled in MyKinsta for now.
• Please make backups! As we recommend to anyone making major changes to their website, create a site backup in case things go very wrong. (Fortunately, in most cases, the solution to a broken website after moving to a new PHP engine is simply reverting to the previous release, which is easily done in MyKinsta or through the Kinsta API.)
• Even if you’ve made backups and have determined that your site’s current theme and plugins support PHP 8.4, we still suggest that you make your first foray into the new release on a staging environment. Repeat on your live site only when you’ve confirmed that staging performs without errors.

How to switch to PHP 8.4 in MyKinsta

To upgrade a WordPress environment PHP 8.4, log in to MyKinsta and navigate to WordPress Sites > environment name > Tools , then click the Change button on the PHP settings card:

Alternatively, you can perform a PHP update in bulk for multiple environments from the WordPress Sites page. In the example below, we’ve selected the checkboxes beside the names of multiple staging environments and are choosing Change PHP settings from the Actions dropdown menu:

Whichever path you choose, the next step is to choose the PHP version you want to adopt and click the Change PHP settings button:

Note: When bulk-updating multiple WordPress environments, the version of PHP chosen above will be applied to all of them.

The switch to a different version of PHP takes a few minutes. The PHP engine will restart to load the new version, making your WordPress admin dashboard unavailable for a few seconds. You will receive a notification within MyKinsta when the process is complete.

Kinsta: Always looking ahead

We’re excited to make PHP 8.4 available on our servers for our hosting customers. Keep an eye out for our annual PHP benchmarking, where we’ll be testing how this new release performs behind a number of PHP-powered content management systems, including WordPress.

Looking for premium hosting on PHP 8.4? Find a Managed Hosting package here that’s right for you.

The post PHP 8.4 is now available for Kinsta’s WordPress customers appeared first on Kinsta®.

Anyone who spends much time reading Kinsta’s Documentation, our Blog, or Knowledge Base might get the feeling some characters in our story have changed, but the same PHP workers we’ve talked about for a long time are simply performing the same tasks under a different name.

What’s the deal with PHP workers and threads?

The reason we care about this terminology is because the PHP interpreter that processes the scripts behind an application like the WordPress CMS runs single-threaded. That means requests that arrive (more or less) simultaneously would naturally be queued for processing one at a time. That can slow things down for your website’s visitors.

A solution we’ve employed at Kinsta for a long time is to simulate a multi-threaded environment by providing access to PHP in multiple distinct partitions of memory. Each block of memory can still serve just one PHP thread, but all of them can execute simultaneously to share the work.

So, “workers” was a term that seemed like a good idea (at the time).

Why Kinsta customers should be aware of threads

For customers with higher-traffic WordPress sites, optimizing PHP performance can be a delicate balancing act between the number of PHP threads available to process requests simultaneously and the amount of memory available to each.

PHP is not invoked when a website delivers cached content in response to a browser request, but it’s required whenever a script needs to be interpreted for tasks like querying the database and building pages on the fly.

Sites with many simultaneous users might benefit by having more threads available. Sites that depend on intensive database queries and processing large arrays of data might benefit by having more memory available to each thread.

We expect that Kinsta’s new PHP Performance Add-on (available within the MyKinsta dashboard and the Kinsta API) will raise the profile of threads for many customers. By using a term common across the hosting industry for these processes, we hope users will be able to better picture what’s happening under the hood of our platform.

Our goal: The fastest, most reliable WordPress hosting

We are always looking for ways to make managed hosting for WordPress more powerful, more reliable — and simpler.

If you need a fast WordPress site that’s also secure, check out our hosting plans to find the one that meets your needs.

The post Those things we called PHP workers? Now we’re calling them threads appeared first on Kinsta®.

Themes (and plugins) can still be updated on a per-environment basis in MyKinsta and, of course, in any WordPress site’s Admin menu. However, the company-level functionality can help make sure you don’t miss an important update on any of your WordPress sites.

Advanced theme management in MyKinsta

Access the new theme management tool by selecting WordPress sites on MyKinsta’s main menu and then the Themes tab at the top of the page. That serves up a list of all themes installed across live and staging WordPress environments:

You can use the dropdown menu at the top of the page to filter the list to reveal only those for which an update is available:

Use the search feature to find instances of a specific theme:

Selecting themes to update

You can navigate the environments in which themes are installed by clicking on [>] to expand and collapse list entries. The display indicates whether a theme is currently active or inactive in an environment, the version currently installed, and what version is available for upgrading:

Some options for selecting which themes to update:

• Click the checkbox beside the theme name to select all instances across all sites and environments.
• Click the checkbox beside a site name to select all instances of a theme across environments for that site.
• Click the checkbox beside an environment name to select just that instance of a theme.

With themes selected using checkboxes, you can click the Update themes button at the top of the list. You’ll be asked to confirm the updates in the queue to complete the task.

You can also click the three-dot menu to the right of a theme name and choose to update that theme across all environments:

Alternatively, you can click the three-dot menu to the right of a specific environment with that theme and update just that instance:

We’re making WordPress management easier

We are always looking for ways to make WordPress maintenance simpler for customers. You can even create your own tools for managing WordPress sites using the Kinsta API.

If you’re looking for fast and secure WordPress hosting, check out Kinsta’s plans to find the one that fits you best.

The post Update WordPress themes across multiple sites with just a few clicks appeared first on Kinsta®.