Is your WordPress site ready for PHP 7?

There are a number of tools and checklists out there to verify if your site is ready for PHP 7. One of those tools is the plugin provided by WP Engine. The plugin will check whether the code of all your active plugins and themes is compatible with PHP 7.

There are a few caveats though you’d best keep in mind:

Even though the plugin is written to detect as many problems as accurately as possible, it’s not 100% reliable in detecting errors and warnings.
There may be false positives detected, the plugin doesn’t check whether the code is wrapped in a PHP version check.
The plugin does not execute your theme or plugin code, so it cannot detect runtime compatibility issues.

Still, it’s a great and easy way to test your site’s compatibility with PHP 7. The plugin is called PHP compatibility check by WP Engine. We recommend you test PHP 7 extensively on a staging site before updating your live site to PHP 7. If you want your host to help, but don’t know how to phrase it, you can read our example mail to request your host to update your PHP version.

Is your site hosted on Siteground?

If you are hosted on SiteGround, you can use their SG Optimizer plugin to check if your site is ready for PHP 7. You can even switch your PHP version from within the plugin! You can read more on their blog post get your WordPress on PHP 7 now.