Cloud Platform
End-of-life for PHP 8.2 in favor of PHP 8.4
PHP.net will end support for PHP 8.2 on 31 December 2026. As a result, Acquia is ending support for PHP 8.2 in favor of PHP 8.3 on 1 October 2026. At that time, we will remove PHP 8.2 and convert all remaining environments to PHP 8.3. This deadline will not be extended, as it is critical your application be upgraded to ensure its continued security.
PHP 8.3 provides significant improvements in performance and security over previous versions. We strongly recommend customers move to PHP 8.3 as soon as possible after appropriate testing.
Acquia Cloud Platform and Acquia Site Factory customers can perform self-service upgrades until 1 October 2026. This deadline is due to a number of factors:
Because many of our customers have high traffic events near the end of the year (e.g. financial closing, business/sales season spikes, holiday-related traffic, administrative end of year events, school registration or finals, etc.) we find that waiting to perform these events later in the year often hurts our customers more than helps them. As a result, we are asking customers to perform these upgrades themselves on or before 1 October 2026. After that, we will move forward with forced upgrades. We are leaving time between the end of our self-upgrade window and the holidays so that we have plenty of time to assist customers who run into issues with their forced upgrades prior to their busy holiday period.
Note:
Any Acquia-hosted application that is not running at least PHP 8.2 will be upgraded. Any application that is already using PHP 8.2 or newer will not be upgraded.
FAQs
Q: Is there any action required on my part?
All environments currently on PHP 8.2 must be upgraded to PHP 8.3 or newer before 1 October 2026. Prior to that date, you should upgrade your non-production applications to test for any incompatibilities in your application. We recommend beginning with your non-production upgrades as soon as possible to ensure you have time to test, prior to upgrading your production application. Once you have resolved any incompatibilities, upgrade your production environment before the end-of-life deadline. For instructions on changing your PHP version, see Configuring PHP settings.
Acquia Cloud applications will be upgraded to PHP 8.3 automatically as part of regular maintenance, as communicated to customers by email.
Q: Can I upgrade to PHP 8.2 instead of PHP 8.3?
You can change the PHP version for your application(s) in the Cloud Platform user interface at any time following the instructions here: Configuring PHP settings. You can upgrade your application(s) to PHP 8.2 or later prior to 1 October 2026. After 1 October 2026, you cannot set PHP 8.2 as the PHP version for your application(s).
PHP 8.3 is currently the default PHP version on the Acquia Cloud platform. We are force upgrading all applications remaining on PHP 8.2 on 1 October 2026 to PHP 8.3. You cannot choose the PHP version we force upgrade your application(s) to on 1 October 2026.
Q: How would Acquia recommend I proceed with preparing for my PHP upgrade?
We advise upgrading your development environment first to detect any potential problems in your codebase. Then, we recommend using your staging environment to test any changes that might need to be carried over before upgrading your production environment.
For some Acquia Cloud Platform customers, you are able to create a CD environment to test PHP 8.3 before converting your production environment. More information about CD environments can be found at Acquia Cloud CD. If you do not have access to Acquia Cloud CD environments, please contact your account manager for additional details.
Q: I am using Acquia Cloud Site Factory. How do I upgrade?
Acquia provides a self-service option for Acquia Site Factory applications. Customers with applications using Acquia Site Factory can now configure the PHP settings on their application. For more instructions, see Configuring PHP settings.
Q: Will there be any downtime for my non-production environments or production application?
There will be a moment or two of interrupted service for some connections as PHP restarts. Any content cached by Varnish will not be impacted. Code changes may be required to ensure your production application operates as expected once you upgrade to PHP 8.3.
Q: Are there any tools that can assist with this migration from PHP 8.2 to PHP 8.3?
There are two external tools that can be used to audit codebases for migration to PHP 8.3 that may help with the conversion from PHP 8.2, PHP_CodeSniffer and PHPCompatibility.
Q: Is the upgrade to PHP 8.3 available?
Yes, PHP 8.3 is available on the Acquia Cloud Platform today as the default PHP version. Customers can upgrade their application(s) to PHP 8.3 at any time. For instructions on how to upgrade the PHP version for your application, see Configuring PHP versions.
Q: Are there other major software upgrades on Acquia Cloud coming soon?
We are committed to maintaining the security and stability of the Acquia Cloud platform. To do so, we are consistently removing software that has reached end-of-life and adding new features on an ongoing basis. We work to provide as much lead time as possible whenever this happens, in order to ensure your application runs smoothly while these upgrades and retirement efforts are underway. For more information on other upcoming retirements, please see our Software End-of-Life Schedule.
Q: I have some additional questions and concerns. Who can I contact?
If you have any questions about this or any other maintenance, you can contact Acquia Support.
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