RIP WordPress and HHVM - We've had a great Run

RIP HHVM. The time has come for us to say goodbye to HHVM when it comes to running your WordPress sites. We do not support or offer HHVM at . It was never officially supported and the WordPress team at WordPress stopped testing it over one year earlier. HHVM v3.30 will also be the final version of the series that will include support for PHP.

Due to increasing compatibility issues as well as performance issues, along with absence of PHP support, it's no longer an acceptable option for production WordPress sites. Therefore, we have phased out HHVM on August 20th, 2018, for all users.

If you're already using HHVM on your sites look over the details below regarding how this change impacts you and what you should accomplish. We also discuss why this shouldn't be viewed as a negative shift.

•    Background of HHVM
•    HHVM is No Longer an Option for WordPress
•    HHVM End-of-Life (EOL)
•    Moving From HHVM to PHP

Background of HHVM

Before we go into the reason HHVM is going away, let's take a quick review of the reasons why we started with it in the first place.

It all started with a small (or the little) site called Facebook. The site was initially created in PHP but when it was able to stop taking on the computational power that was required to process all demands was beyond the limits. This was mostly due to the inefficiencies in PHP execution engines available at that time. So the engineers and developers from Facebook have come up with a brilliant idea. Instead of simply buying more servers, why not solve the problem at the software scale?

They then created a PHP conversion to C++ compiler named HPHPc. The initial PHP code was then compiled into executable binaries (sometimes file sizes reaching up to 1 gigabyte!) and it was run instead of being compiled to opcodes or interpreter.

It was about six times the performance, that's huge! Six times more speed may not sound like a lot , but if you think about it in this way, it might help put it into perspective. Instead of having to buy 600 servers to power an online service, you just require 100. This is a significant savings because you simply changed the way your code is run.

As you might imagine, you will be running and maintaining distinct debugging and developer versions of HipHop (called HPHPi and HPHPd and HPHPd, respectively) as well as the distribution of gigabytes of executables each machine after just a couple of changes in the source code (think fix for bugs), quickly became tiresome and challenging.

Then in 2013, Facebook made the decision to discontinue HPHPc, but reuse the PHP program and the knowledge they gained from having the product in use for at least 3 years and launch the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM). This engine converted PHP to bytes and then converts it into the 64-bit code of machines in the course of running by the just-in-time (JIT) compiling system. The conversion, then led to even more improvements in performance!

However, with everything said and done, HHVM has run its course with regards to WordPress and PHP. The reasons are below.

HHVM is no longer an Option for WordPress

These are only a few of the numerous reasons the HHVM technology is no longer suitable technology for WordPress or for clients.

First off, HHVM has ended the support of PHP completely with the release of v3.30.

WordPress has actually removed the HHVM as part of its test infrastructure in the middle as in May 2017 (over one year ago). The following is the response of John Blackbourn, a WordPress Core Developer has to say about the issue:

If you're operating an WordPress site using HHVM it is recommended to consider switching into PHP 7+. It is far more widely supported and tested, as well as offering all of the memory and performance benefits that HHVM has pushed ahead.

Due to HHVM no longer being tested by members of the WordPress core team, bugs and compatibility issues have started to emerge. Many of these we have experienced firsthand ( #8194). What began as a flurry of issues a few months ago has now become a constant flow of problems with the latest version of HHVM, and they are currently affecting the performance of the most popular third-party WordPress plugins and themes. Therefore, HHVM is no longer reliable or appropriate solution for WordPress websites.

Are you interested in knowing how we increased our traffic over 1000 percent?

Join 20,000+ others who get our weekly newsletter with insider WordPress tricks!

Beyond support for HHVM hosting Our PHP vs. HHVM benchmarks have shown how PHP 7.2 actually runs faster than HHVM. The first time, PHP took the trophy in all the tests; that included a stand-alone WordPress website, WooCommerce as well as Easy Digital Downloads.

You can switch to the most recent PHP versions that we are supporting here at right from your My dashboard.

End-of-Life for HHVM (EOL)

Here are the complete information and deadlines related to our gradual elimination of HHVM.

• The 15th of June the 15th of June, 2018, switching to HHVM would no longer be available from the My Dashboard. Important: In the event that you switched to HHVM at the time of this date, you were no longer able to switch back.
• The 20th of August, 2018, HHVM was phased out completely. It means that all HHVM sites were switched to PHP 5.6+, and the HHVM extension was removed completely off my dashboard. My dashboard.

Transitioning from HHVM to PHP

frequently updates the server software in order in order to stay up-to date, not just for the most fundamental security reasons, but also for performance.

Just like any program, PHP has a release cycle that it must adhere to in order to keep moving forward, and adding improvements. Every major version of PHP will typically be fully supported for 2 years following its release. During that time, bugs and security problems are patched and fixed regularly.

In the above screenshot, PHP 5.6 and 7.0 are gone, and 7.2 will be phased out with a similar process towards 2020's close. We strongly recommend upgrading to a newer version of PHP whenever you can, at least PHP 7.3 and 7.4.

Summary

WordPress has been enjoying a successful experience with HHVM and for a lot users, it's provided blazing fast speed! However, don't worry about it as it is expected to provide even greater rates on PHP 7.4. Long-term we're excited by this change. It will mean no more confusion between the PHP engine you should use to build your website. Also, the time spent improving the core PHP language in terms of performance on using the WordPress platform.

If you have questions or questions about our plan to phase out HHVM We invite you to contact our team of support 24 hours a day. We'd also like to hear your feedback below in regards to switching to PHP.

Save time, costs and maximize site performance with:

• Help is available immediately assistance from WordPress hosting specialists, 24 hours a day.
• Cloudflare Enterprise integration.
• Reaching a global audience with 35 data centers worldwide.
• Optimization through our built-in Application Performance Monitoring.