BrightLeaf Digital

<p>PHP Compatibility Scanner helps you assess whether your site’s code (plugins and themes) is likely to run on newer versions of PHP. It performs static analysis using PHP_CodeSniffer and the PHPCompatibilityWP ruleset to flag code patterns that are incompatible with the selected target PHP version.</p>
<p>What the plugin does (at a glance):<br />
– Compares your current runtime PHP (baseline) to a selected target PHP version (8.0–8.4).<br />
– Scans plugins and themes, then highlights only the new issues that would appear on the target version (the “delta”).<br />
– Shows results in a clear report on the Tools screen and adds small badges on the Plugins list screen.<br />
– Lets you pause, resume, or stop a running scan.</p>
<p>Important limitations of static analysis:<br />
– Static analysis can miss issues in dynamic code paths and can generate false positives. Treat results as guidance, not guarantees. Always test site functionality on a staging environment before upgrading PHP in production.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Select a target PHP version (8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4)</li>
<li>Scan all plugins or select specific ones</li>
<li>Scan all themes or select specific ones, with an option to also scan a parent if a child theme is selected</li>
<li>Pause/Resume/Stop controls for long scans</li>
<li>Clear report of only the new issues between baseline (current runtime) and target</li>
<li>Plugin list badges showing a quick summary for the last scan</li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p>All analysis runs locally on your server. No data is sent to external services by this plugin.</p>


BrightLeaf Digital PHP Compatibility Scanner

This plugin scans your installed plugins and themes for potential PHP compatibility issues when upgrading to newer PHP versions.

Jeffrey Paul

Simon Prosser

WP Engine

Steven Word

dkotter

Jason Stallings

Taylor McCaslin

rfmeier

Max Lyuchin

Ankit K Gupta

Jason

<p>The WP Engine PHP Compatibility Checker can be used by any WordPress website on any web host to check PHP version compatibility.</p>
<p>This plugin will lint theme and plugin code installed on your WordPress site and give you back a report of compatibility issues as reported by <a href="https://wptide.org" rel="nofollow ugc">Tide</a> for you to fix. Compatibility issues are categorized into errors and warnings and will list the file and line number of the offending code, as well as the info about why that line of code is incompatible with the chosen version of PHP. The plugin will also suggest updates to themes and plugins, as a new version may offer compatible code.</p>
<p><strong>This plugin does not execute your theme and plugin code, as such this plugin cannot detect runtime compatibility issues.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Please note that linting code is not perfect. This plugin cannot detect unused code-paths that might be used for backwards compatibility, and thus might show false positives. We maintain a <a href="https://github.com/wpengine/phpcompat/wiki/Results" rel="nofollow ugc">whitelist of plugins</a> that can cause false positives. We are continuously working to ensure the checker provides the most accurate results possible.</strong></p>
<p><strong>This plugin relies on <a href="https://wptide.org" rel="nofollow ugc">Tide</a> that constantly scans updated versions of plugins and themes in the background. Your scan results should be near real-time, but if not that just means Tide has not yet scanned your specific plugin or theme version. Please be patient as this may take up to 10 minutes for results to be returned from Tide. Please see the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-compatibility-checker/faq/" rel="ugc">FAQ</a> for more information.</strong></p>
<h4>Update to PHP 7.4</h4>
<ul>
<li>Use this plugin to check your site for compatibility up to PHP 8.0!</li>
<li>As of <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/stats/" rel="ugc">July 2022</a>, 8.52% of WordPress websites run a PHP version older than PHP 7.0.</li>
<li>These versions of PHP have been <a href="https://secure.php.net/supported-versions.php" rel="nofollow ugc">deprecated and unsupported</a> for over 2 years.</li>
<li>Only 7.1% of WordPress websites run PHP 8, the current main version of PHP.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Disclaimer</h4>
<p><em>While this plugin is written to detect as many problems as accurately as possible, 100% reliable detection is very difficult to ensure. It is best practice to run comprehensive tests before you migrate to a new PHP version.</em></p>
<p>The plugin was created by WP Engine to help the WordPress community increase adoption of modern PHP versions. We <a href="https://github.com/wpengine/phpcompat" rel="nofollow ugc">welcome contributors</a> to this plugin, and are excited to see how developers and other WordPress hosts use this plugin.</p>
<p>To disclose security issues for this plugin please email WordPress@wpengine.com.</p>


PHP Compatibility Checker

WordPress recommends updating my site from PHP 7.3 and suggests using this plugin to check for compatibility. However this plugin doesn't go beyond PHP 7.3. The plugin's last update was almost a year ago. Seems like the developer abandoned it. It's useless now.

Outdated, plugin abandoned?


Either update the plugin or take it down.  


Ironically not compatible with the latest PHP

Make sure your plugins and themes are compatible with newer PHP versions.

BrightLeaf Digital PHP Compatibility Scanner vs PHP Compatibility Checker