cPanel ships with PHP 7, but PHP 5 is still used by default instead. Even if you don’t use PHP 7 specific functions, the performance benefit that PHP 7 brings is a good enough reason to switch. This is especially important in shared hosting such as cPanel as performance is especially lacking.

Make sure your application is compatible with PHP 7 before making the switch.

To start using PHP 7 within your cPanel hosting, log in to cPanel and follow these steps;

  1. Go to the Software section and click on Select PHP Version.
  2. Here you’ll see the PHP version used for your cPanel hosting. Click on the select box, and choose 7.0 or whatever latest version of PHP version available.
  3. Click Set as current for the changes to be effective, and notice Current PHP version in the example is now 7.0.
  4. Check your current PHP version to confirm.

    How to check installed PHP version