Why PHP Performance Is Crucial for Your WordPress Site Speed
The world’s web developers love WordPress. In fact, today’s web would be unrecognisable without WP. So you would think that every contributor to WordPress performance would be common knowledge, and that all those developers would be experts at finding every possible opportunity to speed up the millions of sites that they maintain.
But many developers overlook a fundamental aspect of WordPress performance: the speed of PHP. While things like image optimization and caching receive significant attention, understanding the relationship between WordPress and PHP reveals why PHP performance is the foundation of a fast WordPress site.
WordPress is Entirely Dependent on PHP
WordPress and PHP are deeply connected. At its core, WordPress is essentially a collection of PHP scripts all working together. PHP is the backbone of WordPress. As well as being built in PHP, WP uses PHP to handle critical server-side operations including:
Generating web pages Processing user input Interacting with databases.
Every time a visitor loads a WordPress page, a series of PHP processes occurs. The server receives the request, routes it to the PHP interpreter, processes the PHP request, executes PHP code, and finally generates the response. This entire rendering process depends on how efficiently your server executes PHP code.
How Much Control Do Developers Have Over the Speed of PHP Execution?
While there are some things you can do to speed up the PHP code that underpins WordPress, it’s mostly out of your control. PHP is part of your hosting stack which, for most WordPress implementations, is known as “LAMP” - Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL or MariaDB database, and PHP.
Speeding up hosting stacks is down to your hosting provider. Faster LAMP requires things that developers don’t control, like faster hardware and networking.
That’s why PHP Vitals, which plugs into WordPress and measures PHP performance directly on your server, has a leaderboard that compares hosting providers rather than websites or developers. If Hosting Provider X has a D grade, that grade wouldn’t change no matter what WordPress site is running on their infrastructure. PHP performance would still be slow compared to every hosting provider with an A, B, or C grade. No amount of code optimization, and no changes at the WordPress level, could lift Hosting Provider X higher up the charts.
If Performance Really Matters But You’re Missing Out, This Is Your Sign to Change Hosting Providers
PHP Performance is crucial to WordPress performance. The grade you see on PHP Vitals is basically a ceiling on your potential WordPress speed.
If your grade isn’t good enough, let your hosting provider know. And remember that one of WordPress’s big advantages is how portable it is. Moving to a faster hosting provider can almost be as simple as a quick export/import, and if you choose wisely it can lift performance a lot.
One Big Thing You Can Do To Speed Up PHP: Upgrade Versions
Whether or not your hosting provider is top of the charts, you still ought to make the most of what they offer. The version of PHP running on your server significantly influences WordPress performance. Using the most recent stable PHP version is perhaps the simplest way to boost performance. The speed gain from PHP 8.2 to 8.3 is approximately 7%, with even greater improvements when upgrading from older versions.
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Benchmarks show that newer PHP versions demonstrate measurable speed gains. And every time PHP gets faster, so does WordPress.
In PHP 8.x, for example, new performance-enhancing features include:
- More efficient type checking for functions
- Improved garbage collection
- A new optimizer
These improvements directly translate to faster WordPress execution, reducing server processing time and improving overall site speed for users.
Upgrading PHP will lift your PHP performance, which you’ll see in before-and-after benchmarking from PHP Vitals. Even so, be sure to check the grades that other hosts return with the same version. This is a quick and simple way to check that you’re getting value for money.
PHP Vitals is a Transparency Tool for WP Developers
The fundamental relationship between WordPress and PHP explains why PHP performance should be a priority when you’re choosing a server or WordPress host. As WordPress is built on PHP architecture, the speed at which PHP executes directly determines how quickly your WordPress site responds. PHP Vitals is here to shine a light on actual performance from hosting stacks all around the world, and to help you find a host that can give your WordPress sites the fundamental speed that they deserve.