WordPress has always been able to run on basically any common server configurations allowing users to have flexibility when choosing a web host for their website. Web hosting platforms have changed over time, and Wordpress has announced they are evaluating some of the requirements for running WordPress.

WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4. For WordPress 3.2, due in the first half of 2011, the minimum required PHP version will be 5.2 which means you will not be able to upgrade to this version unless you have 5.2..

The vast majority of WordPress users are currently using 5.2, which offers substantial improvements over the earlier PHP 5 releases. It is also the minimum PHP version that the Drupal and Joomla projects will be supporting in their next versions, both due out in 2010.

Wordpress statistics show that only around 11 percent of WordPress installs are running on a PHP versions below 5.2. Many of these are on hosts who actually support PHP 5.2. The users merely need to change a setting in their hosting control panel to activate it. Wordpress believe these percentage will only go down over the rest of the year as hosting providers realize that to support the newest versions of WordPress (or Drupal, or Joomla), they’re going to have to facilitate the change.

Wp is also dropping support for MySQL 4 after WordPress 3.1. Fewer than 6 percent of WordPress users are running MySQL 4. The new required MySQL version for WordPress 3.2 will be 5.0.15.

A quick google for vulnerabilities will show how dated these versions actually are! It is hard to imagine that up to eleven percent of sites function in this way or that there are still web hosts that even offer them the opportunity.  

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