{"id":224,"date":"2026-02-21T20:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.twis7.com\/?p=224"},"modified":"2026-02-21T20:31:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:31:04","slug":"phpenv-run-different-php-versions-side-by-side-on-ubuntu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.twis7.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/phpenv-run-different-php-versions-side-by-side-on-ubuntu\/","title":{"rendered":"PHPEnv: Run Different PHP Versions Side by Side on Ubuntu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Running multiple PHP versions on the same server or development machine is never straightforward. One distro upgrade can break packages and turn your environment into a mess. For example, Ubuntu 20.04 ships with PHP 7.4, 22.04 comes with PHP 8.1, and 24.04 will use PHP 8.3. But what if you have projects that require both old and new PHP versions at the same time? That\u2019s where PHPenv<\/strong> comes in. It\u2019s an excellent tool for local development\u2014and even for UAT servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To demonstrate how to use different PHP versions side by side, I\u2019ll first install WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 using Ansible. After that, I\u2019ll set up PHPenv and switch to PHP 8.2.5 using pfm<\/strong>. The first part focuses on WordPress with Ansible, but if you want to skip straight to the PHPenv setup, feel free to jump ahead<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Install WordPress with Ansible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a \u201clazy\u201d sysadmin, I\u2019m not a fan of repetitive manual work\u2014so I\u2019ll use Ansible<\/a><\/strong> to handle the installation. With just a few simple configurations, I\u2019ll have WordPress up and running with FPM<\/strong>, Apache<\/strong>, and MySQL<\/strong>\u2014all set automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install Ansible on Ubuntu 20.04<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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