If your website is running on ExpressionEngine 4 or 5, it may look fine on the surface. But underneath, you are carrying costs that most business owners do not see until something goes wrong. This is not about upgrading for the sake of it. It is about understanding what your current situation actually means.
ExpressionEngine 4 and 5 were designed to work with PHP 7.x. PHP 7 reached end of life in November 2022. Most hosting providers have since moved to PHP 8.x, and many have dropped support for PHP 7 entirely. If your hosting is still running PHP 7 to keep your site working, you are running unsupported server software with known security vulnerabilities. If your host has upgraded to PHP 8 and your site has not been updated, you may already be experiencing errors or functionality quietly breaking.
Packet Tide do not issue security patches for versions 4 and 5. If a vulnerability is discovered in those versions, there is no fix coming. This is not a theoretical concern. CMS platforms are regularly targeted by automated scanning tools looking for known vulnerabilities. A site running an outdated, unpatched CMS is a significantly easier target than one running a current version.
The ExpressionEngine addon ecosystem is built around third-party developers. Most of those developers have moved on to supporting EE 6 and EE 7 only. If you need to update or replace a critical addon, such as a form handler, a custom field type, or a third-party integration, you will find that options for EE 4 and 5 are either unavailable or no longer receiving updates themselves.
Every month you stay on an old version, the gap between your installation and the current release grows. A migration from EE 5 to EE 7 today is a manageable project. A migration from EE 5 to EE 7 in two years, after your PHP situation has deteriorated further and more addons have fallen out of support, is considerably more involved. The longer the delay, the more the cost of eventual remediation grows.
Start with a clear picture of where you stand. What version of EE are you running? What PHP version is your server on? Which addons are you using and when were they last updated? If you cannot answer those questions yourself, a proper audit will answer them quickly. From there, you can make an informed decision about timing and approach rather than waiting for something to break.
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There’s no single answer to when you should upgrade your ExpressionEngine installation, but there are several clear signals that tell you it’s overdue. Most business owners don’t think about this until something goes wrong. By then, the upgrade is usually more involved than it would have been if it had been done earlier.
Delaying an ExpressionEngine upgrade is easy to justify. The site still works, the budget is committed elsewhere, and nothing has broken yet. But delays in this area follow a predictable pattern, and the costs accumulate in ways that are not immediately visible.
PHP 8 is now the standard version running on most web hosting infrastructure. Many ExpressionEngine sites were built when PHP 7 was current and have never been reviewed for PHP 8 compatibility. If nobody has mentioned this to you, there is a reason for that, and it is worth understanding.
Most clients come to us when their site has started to feel like a risk rather than an asset. Whether the agency relationship has ended, an upgrade has been delayed, or the site has simply grown beyond what it can handle, a conversation costs nothing.
Get in touch with KarlTrusted by established businesses and growing brands across the UK
Expression 37 works with a small number of clients at any one time. These are some of them.
Karl founded Expression 37 in 2007 and has worked exclusively with ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS ever since. He does not take on work in other platforms and does not hand work to other developers. Expression 37 is deliberately small, because the kind of support that matters to clients with business-critical sites is specific to their site, not something that scales in the conventional sense. If you work with Expression 37, you work with Karl.
Find out how we workI cannot recommend Karl highly enough for his expertise and professionalism during our website upgrade. The transition from ExpressionEngine v2 to v7 was a significant undertaking, but Karl managed the entire process seamlessly, ensuring that every detail was addressed. The update of over 70 add-ons and 10 custom plugins was executed flawlessly, and the custom enhancements to our E-Commerce Store module have greatly improved our online shopping experience. The move to a more secure dedicated server has given us peace of mind regarding our site's performance and security. Karl’s dedication to our project was evident at every stage, and the final result is a modern, efficient website that truly represents our brand. Thank you for your hard work!"
Lisa Sanderson ~ Director
Graham Sanderson Interiors Ltd.