As per WordPress’s technical requirements page, the recommended hosting plan to run WordPress should include a modern version of PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, and HTTPS support. You can also use older server software, but it’s not highly recommended. After checking your Site Health you will see technical details of your installation. When you open the dashboard of your hosting provider, you should be able to see the kind of plan you are on.
Upgrade to PHP 7.0 or Higher
Most WordPress websites still are running on outdated versions of PHP. With a look at WordPress Stats, you will notice that around 25% of the sites are still running on a PHP version in the 5 series while PHP 7.0 has been available for many years. Backward compatibility is cool and good but in reality, it holding back many WordPress site users as technology from getting the best out of their sites. The old versions of PHP do not receive any more security fixes and therefore they are very vulnerable to attacks. Of late, the WordPress team has dropped support for anything older than PHP 5.6. And up to date the project recommends running WordPress on at least PHP 7.3.
Therefore, one of the most important things you can do to improve the performance and security of your website is by upgrading your hosting environment to a modern version of PHP. There are so many benefits of doing this; Php 7 offers an incredible speed boost to your site, PHP 7 runs very efficiently translating to less stress on your server, it brings so many modern development features for your site, it has a more safe and secure environment, and lastly, it’s future proof.
This is what all site users want and therefore if after checking your current hosting you now have an idea of what it is running on. If it is using an outdated server software like PHP 5.5 it’s a good idea to upgrade it.