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PHP Compatibility Scanner: Check Your Plugins and Themes Before Upgrading PHP

PHP Compatibility Scanner

A free plugin that checks your plugins and themes before you upgrade PHP

BrightLeaf Digital PHP Compatibility Scanner
BrightLeaf Digital PHP Compatibility Scanner
Version 1.1.0 Requires PHP 7.4 500+ active installs 2,881+ downloads Last updated November 10, 2026
Download View on WordPress.org

This plugin scans your installed plugins and themes for potential PHP compatibility issues when upgrading to newer PHP versions.

PHP Compatibility Scanner helps you assess whether your site’s code (plugins and themes) is likely to run on newer versions of PHP. It performs static analysis using PHP_CodeSniffer and the PHPCompatibilityWP ruleset to flag code patterns that are incompatible with the selected target PHP version.

What the plugin does (at a glance):
– Compares your current runtime PHP (baseline) to a selected target PHP version (8.0–8.5).
– Scans plugins and themes, then highlights only the new issues that would appear on the target version (the “delta”).
– Shows results in a clear report on the Tools screen and adds small badges on the Plugins list screen.
– Lets you pause, resume, or stop a running scan.

Important limitations of static analysis:
– Static analysis can miss issues in dynamic code paths and can generate false positives. Treat results as guidance, not guarantees. Always test site functionality on a staging environment before upgrading PHP in production.

Features

  • Select a target PHP version (8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5)
  • Scan all plugins or select specific ones
  • Scan all themes or select specific ones, with an option to also scan a parent if a child theme is selected
  • Pause/Resume/Stop controls for long scans
  • Clear report of only the new issues between baseline (current runtime) and target
  • Plugin list badges showing a quick summary for the last scan

Community Help

For how-to questions and examples of what others have built, visit the GravityOps Help community.

If you opened a support thread on WordPress.org, continue that conversation there. The community is an additional place for help and ideas.

External services

Scanning runs entirely on your server. Your code and scan results are never sent anywhere.

The plugin includes the shared GravityOps library from BrightLeaf Digital, which connects to brightleafdigital.io in these cases:

  • GravityOps product catalog. When an administrator uses the WordPress admin (or shortly afterwards, through WP-Cron), the library downloads the GravityOps product catalog (names, versions, icons, links and announcements) from brightleafdigital.io, at most about twice a day. The request sends no personal data or site content; like any web request, it reveals your server’s IP address.
  • Newsletter signup. Only if you choose to subscribe to GravityOps Weekly, the email address you enter is sent to brightleafdigital.io.
  • Feedback prompts. Only if you choose to answer the short GravityOps survey or open the review prompt, your answers, or the plugin and version being reviewed, are sent to brightleafdigital.io.
  • Support access. Only if you grant BrightLeaf Digital support access, TrustedLogin creates a temporary login and notifies BrightLeaf Digital through TrustedLogin and brightleafdigital.io.

BrightLeaf Digital: Privacy Policy. TrustedLogin: Authorized User Terms, Privacy Policy.

  • Scan plugins and themes for a target PHP version
  • Shows only the new issues the upgrade would cause
BrightLeaf Digital
Contributors:

✨ What PHP Compatibility Scanner Does

Your host wants you on a newer PHP version, but will your plugins and themes still work? PHP Compatibility Scanner checks the code on your site against the PHP version you plan to move to and lists only the new problems that version would cause, compared with the PHP your site runs today.

✅ Pick a target PHP version (8.0 to 8.5)
✅ Scan all plugins and themes, or only the ones you choose
✅ See only the new issues the upgrade would introduce
✅ Pause, resume or stop long scans
✅ Badges on the Plugins screen summarizing the last scan

🔍 How It Works

The scanner uses PHP_CodeSniffer with the PHPCompatibilityWP ruleset, the same open-source tools developers use, to read your plugin and theme code without running it. It compares your current PHP version with the target and reports the difference, so problems that already exist today don’t hide the ones the upgrade would add.

Static analysis can miss issues in code that only runs in certain situations, and it can flag code that is actually fine. Treat the results as guidance, and test on a staging site before you change PHP on your live site.

🔒 Private by Design

Scans run entirely on your own server. Your code and results are never sent anywhere. The full list of when the plugin contacts outside services is in the plugin’s WordPress.org readme.

🚀 Getting Started

  1. Install & activate PHP Compatibility Scanner from WordPress.org
  2. Go to Tools > PHP Compatibility Scanner
  3. Choose a target PHP version higher than the one your site runs now
  4. Select what to scan and click Run scan
  5. Review the report, and check the badges on the Plugins screen

🧩 Requirements

  • PHP 7.4 or higher
  • No Gravity Forms needed. The scanner works on any WordPress site.

Docs

Read the PHP Compatibility Scanner documentation, or ask a question in the GravityOps Help community.