Hi Rick - our goal is sooner; like I said, this is our focus for Q2, and we don’t like to be coming in at the wire. I’ll share a date as soon as I’ve got one, but I’d be guessing (and wrong) at this point.
We won’t let our “ideal”, scalable solution slow us down from getting 8.1 out as soon as possible. That comes before the long-term solution.
That’s good to hear. More concerning is that a) the team didnt have this on the roadmap and especially b) it’s been four months until we even got an answer. I get it… Local is free so you can only apply so many resources. But this slow pace is concerning.
Another example, the SSL error in 6.3.1 where Local keeps asserting that a site isn’t secure. That’s only 3 weeks old but it’s a pretty alarming error to run into and for it to still be outstanding after several weeks feeds into the concern about resourcing.
Hello,
I see that in the version released today, you’ve pushed through a PHP 8.0.0+3, but still no further updates to 8.0.2/8.1. Is there any way for developers to tell composer to assume that we’re using 8.0.2, or something like this? As it is, any tools from laravel which use Illuminate require 8.0.2, so a lot of stuff just breaks.
I really have enjoyed Local and don’t want to have to switch to something else!
Hi @evankford - that PHP version was already baked into Local in previous releases, but this is still top of mind for us re: updating to newer 8.0/8.1.
Short answer - yes, it is possible. See this post from Nate - Add support for PHP 8.1 in Local - #16 by n8finch
Does this work for you?
I can confirm that if I always use the steps there, I can install the dependencies without upgrading to 8.0.2, which is somewhat workable except for the debugging clutter and clunky workflow. Thanks for keeping the PHP update on the priority list!
Hi all, just checking in - we’re still making progress here, and hope to have a new build including the newer PHP versions soon.
In the meantime, our User Researcher, Kate, is hoping to speak to more users about the desire for more/latest versions and extensions as well as what an ideal future solution could look like. If anyone is interested in speaking with her, it would be very helpful to the team! You can schedule time here: Calendly - Kate Meyer
Thanks for the updates @austinwendt ! And awesome that Kate is available, will be great to chat with her. Appreciate y’all!
I’m still waiting for it too. 
Do you have a date for the update ? 
@ben.turner @austinwendt Any update on this? We’re inching ever closer to the end of Q2.
We run pretty much all our PHP projects using Local, but we’re looking at having to ditch it completely, because we can’t get around the PHP version limitations anymore, without investing so many hours into it, that it makes more sense investing those hours in removing Local from our workflow.
Hey @jeppe96, thanks for the tag. We hit a snag with our testing framework (also a blocker to us upgrading the version of Electron that ships with Local) that we have to resolve before we can knock this out. Thankfully, we’re almost over that hump.
I’m sorry to hear that this is adding hours to your workflow rather than simplifying it. That’s definitely not the goal we have for Local. What have you been trying to get around the PHP version limitations so far?
Initially we got around it by simply doing composer install / update --ignore-platform-reqs, but as our frameworks and dependencies have moved from PHP >8.0.0 optional to dependent, that was no longer a viable option.
We tried if we could somehow symlink the system PHP into the Local containers, but this was very wonky and broke other stuff.
Our current solution is to boot up Local for it’s database only, and then serve sites with commandline tools, like when we’re working on Laravel, the bundled artisan serve.
Looking forward to this as well.
Testing some hashing algos that aren’t in 8.0
This is needed! Please keep these minor version up-to-date and add 8.1. PHP 7.4 is approaching EOL very fast so it’ll soon be redundant anyway. PHP: Supported Versions
PHP has released 5 updates to the 8.x branches since last time I was in this thread.
Watching thread. I can not debug my WordPress site or code for PHP 8.1 with Local and PHP 8.2 is on the horizon… 
Just wanting to follow up here, as Flywheel (and I assume WP Engine as well) is now by default setting up new sites with php 8.1. This seems at cross purposes – we really are running a newer version of php on prod than WP Engine/Flywheel’s in-house local development tool supports for testing yet?
I suspect this is going to continue to get more urgent, but if Local can’t run php 8.1, to my mind, that means that WP Engine and Flywheel probably shouldn’t be using it either.
Hi @redblue (and all),
You’re correct, Flywheel announced today that all new sites will be created on PHP 8.1 default. WP Engine is a bit behind, though they are quickly marching in that direction. Here is that announcement from Flywheel - PHP 8.1 is now supported on Flywheel! | Layout
100%, this ratchets up the internal pressure from Flywheel/WP Engine stakeholders on getting compatibility ASAP 
It is a daily conversation with our teams here, and we’re in active development. In the (very) short-term, users hosting on WPE or Flywheel can utilize staging environments to continue testing and work with the customer success team on converting sites to the latest PHP in production.
I do want to add - not being able to build with the latest PHP (and Local as a product) is important to all developers, not just just those who host with WPE and Flywheel. We’re working to get this right quickly for all, regardless of where they host. I know you weren’t leaving them out in your reply, but just wanted to emphasize that we’re thinking about all developers too!
I would think it goes without saying… we all need PHP versions supported in Local before they start becoming available on web hosts.
So production has PHP 8.1 before dev? Nobody sees an issue here?