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I have a super old website built in WordPress in like 2016, that I need to redo and update, but I am struggling to update the plugins and things, it tells me “you cannot update because [WordPress 6.5.2](https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-6-5-2/) requires PHP version 7.0.0 or higher. You are running version 5.4.45.” But I cannot figure out how to update the PHP version… also what I read briefly about updating the PHP it made it sound like I would basically pay a monthly fee for software that would make my old outdated code meet the security standards of today… but perhaps it’s better to start fresh with new code?? Advice? I am not good at this WordPress stuff lol.
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Do you have something like cPanel in your hosting? It’s usually updated through there under PHP, which will allow you to select a different version. I recommend starting with PHP 7.4. It’s also old, but there’s a better chance that
your site will not break under 7.4 than under 8, at least until you’ve updated things.
edit: This video might be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOz64Ugirpk
As always, it’s recommended you have a backup of your site before you start updating things.
If the site is that old, and depending on the features given by plugins and the theme used, updating PHP and WordPress to the latest versions will likely break things, or at least, give you a ton of warnings and errors that you will need to fix somehow, also expect that some stuff won’t work as expected anymore, so you will need to change things.
Probably you will need to evaluate if it is better to start from a new installation, depending on the complexity of the website. Try to do a backup of the folders and database, make the updates, and see how it goes, if everything looks bad, you can go back again. Now, keep in mind that some hostings don’t allow you to go back to PHP 5 after upgrading to PHP 7 or greater, you will need to ask them if that is possible.