Install PHP on Windows, Mac and Linux (php -v Check)

To install PHP, run one command for your system: winget install PHP.PHP.8.3 on Windows, brew install php on macOS, or sudo apt install php-cli on Ubuntu and Debian. Then open a new terminal and run php -v. If it prints a version number, PHP is installed.

php -v

PHP 8.3.19 (cli) (built: Mar 27 2025 11:08:15) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.3.19, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.3.19, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Your version and build date will differ. Inside a script, the same information comes from PHP_VERSION and phpversion(). Press Run to see what this page's PHP reports:

<?php
echo "PHP version: " . phpversion() . "\n";
echo "Version as a number: " . PHP_VERSION_ID . "\n";
echo "Operating system family: " . PHP_OS_FAMILY . "\n";
echo "Integer size: " . PHP_INT_SIZE * 8 . " bit\n";

Install PHP on Windows

The quickest route is winget, which ships with Windows 10 and 11. Open PowerShell or Windows Terminal:

winget install PHP.PHP.8.3

Close the terminal, open a new one, and run php -v. A new window is needed because terminals keep the PATH they started with.

To install by hand instead:

1. Download the "VS16 x64 Non Thread Safe" zip from windows.php.net/download.
2. Unzip it to a short path such as C:\php.
3. Copy php.ini-development to php.ini in the same folder.
4. Add C:\php to the Path variable (Start menu, "Edit the system environment variables", Environment Variables).
5. Open a new terminal and run php -v.

If you also want Apache and MySQL in one installer, XAMPP and Laragon bundle them with PHP.

Install PHP on macOS

macOS no longer includes PHP. Install it with Homebrew:

brew install php
php -v

brew install php gives you the latest release. To pin a version, install it by name, for example brew install php@8.3. Versioned formulas are not linked by default, so add it to your PATH with the command Homebrew prints at the end of the install. brew upgrade php updates it later.

Install PHP on Linux

Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 13 ship PHP 8.3 or newer in their own repositories:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install php-cli php-mbstring php-xml php-curl
php -v

On Fedora, RHEL and similar systems:

sudo dnf install php-cli php-mbstring php-xml
php -v

Extensions are separate packages named php-<name>: on Debian and Ubuntu php-mysql adds the MySQL drivers (php-mysqlnd on Fedora) and php-intl the intl extension. For a newer PHP than your distribution offers on Ubuntu, the widely used ppa:ondrej/php repository has every supported version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update
sudo apt install php8.3-cli

Check the PHP version in code

Libraries often need a minimum version. version_compare compares version strings the way PHP does, and PHP_VERSION_ID gives a plain integer (80300 means 8.3.0) that is easy to compare:

<?php
$required = '8.1.0';

if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, $required, '>=')) {
    echo "PHP " . PHP_VERSION . " is new enough (need $required)\n";
} else {
    echo "Please upgrade: this code needs PHP $required\n";
}

echo PHP_VERSION_ID >= 80300 ? "8.3 features are available\n" : "Older than 8.3\n";
echo "Major: " . PHP_MAJOR_VERSION . ", minor: " . PHP_MINOR_VERSION . "\n";

Check which extensions are installed

Many errors after a fresh install are a missing extension. In a terminal, php -m lists every loaded extension. In code, extension_loaded checks one by name:

<?php
$needed = ['mbstring', 'json', 'ctype', 'dom'];

foreach ($needed as $ext) {
    $status = extension_loaded($ext) ? 'loaded' : 'MISSING';
    printf("%-10s %s\n", $ext, $status);
}

echo "\nTotal extensions loaded: " . count(get_loaded_extensions()) . "\n";

Add the names your project needs (for example pdo_mysql, intl, gd) and run it on your own machine to see what to install.

Find php.ini

Settings such as display_errors, memory_limit and upload_max_filesize live in php.ini. The terminal command php --ini prints which file is loaded. From code:

<?php
$ini = php_ini_loaded_file();
echo $ini === false ? "No php.ini loaded, PHP uses its defaults\n" : "Loaded: $ini\n";

echo "memory_limit = " . ini_get('memory_limit') . "\n";
echo "max_execution_time = " . ini_get('max_execution_time') . "\n";

The CLI and the web server can use different php.ini files, so a setting changed for one does not always apply to the other. The error reporting page shows the settings worth changing first on a development machine.

Common problem: the terminal still runs the old version

After upgrading, php -v sometimes reports the previous version. Run which php (macOS, Linux) or where php (Windows) to see which binary the terminal finds first. On macOS this is often a Homebrew version that is installed but not linked; on Windows it is usually an older folder earlier in Path, such as the one inside XAMPP. Fix the order, open a new terminal, and check again. Then continue with running PHP files.