How to Install PHP (8.1, 7.4 or 5.6) on MacOS

PHP stands for HyperText Preprocessor and is a server-side programming language. Originally it was developed for web development but now is also used as a general-purpose language. It was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994.

The PHP versions for macOS is maintained in third party repository that can be add to system with brew tap. It also allows you to install and use multiple PHP versions on a single macOS system.

This tutorial will help you to install PHP on macOS.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation of PHP using this tutorial you must have the following prerequisites

• Terminal: You must have Mac Terminal access and little knowledge about working with the terminal application. Ao login to your Mac system and open terminal
• Homebrew: Homebrew is a popular package manager for the Mac operating systems. It is useful for installing most open-source software like Node. You can install Homebrew with the following command.

  /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" 
  

.

How to Install PHP on macOS

The latest version of macOS Sierra ships with PHP 5.6 and OSX 10.11 El Capitan with PHP 5.5, and OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion ships with PHP version 5.3. The latest version of PHP 8.1 is available to install. The steps below help you install PHP 8.1, 8.0, 7.4, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, or 5.6 on the macOS system.

1. First, we need to add the shivammathur/php tap to homebrew.

   brew tap shivammathur/php
   

2. Installing PHP: Use the below command to install PHP 8.1 on a macOS system. To install a different PHP version just replace 8.1 with required version.

   brew install shivammathur/php/[email protected] 
   

3. Configure PHP 8.1 as default:

   brew link --overwrite --force shivammathur/php/[email protected] 
   

4. Once the installation is finished, restart the shell and check the active PHP version.

   php -v 
   
   #Output 
   PHP 8.1.6 (cli) (built: May 21 2022 03:46:22) (NTS)
   Copyright (c) The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v4.1.6, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
       with Zend OPcache v8.1.6, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies
   

Configure PHP with Apache

Edit the Apache configuration file and a text editor:

vim /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf 

Add the following snippet to the file:

You can also change the directory index:

Save the file and close it.

Now restart the Apache service to apply changes:

apachectl restart 

Now create a phpinfo() function file and access in the browser.

Upgrade PHP version

You can upgrade your PHP version to the latest patch release using the brew upgrade command.

For example, to upgrade PHP 8.1:

brew upgrade shivammathur/php/[email protected] 

Switch Active PHP Version

If you have installed multiple PHP versions on your system, you can switch to a new version anytime.

For example, to switch to PHP 7.4:

brew link --overwrite --force shivammathur/php/[email protected] 

Make sure you already have installed the PHP 7.4 version on your system.

Conclusion

This guide helped you to install PHP on the macOS system. You can install multiple PHP versions on a single system and switch between them anytime.