Question
On my CloudLinux system, I see both EA and ALT PHP Packages installed. What is the difference between these packages?
Answer
CloudLinux enables two different PHP Management Systems on cPanel systems, both our own MultiPHP Manager, as well as their own "Select PHP Version" Alternative Hardened PHP system.
CloudLinux additionally provides older, End-of-Life versions of EA-PHP with security patches applied beyond the support provided by cPanel on alternative operating systems.
ALT-PHP
ALT-PHP includes PHP versions that CloudLinux provides along with their PHP Selector feature.
These versions of PHP are often hardened and patched against vulnerabilities to allow users to continue to use applications that require outdated PHP versions.
As of this time, PHP Selector currently offers users the ability to install and use PHP 4.4+ and the options for these versions are managed via CloudLinux's LVE Manager plugin in WHM.
For more details regarding the installation of ALT-PHP and PHP Selector, please refer to CloudLInux's documentation.
EA-PHP
EA-PHP is the PHP versions that cPanel packages and provides via the EasyApache 4 repositories.
These are the standard versions that are included in a base installation of cPanel and are managed via the MultiPHP Manager in both cPanel & WHM interface.
Older versions of EA-PHP are available on CloudLinux that are otherwise not available on CentOS/Ubuntu/AlmaLinux that have security patches provided by CloudLinux.
Extensions and different versions of EA-PHP are managed via the EasyApache 4 interface in the WHM and settings are managed via MutliPHP Manager.
Additional
Imunify360 also provides a version of CloudLinux's Hardened PHP for EasyApache 4 & MultiPHP Manager