What's new in PHP 8.5

The latest update to PHP, version 8.5, has a release date of November 20, 2025. According to php.net its main features include:

• The |> pipe operator
• A built-in URI extension
• New clone() syntax for cloning objects and updating poperties
• The #[\NoDiscard] attribute, which works as a warning when a return value isn't used
• The ability to use static closures and first-class callables in constant expressions.

There's a longer feature list on PHP.Watch, and both sources also list a number of deprecations. These include the backtick operator as an alias for shell exec(), non-canonical scalar type casts, and the mysqli_execute alias function.

Is PHP 8.5 faster?

For us, the big question will be whether PHP 8.5 offers a performance boost over earlier versions. As always, any PHP Vitals benchmarking tests that are submitted to our leaderboard will show the PHP version, and let users all around the world see for themselves.

To find out how PHP 8.5 runs compared to other versions on your web host, install the PHP Vitals plugin and run before-and-after benchmarking tests when you upgrade PHP. Each test only takes a couple of minutes, and you can easily share your results to the leaderboard. The more results we receive, the better the data we can share and the more we will all know about PHP 8.5's speed.