I use both Hostinger and IONOS for my hosting needs, and both of them allow you to change your php versions to older deprecated ones. Does your host allow you to do this as well? I made the mistake of not upgrading my php version on IONOS for a few of my websites and I got charged extra money to keep the older php version around when I didn't even need it. :V Now I know to keep an eye on that, I switched to the newest version yesterday. Now on Hostinger, I managed to change my php version to 5.6 so I could convert a Jcink hosted forum to self hosting, and I needed to install phpBB2 which only runs on php 5.6.
Only a few versions back, but yes. KnownHost allows VPS customers to make user of deprecated versions of php 7. I haven't run anything on 5.6 in years, so haven't checked; however, I assume it's possible if you actually wanted to, KnownHost are quite accommodating.
I own my own server and I can put anything on there that I want. But I run Invision Community as my forum software and it recommends PHP 8.1 and that's what I run.
That's very interesting. My web host just keeps the latest php and I don't have many uses for old php but I don't know whether they would charge or not. I would have to see.
I'm glad in away that my host keeps up with the latest PHP, they end up testing or waiting for a stable release before letting it to the clients however with my Fourm software they always want the newest.
One of my web hosts allows you to select the PHP version you want on each individual cPanel account through WHM. It's a handy feature, especially if you're dealing with older forum software.
