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Free Plugin by cyclonecode v2.4.1

Custom PHP Settings

This plugin makes it possible to override php settings.

Custom PHP Settings

The facts

Rating
4.4★ from 15
Active installs
10k+
Price
Free
Last updated
20 Nov 2025
Added
Feb 2019
Requires WP
4.1.0
Tested up to
WP 6.8.8
Requires PHP
5.6
Downloads
414,151

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Custom PHP Settings is a WordPress plugin that allows you to modify PHP settings for your WordPress installation. It achieves this by altering either the .htaccess file or the .user.ini file, depending on how PHP is configured on your server.

This plugin is suitable for users who need to adjust PHP settings directly from the WordPress dashboard, particularly developers or site administrators who require fine-tuning of their server's PHP configuration.

Best for: This plugin is best for developers and site administrators managing PHP settings on their WordPress sites.

What it does well

  • Modifies PHP settings directly from the WordPress dashboard
  • Supports both .htaccess and .user.ini file modifications
  • Displays all non-system PHP settings that can be customized

Where it falls short

  • Requires writable configuration files to function properly
  • Changes may not be reflected immediately due to caching

Verdict

Custom PHP Settings provides a straightforward way to manage PHP configurations, though it requires some server permissions and understanding of PHP settings.

From the developer

cyclonecode's own description of Custom PHP Settings, lightly tidied.

This plugin can be used to customize php settings for you WordPress installation.

The plugin will modify either the .htaccess file or .user.ini file in order to change the current php settings directly from within the settings page.

Since the configuration file needs to be modified this file must be writable for this plugin to work as expected.

Apache module

When PHP is running as an Apache module the .htaccess file will be used to set customized settings; make sure so that this file exists and is writable by the webserver.

CGI/Fast-CGI

If instead PHP is running in CGI/Fast-CGI mode then a custom INI file will be used. The name of this file depends on the value of user_ini.filename in the php configuration, by default it is .user.ini.
You can check the name of you custom INI file in the PHP Information table. The custom INI file should be placed under the root folder and most be writable by the webserver.

Notice that there is also a User INI file cache TTL value in the information table, this value tells how long the custom INI file will be cached before it gets reloaded.
For instance, if this value is set to 300 then any changes to your custom INI file will not be reflected for up to 5 minutes. The name for this setting in the php configuration is user_ini.cache_ttl.

One important thing is to make sure that your .user.ini file is blocked by your webserver. If you are running NGINX this can be done by adding:

location ~ /\.user\.ini {
  deny all;
}

to your server configuration. The same thing using Apache is done by adding the following to the configuration if not already done:

<Files .user.ini>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

Available Settings

The settings table will display all non-system php settings that can be customized by the plugin. All modified settings will be displayed in red in this table.

Some settings might be displayed in red because they are changed somewhere else, perhaps through a customized php.ini file, by WordPress itself, a plugin or in some other way.
For instance if you have enabled WP_DEBUG in your wp-config.php file the error_reporting setting will turn red.

If you have questions or perhaps some idea on things that should be added you can also try slack.

Read the full description on the official page →

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