Not sure how it works in Alma, but a Debian maintainer has a repo that allows you do download multiple versions of php. I’m on the latest Virtualmin and it allows me to choose by server which one to use. But, yeah, it didn’t seem to work for me but I decided the software I was trying to install wasn’t worth the trouble so I didn’t go any further with it.
Yes. If I wasn’t clear, that was my experience. I only installed 7.4 for some software that asked for it. Checked it in the interface, but, when the package tried to install in complained it only saw the 8.x.