Laravel Performance Optimization: A Deep Dive

Configuration Caching

In production, always cache your configuration:

# Cache configuration files
php artisan config:cache

# Cache routes
php artisan route:cache

# Cache views
php artisan view:cache

# Cache events
php artisan event:cache

# All at once
php artisan optimize

OPcache Configuration

Properly configured OPcache can dramatically improve performance. Add to your php.ini:

opcache.enable=1
opcache.memory_consumption=256
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=64
opcache.max_accelerated_files=30000
opcache.validate_timestamps=0
opcache.save_comments=1
opcache.enable_file_override=1

Queue Workers

Offload heavy tasks to background queues:

<?php

namespace App\Jobs;

use App\Models\Order;
use App\Services\InvoiceService;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;

class GenerateInvoice implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels;

    public int $tries = 3;
    public int $backoff = 60;

    public function __construct(
        public Order $order,
    ) {}

    public function handle(InvoiceService $invoiceService): void
    {
        $invoiceService->generate($this->order);
    }

    public function failed(\Throwable $exception): void
    {
        // Handle failure - notify admin, log error, etc.
    }
}

// Dispatch the job
GenerateInvoice::dispatch($order)->onQueue('invoices');

Lazy Collections

Process large datasets without running out of memory:

<?php

// Bad - loads all users into memory
$users = User::all();
foreach ($users as $user) {
    $this->sendNewsletter($user);
}

// Good - processes one at a time
User::lazy()->each(function (User $user) {
    $this->sendNewsletter($user);
});

// With cursor for even better memory usage
User::cursor()->each(function (User $user) {
    $this->sendNewsletter($user);
});

// Chunk with lazy for batch processing
User::lazy(1000)->each(function (User $user) {
    $this->sendNewsletter($user);
});

Database Connection Pooling

Configure persistent connections for better performance:

<?php

// config/database.php
'mysql' => [
    'driver' => 'mysql',
    'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
    'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'laravel'),
    'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'root'),
    'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
    'options' => [
        PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT => true,
    ],
],

Conclusion

Performance optimization is an ongoing process. Profile your application regularly, cache aggressively, and use queues for heavy operations.