Laravel Speed Best Practices

Laravel's developer experience is excellent, but its abstraction layers add overhead. Without optimization, Laravel apps commonly have TTFB of 500ms-2s. Here's how to get your Laravel app responding in under 100ms.

Quick Wins (15 Minutes)

1. Enable Route and Config Caching

# Cache routes (eliminates route parsing on every request)
php artisan route:cache

# Cache config (eliminates .env parsing)
php artisan config:cache

# Cache views (pre-compiles Blade templates)
php artisan view:cache

Impact: -50-200ms TTFB

2. Enable OPcache

; php.ini
opcache.enable=1
opcache.memory_consumption=256
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=16
opcache.max_accelerated_files=20000
opcache.revalidate_freq=60
opcache.fast_shutdown=1

Impact: -100-300ms TTFB (PHP compilation cached in memory)

3. Use Production Mode

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false

Debug mode adds logging, query tracking, and error rendering overhead.

Database Optimization

Eager Loading (Fix N+1)

// BAD: N+1 queries (1 + N queries)
$posts = Post::all();
foreach ($posts as $post) {
    echo $post->author->name; // 1 query per post
}

// GOOD: Eager loading (2 queries total)
$posts = Post::with('author')->get();
foreach ($posts as $post) {
    echo $post->author->name; // No additional query
}

Select Only Needed Columns

// BAD: Fetches all columns including large text fields
$users = User::all();

// GOOD: Only fetches needed columns
$users = User::select('id', 'name', 'email')->get();

Add Indexes

// Migration
Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->index('user_id');
    $table->index(['status', 'published_at']);
    $table->index('slug');
});

Use Query Caching

// Cache expensive queries
$popularPosts = Cache::remember('popular-posts', 3600, function () {
    return Post::where('views', '>', 1000)
        ->orderBy('views', 'desc')
        ->limit(10)
        ->get();
});

Caching Strategies

Full-Page Caching

// Using spatie/laravel-responsecache
// Automatically caches full HTTP responses
Route::middleware('cacheResponse:3600')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/', [HomeController::class, 'index']);
    Route::get('/blog', [BlogController::class, 'index']);
});

Fragment Caching

@cache('sidebar-widget', 3600)
    <div class="sidebar">
        {{-- Expensive sidebar content --}}
        @foreach($categories as $category)
            <a href="{{ $category->url }}">{{ $category->name }}</a>
        @endforeach
    </div>
@endcache

Redis as Cache Driver

CACHE_DRIVER=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis

Queue Heavy Operations

// BAD: Sends email synchronously (blocks response)
Mail::to($user)->send(new WelcomeEmail());

// GOOD: Queues email (response returns immediately)
Mail::to($user)->queue(new WelcomeEmail());

Frontend Asset Optimization

Vite Integration

// vite.config.js
import laravel from 'laravel-vite-plugin';

export default {
  plugins: [
    laravel({
      input: ['resources/css/app.css', 'resources/js/app.js'],
    }),
  ],
  build: {
    rollupOptions: {
      output: {
        manualChunks: {
          vendor: ['alpinejs', 'axios'],
        },
      },
    },
  },
};

Performance Monitoring

Laravel Telescope (Development)

composer require laravel/telescope --dev
php artisan telescope:install

Laravel Debugbar (Development)

composer require barryvdh/laravel-debugbar --dev

TTFB Results

Optimization	TTFB
Default Laravel	500-2000ms
+ Route/Config cache	200-500ms
+ OPcache	100-300ms
+ Redis cache	50-150ms
+ Full-page cache	10-50ms

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