Laravel was launched in 2011 and since then it is continuously growing. Nowadays, it is considered one of the top-performing PHP frameworks. It is a one-stop development platform for your business as it can build everything from complex APIs to web applications.
You can easily create an elegant design for a website not to mention using clean code with the help of libraries and architectures provided by this PHP framework. However, to build amazing applications, a developer must know how to utilize the capacity of the framework to enhance web performance.
But why would you need to improve the performance of the website or a laravel application? How is it going to benefit your business?
Importance of PHP web performance
The performance of your website directly impacts its google rankings. If the customer isn’t happy with your website performance then they will stop visiting your website.
To retain the customers and google search rankings, applications will need real-time optimization. This is the reason why we have written this article. Further reading this blog, you will get some proven tips to optimize the performance of laravel applications and websites that are trending in 2021.
Tips for Laravel performance optimization in 2021
So, without any further ado, let’s just dive into the details of the performance optimization tips 2021.
1. JIT Compiler
Generally, as per the traditional process, a developer will first translate PHP code into bytecode and then execute it. In such a resource-intensive process, if you want to execute a C subroutine then you will need a Zend Engine for it.
And that’s not all, this process is repeated every time the app is executed. Now, if you want to save time, you would want the process to repeat itself just once. That’s where the JIT compiler comes in handy. For laravel applications, the JIT compiler HHVM by Facebook is mostly recommended.
2. Choose a Fast Cache and Session driver
To tune the laravel performance, the best route believed by the developers is to store the cache and session sections in RAM. However, laravel developers can optimize the web performance using the fastest cache and session driver for laravel 5 named Memcached.
To change the session driver, developers can use the driver key located in app/config/session.php. Likewise, if you want to change the cache driver then you can use the driver key located in app/config/cache.php
3. Leverage Laravel Telescope
Laravel framework comes with its inbuilt debug assistant called laravel Telescope. It offers deep insights into the requests coming into your application, log entries, mails, notifications, scheduled tasks, cache operations, exceptions, database queries, queued jobs, variable dumps, and so on. Laravel Telescope is one of the must-have monitoring and analysis tools to build any APIs using the laravel web development framework.
4. Focus More on Laravel Artisan Commands
Laravel is equipped with a very unique tool named Artisan command. Its function is to boost the performance of the website and apps. Some commands are mentioned below as examples:
# php artisan route: cache
# php artisan config: cache
# php artisan optimize – force
5. Config Caching
Config Caching is one of the top laravel performance optimization tips for 2021. With its help, you can upgrade the performance of your web applications. All you need to do is execute the command “PHP artisan config:” to cache all your configurations in a file.
If you want to change the configuration and clear all the cache then you would need to rebuild the cache using the command “PHP artisan config: clear”.
6. Routes Caching
Routes Caching is another best laravel optimization tip for 2021 that allows caching the routes to speed up the performance of your app. Just execute the command: “PHP artisan route: cache” to cache all routes in the routes PHP file. Now, if you want to add a new route then you have to build the cache again. And if you don’t do that, your new routes will not be added.
7. Remove Unused Service
7. Remove Unused Service
Laravel enables you to remove unused services from the config file. Just comment on your config file and you can delete all your unwanted files. But you should ensure that you are not extracting or deleting any important or essential functionalities.
8. Reduce Laravel Plugins Utilization
Laravel comes with a wide range of plugins. Among them, many plugins could be used to add more functionalities. Now with increased functionality, you have more files and libraries to download and this can slow your app.
Now, you have to look at the providers you are loading through your config/app.php file and make sure that you cut down the unnecessary ones. You can also use the laravel composer to handle the components. You can simply cut down the composer.json file to reduce the dependencies and boost the web performance.
9. Utilize Laravel Debugbar
You can utilize the laravel debug bar to integrate the PHP debug bar with laravel. You can use it to monitor the laravel web performance. It is highly recommended by the laravel experts that such a package should be used during app development. Because it won’t be only easy to integrate with a web app but it will also help in inspecting the application and improvise accordingly.
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10. Use CDN for Static Assets
Laravel development company can easily improve the performance of their laravel app just by loading static assets files from the CDN server instead of using the traditional way in which it was directly loaded from the server that hosts the files.
If a potential customer visits a page of the website then the information required will be immediately served from the closest CDN area. This will increase the page speed resulting in both improved search rankings and offering enhanced user experience.
11. Optimize with Classmap
If you keep all your inclusive files together then you can easily make your laravel app compact and readily available for easy loading. Classmap optimization allows you to add multiple files in one common file. This will result in the increased speed of your laravel application with reduced loading time.
12. Limit Included Libraries
As we saw above, including more plugins and add-ons can affect negatively. Similarly, the overuse of several libraries in your laravel application has its downside. The extra libraries too will slow down your app. So make sure you are using just the necessary ones. You can keep a check on libraries through config/app.php and composer.json.
13. Apply eager loading
The use of Eloquent ORM is popular in laravel applications. It enables the developers to map the objects to database tables. This type of lazy loading will relieve the developers from creating, retrieving, updating, or deleting various operations.
But it has one limitation that it could only perform one task at a time. Hence, it is a very time-consuming process. But if you use eager losing instead of eloquent ORM loading for laravel app optimization then you will be allowed to load and retrieve all the operations together in just a single call.
14. Precompile Assets
Keeping necessary assets separately in the application is the right way to maintain app development. Though developers practice this, it isn’t mandatory. Developers always have an alternate option of laravel in-built Artisan commands to help you with the bifurcation.
# php artisan optimize
# php artisan config: cache
# php artisan route: cache
The above commands are used to classify the files and relocate them.
15. Profile Queries
Laravel doesn’t support SQL because the execution of its queries would hinder the capacity of laravel to debug the code effectively. As we have already seen, you can always use the laravel debug bar to debug your queries.
However, the debug bar also comes with a Query collector that look out for all the queries and their bindings. It also consists of additional features like Route collector and Cache collector.
16. Assets Bundling
Laravel mix feature is one of the top tips to optimize laravel performance in 2021. Developers can use it to develop an application from a web pack. The laravel mix comes with a set of various APIs, multiple CSS, and a JavaScript Preprocessor.
Laravel uses the normailize.CSS and style.CSS to auto-create an all.CSS file. Also, you can blend both the style sheets in a single all.CSS file.
17. Assets Minifying
To reduce the HTTP calls, developers always compress the CSS and JavaScript files before bundling. This indeed is one of the great ways to optimize laravel performance. Laravel framework offers many tools that can compress and bundle many files as a single file. You can also use laravel-packer specially built to minify your JavaScript and CSS code. It can also produce thumbnails and resize the images if needed.
18. Use Redis or Database Cache
If you want to store string, hashes, lists, and sets then laravel offers an advanced key-value key store called Redis. You can easily blend Redis with the laravel framework. After combining them, you can notice a significant rise in the performance of the tasks related to the query execution. The speed of handling the requests will also be accelerated as the Redis will have already cached all the accessed data.
BONUS – Running the latest version of PHP
PHP frameworks keep upgrading themselves with respect to time. The version cycle is shorter as a newly updated framework is launched almost in a period of every six months. The latest PHP frameworks will have the capacity to tackle modern problems and eliminate all the inconveniences caused by using the previous versions.
So, make sure you are using the latest version of the laravel framework for app development. Practicing this tip alone will allow you to improvise your web performance.
Conclusion
I hope that after reading this article, you have got deep insights into performance optimization for your laravel app. These tips are already widely used by experts and many laravel developers all around the world.
These were very easy tips that anyone can imply by themselves. However, you can also hire laravel developers to ensure the development of the best-performing PHP website and feature-rich app. But remember that the security of the app is as important as the performance of the PHP website. So, never compromise with the quality of your PHP product.
