Laravel Horizon Tuning & Production Scaling | Mohamed Said [Skip to content](#main) [ ![](https://cdn.msaied.com/01KT78WE565VEMM3PSNQAAB0MH.png) Mohamed SaidLaravel Backend Engineer ](https://www.msaied.com/public) - [Home](https://www.msaied.com/public) - [Projects](https://www.msaied.com/public/projects) - [Articles](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles) - [Certificates](https://www.msaied.com/public/certificates) - [About](https://www.msaied.com/public#about) [ Contact](https://www.msaied.com/public#contact) Menu Menu ---- Close - [HomeStart here](https://www.msaied.com/public) - [ProjectsCase studies](https://www.msaied.com/public/projects) - [ArticlesEngineering notes](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles) - [CertificatesCredentials](https://www.msaied.com/public/certificates) - [AboutHow I work](https://www.msaied.com/public#about) - [ContactGet in touch](https://www.msaied.com/public#contact) [Start a conversation](https://www.msaied.com/public#contact) [WhatsApp](https://wa.me/201094619204) [Email](mailto:hello@msaied.com) 1. [Home](https://www.msaied.com/public) 2. / 3. [Articles](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles) 4. / 5. Laravel Horizon: Queue Metrics, Supervisor Tuning, and Graceful Scaling in Production Laravel Horizon: Queue Metrics, Supervisor Tuning, and Graceful Scaling in Production ====================================================================================== Beyond the dashboard: how to tune Horizon supervisors, interpret queue metrics, handle long-running jobs safely, and scale workers without dropping messages in production Laravel applications. ![](https://cdn.msaied.com/01M22N44A70A5MC2S599JP0MPH.webp) [Mohamed Said](https://www.msaied.com/public#person) Published 8 Jul 2026 · Updated 8 Jul 2026 · 3 min read ShareCopy linkCopied ![Laravel Horizon: Queue Metrics, Supervisor Tuning, and Graceful Scaling in Production](https://cdn.msaied.com/390/25668fca0fa0cd1acbd22f27230b8ef5.png) On this page +1. [Laravel Horizon in Production: Beyond the Pretty Dashboard](#laravel-horizon-in-production-beyond-the-pretty-dashboard) 2. [How Horizon Supervisors Actually Work](#how-horizon-supervisors-actually-work) 3. [Choosing the Right Balance Strategy](#choosing-the-right-balance-strategy) 4. [Reading Horizon Metrics Programmatically](#reading-horizon-metrics-programmatically) 5. [Graceful Termination and Long-Running Jobs](#graceful-termination-and-long-running-jobs) 6. [Memory Leaks and maxJobs](#memory-leaks-and-codemaxjobscode) 7. [Takeaways](#takeaways) Laravel Horizon in Production: Beyond the Pretty Dashboard ---------------------------------------------------------- Horizon ships with a slick UI, but most teams stop there. The real value is in its supervisor model, metric snapshots, and the knobs that determine whether your queue survives a traffic spike or silently drops work. ### How Horizon Supervisors Actually Work Horizon manages one or more *supervisor* processes, each of which spawns a pool of `queue:work` child processes. The key insight: **supervisors are not queues**. A single supervisor can watch multiple queues with a priority order. ```php // config/horizon.php 'environments' => [ 'production' => [ 'supervisor-default' => [ 'connection' => 'redis', 'queue' => ['critical', 'default', 'low'], 'balance' => 'auto', 'autoScalingStrategy' => 'time', 'maxProcesses' => 20, 'minProcesses' => 2, 'maxTime' => 0, 'maxJobs' => 500, 'memory' => 256, 'tries' => 3, 'timeout' => 90, 'nice' => 0, ], ], ], ``` `balance => 'auto'` tells Horizon to redistribute workers across queues based on wait time. `autoScalingStrategy => 'time'` scales toward minimising wait time rather than raw queue size — better for latency-sensitive work. ### Choosing the Right Balance Strategy | Strategy | Scales on | Best for | |---|---|---| | `simple` | Queue size ratio | Predictable, uniform jobs | | `auto` | Wait time | Mixed job durations | | `false` | Fixed processes | Isolated, critical queues | For a SaaS with a `critical` queue (password resets, webhooks) and a `low` queue (report generation), use **two supervisors** with `balance => false` on critical and `auto` on low: ```php 'supervisor-critical' => [ 'queue' => ['critical'], 'balance' => false, 'minProcesses' => 3, 'maxProcesses' => 3, ], 'supervisor-bulk' => [ 'queue' => ['default', 'low'], 'balance' => 'auto', 'minProcesses' => 1, 'maxProcesses' => 15, 'autoScalingStrategy' => 'time', ], ``` This guarantees critical work always has dedicated workers, while bulk work scales elastically. ### Reading Horizon Metrics Programmatically Horizon stores throughput and runtime snapshots in Redis. You can query them directly: ```php use Laravel\Horizon\Contracts\MetricsRepository; $metrics = app(MetricsRepository::class); $throughput = $metrics->throughputForQueue('default'); // jobs/min $runtime = $metrics->runtimeForQueue('default'); // ms average ``` Pipe these into your observability stack (Datadog, Prometheus via a custom exporter) rather than relying solely on the Horizon UI. Alert when `throughputForQueue` drops to zero during business hours — that's a dead worker, not an empty queue. ### Graceful Termination and Long-Running Jobs Horizon sends `SIGTERM` to workers during deploys. Workers finish their current job, then exit. The danger: a job that runs for 180 seconds will block the deploy for 180 seconds per worker. Mitigate with `maxTime` (seconds a worker runs before self-terminating after its current job) and by designing long jobs to be interruptible: ```php public function handle(): void { foreach ($this->chunks() as $chunk) { if ($this->job->isDeleted() || $this->job->isReleased()) { return; } $this->processChunk($chunk); // Respect the terminate signal between chunks if (app('queue.worker')->shouldQuit) { $this->release(5); return; } } } ``` Accessing `app('queue.worker')->shouldQuit` lets a job voluntarily release itself back to the queue when a shutdown is pending, preventing message loss. ### Memory Leaks and `maxJobs` PHP workers accumulate memory over time — Eloquent model event listeners, static caches, and package bootstrapping all contribute. `maxJobs => 500` forces a worker restart after 500 jobs, which is a pragmatic ceiling. Pair it with `memory => 256` (MB) as a hard cap: ```php 'maxJobs' => 500, 'memory' => 256, ``` Monitor actual worker memory with `horizon:snapshot` on a schedule: ```php // app/Console/Kernel.php $schedule->command('horizon:snapshot')->everyFiveMinutes(); ``` Without snapshots, the Horizon metrics graphs are empty. ### Takeaways - Use **two supervisors** to isolate critical queues from bulk work; never mix them with `auto` balance. - Set `autoScalingStrategy => 'time'` for latency-sensitive queues; `size` can over-provision on bursty workloads. - Export Horizon metrics to your APM — don't rely on the UI for alerting. - Design long jobs to check `shouldQuit` between chunks so deploys don't stall. - Schedule `horizon:snapshot` every five minutes or your throughput graphs will be blank. - [laravel](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles?search=laravel) - [horizon](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles?search=horizon) - [queues](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles?search=queues) - [production](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles?search=production) - [redis](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles?search=redis) Frequently asked questions --------------------------- What is the difference between `balance => 'auto'` and `balance => 'simple'` in Horizon?`simple` distributes workers proportionally to queue size. `auto` targets wait time, so it shifts workers toward queues where jobs are waiting longest regardless of raw count — better when jobs have variable durations. How do I prevent a long-running job from blocking a Horizon deploy?Check `app('queue.worker')->shouldQuit` between processing units inside your job. When it is true, call `$this->release()` to put the job back on the queue and return early, allowing the worker to exit cleanly. Why are my Horizon throughput graphs empty?Horizon only records metric snapshots when `horizon:snapshot` runs. Schedule it every five minutes in your console kernel; without it, the metrics repository has no data to display. ![Mohamed Said](https://cdn.msaied.com/01M22N44A70A5MC2S599JP0MPH.webp)About the author ---------------- [Mohamed Said](https://www.msaied.com/public#person)Senior Backend Engineer specializing in Laravel, scalable SaaS platforms, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. I build secure, high-performance web applications that help businesses grow. [About](https://www.msaied.com/public#about) [GitHub ↗](https://github.com/EG-Mohamed) [LinkedIn ↗](https://www.linkedin.com/in/msaiedm/) [WhatsApp ↗](https://wa.me/201094619204) [Email Address ↗](mailto:hello@msaied.com) [My CV ↗](https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/1MF20IPRJyzfy32mhEutjL5EpSls0w2Q8/view) [Previous articleIntercept: Middleware Guardrails for Laravel AI Agents](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles/intercept-middleware-guardrails-for-laravel-ai-agents) [Next articleMySQL Query Profiling in Laravel: EXPLAIN ANALYZE, Slow Query Log, and Index Tuning](https://www.msaied.com/public/articles/mysql-query-profiling-in-laravel-explain-analyze-slow-query-log-and-index-tuning) On this page ------------- 1. [Laravel Horizon in Production: Beyond the Pretty Dashboard](#laravel-horizon-in-production-beyond-the-pretty-dashboard) 2. [How Horizon Supervisors Actually Work](#how-horizon-supervisors-actually-work) 3. [Choosing the Right Balance Strategy](#choosing-the-right-balance-strategy) 4. [Reading Horizon Metrics Programmatically](#reading-horizon-metrics-programmatically) 5. [Graceful Termination and Long-Running Jobs](#graceful-termination-and-long-running-jobs) 6. [Memory Leaks and maxJobs](#memory-leaks-and-codemaxjobscode) 7. [Takeaways](#takeaways) ### Have a technical challenge? Tell me what you’re building. I reply within two working days. 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