Laravel Horizon provides a beautiful dashboard and configuration system for Redis queues. But production configurations require more than default settings.
Queue Balancing Strategies
Horizon offers three balancing strategies:
- Simple — each process picks up the next available job
- Auto — intelligently distributes processes based on queue load
- False — manual process assignment
For most production apps, auto balancing is the right choice. It dynamically allocates workers to your busiest queues.
Failure Handling
Configure retry attempts, backoff strategies, and failure callbacks. Horizon's failed jobs dashboard is invaluable, but you should also set up Slack or email notifications for critical failures.
Monitoring & Alerts
Horizon can send alerts when:
- Wait times exceed a threshold
- Queue length grows beyond normal
- Process count drops unexpectedly
Configure these early — they'll save you from silent failures.
Performance Tips
- Keep jobs small and focused
- Use batches for parallel processing
- Implement job prioritization
- Monitor memory usage per worker
- Use supervisor to keep processes alive
Horizon is one of Laravel's most powerful tools. Invest time in configuring it properly for your workload.