Deploying Laravel with Zero Downtime: A DevOps Guide

A smooth deployment process is essential for shipping with confidence. Let's set up a zero-downtime deployment pipeline for your Laravel application.

CI/CD Pipeline Setup

Use GitHub Actions or GitLab CI to automate your deployment. Run tests, build assets, and deploy automatically on every push to main. A good pipeline catches issues before they reach production.

Docker for Consistency

Containerize your Laravel app with Docker to ensure identical environments from development to production. Use multi-stage builds to keep your production images lean.

Zero-Downtime Deployments

Use symlink-based deployments where a "current" symlink points to the active release. New deployments prepare everything in a new directory, then atomically switch the symlink.

Health Checks and Monitoring

Implement health check endpoints that verify database connections, cache availability, and queue processing. Use monitoring tools to get alerts before your users notice problems.