One of the best problems a startup can have is outgrowing their initial infrastructure. But it's also one of the most stressful if you're not prepared. Having helped several startups in Bath, Bristol, and Wiltshire scale their Laravel applications, here are the patterns that actually work.
The Early Days: Keep It Simple
When you're just starting, a single server running Laravel with a database is perfectly fine. Don't over-engineer. I've seen startups spend weeks setting up Kubernetes when a simple VPS would have been fine for their first 1000 users. Getting startup software architecture right early makes scaling decisions easier later.
Your initial stack should be simple:
- Laravel application on a single server (DigitalOcean, Linode, or AWS EC2)
- MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL database (on the same server initially is fine)
- Basic file storage (local filesystem or S3)
- Simple queue processing (database driver)
First Scaling Point: Database Bottlenecks
The first thing that usually breaks is your database. You'll notice slow queries, connection timeouts, or just general sluggishness. This is when you need to:
- Move database to separate server: This alone often gives you 2-3x performance improvement
- Review slow queries: Use your database's slow query logging and analysis tools to identify and fix slow queries. Getting database design and indexes right often removes the cause.
- Implement query caching: Laravel's various caching options can dramatically reduce database load in many cases.
- Use database read replicas: For read-heavy applications, this is a game-changer
Second Scaling Point: Application Server
Once your database is optimized, your application server becomes the bottleneck. This is when you:
- Add application-level caching: Redis for sessions, cache, and queues
- Implement HTTP caching: Use Laravel's response caching or Varnish for public content
- Optimize asset delivery: CDN for static assets (Cloudflare is great and free)
- Consider horizontal scaling: Multiple application servers behind a load balancer
The Queue System Evolution
As you scale, your queue system needs to evolve. I've written more on this in why Laravel queues are essential; here's the short version:
- Start: Database driver (simple, no extra infrastructure)
- Grow: Redis driver (faster, more reliable)
- Scale: Amazon SQS or similar (managed, highly scalable)
The beauty of Laravel is you can switch queue drivers without changing your code. Start simple, upgrade when needed.
Total infrastructure cost went from £20/month to £150/month, but the infrastructure could handle 100x the traffic. That's good scaling.
What Not to Do
Common mistakes I see:
- Premature optimization: Don't build for 100k users when you have 100
- Ignoring the database: No amount of application servers will help if your database is the bottleneck
- Over-complicating: Docker/Kubernetes is great, but not necessary for most early stage startups
- Not monitoring: Use tools like Laravel Nightwatch or New Relic to understand where time is spent
The Backend Developer's Role
As a freelance backend developer, my job is to build systems that scale gracefully. That means:
- Writing efficient database queries from day one
- Using queues for anything that doesn't need to be immediate
- Implementing caching strategies early
- Designing APIs that can be consumed by multiple frontends
- Making infrastructure decisions that don't lock you in
The goal isn't to build the perfect scalable system from day one. It's to build something that works now and can evolve as you grow.
If you're scaling a Laravel application and hitting performance issues, get in touch. I help startups in Bath, Bristol, Wiltshire, and across the UK optimize and scale their backend systems. Related: database design and API design.