Amazon SQS FIFO queues have long promised message ordering and deduplication, but Laravel developers had to jump through hoops to fully leverage them. With Laravel 12.27.0, that changesāthanks to native support for message group IDs, unlocking Amazonās Fair Queue feature directly within Laravelās queue system.
š§ What Is Fair Queuing?
Fair Queuing ensures that messages from different groups (e.g., customers, tenants, or workflows) are processed in a balanced way. Instead of one group monopolizing the queue, SQS rotates between groups, giving each a fair shot at execution. This is a game-changer for multi-tenant apps, rate-limited APIs, and any workload where fairness matters.
š§ How Laravel Implements It
Laravel now lets you assign a messageGroupId when dispatching jobs to SQS FIFO queues:
ProcessOrder::dispatch($order)
->onGroup("customer-{$order->customer_id}");This simple addition ensures that jobs for the same customer are processed in order, while Laravel and SQS handle fair rotation across different customers.
š Setup Tips
To use this feature:
- Ensure your SQS queue is FIFO-enabled (
.fifosuffix required). - Set
queue.connectiontosqsinconfig/queue.php. - Use the
onGroup()method when dispatching jobs. - Monitor queue behavior with Laravel Horizon or AWS CloudWatch.
š” Use Cases That Shine
- Multi-tenant SaaS: Prevent one tenantās jobs from hogging the queue.
- Rate-limited APIs: Rotate requests fairly across clients.
- Customer workflows: Maintain order within a customerās jobs while balancing across all.
š Why This Matters
Before this release, developers had to rely on third-party packages or AWS SDK workarounds to simulate fair queuing. Now, Laravel handles it natively, reducing complexity and improving performance predictability.
This update also reflects Laravelās growing alignment with cloud-native patternsāmaking it easier to build scalable, resilient apps without reinventing the wheel.