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Profile Laravel in Visual Studio Code#

Performance always matters. Your Laravel application might be beautifully designed and written, but there's always the possibility of hidden bottlenecks. Is it unnecessarily slow? Can it be optimized further? Sometimes, a single function can consume most of your CPU time. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to profile your Laravel application in Visual Studio Code to uncover and address these issues.

If you're looking for general PHP profiling guidance, check out these resources:

What is Profiling?#

Simply put, profiling tracks all function calls in your application, recording their start and end times. This information allows you to:

  • Identify which functions consume the most time.
  • See how many times a specific function is called.
  • Understand the call tree of all functions across the entire application.

With this data, you can pinpoint performance bottlenecks and optimize your application effectively.

Profiling Details

Requirements#

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

  • PHP installed.
  • The PHP Xdebug extension installed.
  • The PHP zlib extension enabled (recommended).
  • The PHP Tools extension for Visual Studio Code.
  • The PHP Profiler extension (installed automatically with PHP Tools).

VS Code Extensions

To confirm PHP and Xdebug are correctly configured, open any PHP file in Visual Studio Code and check the OUTPUT panel for a confirmation message:

VSCode Output with PHP and XDebug

Setting Up Your Laravel Workspace#

  1. Open Laravel Application

Open folder with the Laravel application. You should see the directory structure like this:

Laravel Workspace in VS Code

  1. Create a launch.json Profile

If you don’t already have a launch.json file, follow these steps:

  • Open the Run and Debug panel.
  • Click on create a launch.json file and choose the PHP (Xdebug) option.

Create launch.json in VS Code

  1. Add the Profiling Configuration

Ensure your launch.json file includes the following profile:

  "configurations": [
{
    "name": "Launch built-in server and Profile",
    "type": "php",
    "request": "launch",
    "noDebug": true,
    "runtimeArgs": [
        "-S",
        "localhost:8000",
        "-t",
        ".",
        "../vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/resources/server.php"
    ],
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}/public",
    "serverReadyAction": {
        "action": "openExternally"
    },
    "envFile": "../.env",
    "profile": true,
    "openProfile": true
}
  ]

Running the Profiler#

  1. Select the Profiling Configuration

In the Run and Debug panel, choose the "Launch built-in server and Profile" option:

Choose PHP profiling profile

  1. Start Debugging

Press F5 to start the profiling session. This will: - Launch the built-in PHP server. - Open your Laravel application in a browser.

You should see a smilar output in VS Code's DEBUG CONSOLE:

debug console

  1. Make Web Requests

Navigate through the pages you wish to profile. Each request generates a separate profiling file, which will open automatically when the profiling ends.

Laravel Homepage

  1. Stop the Profiling Session

Return to Visual Studio Code and click the Stop button to end the session. Note, it may take a few seconds.

Stop Session

  1. View Profiling Results

The profiling output will appear in new document tabs:

Profiling Output

Analyzing Profiling Data#

Inspecting Laravel Profiling

Each profiling file corresponds to a single request. Here's how to interpret the results:

Aggregated Time

Sort by Time (ms) to identify the "heaviest" functions.

Call Counts

Sort by Calls to find the most frequently called functions.

Highlight Hot Paths

Use the Highlight in Source Code option to visualize performance hotspots directly in your code:

Highlight Hot Paths

Additional Resources#