Optimizing Large Data Delivery with Laravel Streaming Responses

Published on January 7th, 2025 by Harris Raftopoulos

Laravel's streaming response feature enables efficient handling of large datasets by sending data incrementally as it's generated, reducing memory usage and improving response times.

Route::get('/stream', function () {
    return response()->stream(function () {
        foreach (range(1, 100) as $number) {
            echo "Line {$number}\n";
            ob_flush();
            flush();
        }
    }, 200, ['Content-Type' => 'text/plain']);
});

Let's explore a practical example of streaming a large data export:

<?php
 
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
 
use App\Models\Order;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
 
class ExportController extends Controller
{
    public function exportOrders()
    {
        return response()->stream(function () {
            // Output CSV headers
            echo "Order ID,Customer,Total,Status,Date\n";
            ob_flush();
            flush();
 
                        // Process orders in chunks to maintain memory efficiency
            Order::query()
                ->with('customer')
                ->orderBy('created_at', 'desc')
                ->chunk(500, function ($orders) {
                    foreach ($orders as $order) {
                        echo sprintf(
                            "%s,%s,%.2f,%s,%s\n",
                            $order->id,
                            str_replace(',', ' ', $order->customer->name),
                            $order->total,
                            $order->status,
                            $order->created_at->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')
                        );
 
                        ob_flush();
                        flush();
                    }
                });
        }, 200, [
            'Content-Type' => 'text/csv',
            'Content-Disposition' => 'attachment; filename="orders.csv"',
            'X-Accel-Buffering' => 'no'
        ]);
    }
}