Caching in Laravel with Redis

Project Setup

Create a new Laravel application:

laravel new todo-cache
cd todo-cache

Database Setup

Create a Redis database using Upstash Console. Go to the Connect to your database section and click on Laravel. Copy those values into your .env file:

.env

REDIS_HOST="<YOUR_ENDPOINT>"
REDIS_PORT=6379
REDIS_PASSWORD="<YOUR_PASSWORD>"

Cache Setup

To use Upstash Redis as your caching driver, update the CACHE_STORE in your .env file:

.env

CACHE_STORE="redis"
REDIS_CACHE_DB="0"

Creating a Todo App

First, we’ll create a Todo model with its associated controller, factory, migration, and API resource files:

php artisan make:model Todo -cfmr --api

Next, we’ll set up the database schema for our todos table with a simple structure including an ID, title, and timestamps:

database/migrations/2025_02_10_111720_create_todos_table.php

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     */
    public function up(): void
    {
        Schema::create('todos', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('title');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     */
    public function down(): void
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('todos');
    }
};

We’ll create a factory to generate fake todo data for testing and development:

database/factories/TodoFactory.php

<?php

namespace Database\Factories;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;

/**
 * @extends \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory<\App\Models\Todo>
 */
class TodoFactory extends Factory
{
    /**
     * Define the model's default state.
     *
     * @return array<string, mixed>
     */
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => $this->faker->sentence,
        ];
    }
}

In the database seeder, we’ll set up the creation of 50 sample todo items:

database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php

<?php

namespace Database\Seeders;

use App\Models\Todo;
use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;

class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Seed the application's database.
     */
    public function run(): void
    {
        Todo::factory()->times(50)->create();
    }
}

Run the migration to create the todos table in the database:

php artisan migrate

Seed the database with our sample todo items:

php artisan db:seed

Install the API package:

php artisan install:api

Set up the API routes for our Todo resource:

routes/api.php

<?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use \App\Http\Controllers\TodoController;

Route::resource('todos', TodoController::class);

Create a basic Todo controller with an index method to retrieve all todos:

app/Http/Controllers/TodoController.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Todo;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class TodoController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     */
    public function index()
    {
        return Todo::all();
    }
    ...
}

Finally, test the index route to verify our API is working correctly:

curl http://todo-cache.test/api/todos

Using Cache in Laravel

Laravel offers a simple yet powerful unified interface for working with different caching systems. We will focus on Cache::remember, Cache::flexible and Cache::forget methods, to learn more about the available methods, check the Laravel Cache Documentation.

Cache::remember

The Cache::remember method retrieves the value of a key from the cache. If the key does not exist in the cache, the method will execute the given closure and store the result in the cache for the specified duration.

$value = Cache::remember('todos', $seconds, function () {
    return Todo::all();
});

Cache::flexible

The stale-while-revalidate pattern, implemented through Cache::flexible, is a caching strategy that balances performance and data freshness by defining two time periods: a “fresh” period where cached data is served immediately, and a “stale” period where outdated data is served while triggering a background refresh. When data is accessed during the stale period (in this example, between 5 and 10 seconds), users still get a fast response with slightly outdated data while the cache refreshes asynchronously, only forcing users to wait for a full recalculation if the data is accessed after both periods have expired.

$value = Cache::flexible('todos', [5, 10], function () {
    return Todo::all();
});

Cache::forget

The Cache::forget method removes the specified key from the cache:

Cache::forget('todos');

Caching the Todo List

Let’s first update the Todo model to make it mass assignable:

app/Models/Todo.php

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Todo extends Model
{
    /** @use HasFactory<\Database\Factories\TodoFactory> */
    use HasFactory;

    protected $fillable = ['title'];
}

Next, we’ll update the methods in the TodoController to use caching:

app/Http/Controllers/TodoController.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Todo;
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Http\Response;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;

class TodoController extends Controller
{
    private const CACHE_KEY = 'todos';

    private const CACHE_TTL = [300, 1800]; // 5 minutes fresh, 30 minutes stale

    /**
     * Display a listing of the resource.
     */
    public function index()
    {
        return Cache::flexible(self::CACHE_KEY, self::CACHE_TTL, function () {
            return Todo::all();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Store a newly created resource in storage.
     */
    public function store(Request $request): JsonResponse
    {
        $request->validate([
            'title' => 'required|string|max:255',
        ]);

        $todo = Todo::create($request->all());

        // Invalidate the todos cache
        Cache::forget(self::CACHE_KEY);

        return response()->json($todo, Response::HTTP_CREATED);
    }

    /**
     * Display the specified resource.
     */
    public function show(Todo $todo): Todo
    {
        return Cache::flexible(
            "todo.{$todo->id}",
            self::CACHE_TTL,
            function () use ($todo) {
                return $todo;
            }
        );
    }

    /**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     */
    public function update(Request $request, Todo $todo): JsonResponse
    {
        $request->validate([
            'title' => 'required|string|max:255',
        ]);

        $todo->update($request->all());

        // Invalidate both the collection and individual todo cache
        Cache::forget(self::CACHE_KEY);
        Cache::forget("todo.{$todo->id}");

        return response()->json($todo);
    }

    /**
     * Remove the specified resource from storage.
     */
    public function destroy(Todo $todo): JsonResponse
    {
        $todo->delete();

        // Invalidate both the collection and individual todo cache
        Cache::forget(self::CACHE_KEY);
        Cache::forget("todo.{$todo->id}");

        return response()->json(null, Response::HTTP_NO_CONTENT);
    }
}

Now we can test our methods with the following curl commands:

# Get all todos
curl http://todo-cache.test/api/todos

# Get a specific todo
curl http://todo-cache.test/api/todos/1

# Create a new todo
curl -X POST http://todo-cache.test/api/todos \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title":"New Todo"}'

# Update a todo
curl -X PUT http://todo-cache.test/api/todos/1 \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title":"Updated Todo"}'

# Delete a todo
curl -X DELETE http://todo-cache.test/api/todos/1

Visit Redis Data Browser in Upstash Console to see the cached data.