Mastering Using SolidQueue in Ruby on Rails Learn How to use SolidQueue in your Ruby on Rails Web Applications Written by Chetan Mittal Edition: Beta. This Book Is Available To Subscribed Members Only. Subscribe Now!

  • Move Chapter 1: What is Background Job Processing?
    Chapter 1: What is Background Job Processing?
    Chapter 1: What is Background Job Processing?
  • Move Understanding Background Processing and Its Importance
    Open Understanding Background Processing and Its Importance

    In the world of web applications, not everything should be done in real time.

    Imagine a user submits a form that sends a welcome email, updates a CRM, and posts data to a third-party service. If all of that happens synchronously—right as the form is submitted—the user has to wait for every one of those tasks to finish.

    That means long response times, bad user experience, and potentially, timeouts.

    That’s where background job processing comes in. It allows developers to move such time-consuming operations out of the request-response cycle, making the application more responsive and resilient.

    With background jobs, we get performance, reliability, and the ability to scale the application better without burning out the main application thread.

    background-processing.png

    Rails has long recognized this need, and over the years, the ecosystem around background jobs has evolved significantly. But Rails is not

    Understanding Background Processing and Its Importance 656 words
  • Move Background Job Processing Across Other Web Application Development Frameworks
    Open Background Job Processing Across Other Web Application Development Frameworks

    Background Job Processing Across Other Different Tech Stacks

    While Ruby on Rails offers tools like Delayed Job, Sidekiq, and now SolidQueue, it’s far from the only ecosystem that deals with background jobs.

    Every modern web framework must handle asynchronous processing to manage performance and scalability.

    However, each language ecosystem has evolved its own way of doing it—shaped by community preferences, architectural styles, and tooling.


    Python: Celery and RQ

    In the Python world, the most widely used background job processor is Celery.

    Celery is robust, feature-rich, and works well with popular frameworks like Django and Flask. It uses message brokers like Redis or RabbitMQ to manage queues. Here’s how a simple Celery task looks:

    #tasks.py
    from celery import Celery
    
    app = Celery('tasks', broker='redis://localhost:6379/0')
    
    @app.task
    def add(x, y):
        return x + y
    

    You’d then call this from your application like:

    Background Job Processing Across Other Web Application Development Frameworks 554 words
  • Move The Evolution of Background Processing from Rails Beta to Rails 8
    Open The Evolution of Background Processing from Rails Beta to Rails 8

    The Evolution of Background Processing from Rails Beta to Rails 8

    Background processing in Ruby on Rails has come a long way since the early days of the framework.

    In the initial versions—Rails 0.x and 1.x—there was no native concept of background jobs.

    Developers often hacked around long-running tasks using cron jobs, shell scripts, or external daemons.

    There were no conventions or standardized interfaces, and each project implemented its own system for deferred execution.

    This made background work brittle and hard to maintain. If a task failed, there was no built-in retry logic, visibility, or consistency across projects.


    As Rails matured, the first real attempt at standardized background job processing came with Delayed Job, extracted from Shopify’s codebase around 2008.

    Delayed Job was simple and clever—it used the database itself as a queue.

    Jobs were just rows in a delayed_jobs table, serialized as YAML. A background worker process qu

    The Evolution of Background Processing from Rails Beta to Rails 8 776 words
  • Move Sidekiq and Redis: Their Role in Rails Background Processing Until Version 7
    Open Sidekiq and Redis: Their Role in Rails Background Processing Until Version 7

    Sidekiq and Redis: Their Role in Rails Background Processing Until Version 7

    Before SolidQueue arrived with Rails 8, the de facto standard for production-grade background job processing in the Rails ecosystem was Sidekiq.

    Introduced in 2012, Sidekiq radically improved how background jobs were handled by bringing multithreaded job execution and Redis-backed queuing to the Ruby world.

    While Rails developers had already been using tools like Delayed Job and Resque, Sidekiq's performance, simplicity, and powerful feature set quickly made it the default choice for anything beyond small-scale or development setups.

    Sidekiq works by pushing jobs into Redis lists, where background workers poll these queues, retrieve the job data, and execute the defined Ruby classes. Redis acts as an in-memory data store, which makes it fast and ideal for queueing workloads.

    A key advantage was Sidekiq’s ability to execute multiple jobs concurrently using threads, lev

    Sidekiq and Redis: Their Role in Rails Background Processing Until Version 7 532 words
  • Move Why SolidQueue? The Need for a Native Rails Job Processing Solution
    Open Why SolidQueue? The Need for a Native Rails Job Processing Solution

    Why SolidQueue? The Need for a Native Rails Job Processing Solution

    As background job processing became an integral part of almost every modern Rails application—from sending emails and notifications to syncing third-party APIs and running scheduled maintenance tasks—the Rails ecosystem increasingly relied on third-party tools to handle this critical responsibility.

    While tools like Sidekiq, Resque, and Delayed Job each had their strengths, they also introduced external complexity, operational overhead, and a disconnect from the core Rails philosophy of convention over configuration.

    SolidQueue was born out of this realization—a need for a first-class, native queuing system that would work seamlessly within the Rails framework, without the burden of managing an external data store like Redis or adopting the learning curve of third-party job processing libraries.

    Rails had standardized background job interfaces through Active Job back in version 4, but up

    Why SolidQueue? The Need for a Native Rails Job Processing Solution 653 words
  • Move Chapter 2: What is SolidQueue?
    Chapter 2: What is SolidQueue?
    Chapter 2: What is SolidQueue?
  • Move Understanding SolidQueue
    Understanding SolidQueue
    Understanding SolidQueue Subscribe to read
  • Move SolidQueue vs Sidekiq
    SolidQueue vs Sidekiq
    SolidQueue vs Sidekiq Subscribe to read
  • Move Installing and Setting Up SolidQueue in a Fresh Rails 8 App
    Installing and Setting Up SolidQueue in a Fresh Rails 8 App
    Installing and Setting Up SolidQueue in a Fresh Rails 8 App Subscribe to read
  • Move SolidQueue in the Real World: Common Patterns and Best Practices
    SolidQueue in the Real World: Common Patterns and Best Practices
    SolidQueue in the Real World: Common Patterns and Best Practices Subscribe to read
  • Move Frequently Asked Questions
    Open Frequently Asked Questions

    Frequently Asked Questions

    1. What is SolidQueue, and why was it introduced in Rails 8?

    SolidQueue is a background job processing system introduced in Rails 8, designed to operate entirely using the application's database. It was developed to reduce operational overhead by eliminating the need for external dependencies like Redis, which are required by other job processors such as Sidekiq and Resque. This aligns with the Rails philosophy of convention over configuration and simplifies deployment, especially when using SQLite as the default database in production.


    2. How does SolidQueue differ from other background job systems like Sidekiq or Resque?

    Unlike Sidekiq and Resque, which depend on Redis for job queuing and processing, SolidQueue operates solely on the application's database (e.g., SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL). This approach removes the need for additional infrastructure, making it easier to set up and maintain. SolidQueue is tightly integrated with Active Job, ensuring a

    Frequently Asked Questions 371 words
  • Move Chapter 3: Understanding the SolidQueue Architecture
    Chapter 3: Understanding the SolidQueue Architecture
    Chapter 3: Understanding the SolidQueue Architecture
  • Move Introducing SolidQueue's Architecture
    Introducing SolidQueue's Architecture
    Introducing SolidQueue's Architecture Subscribe to read
  • Move How SolidQueue Works Internally?
    How SolidQueue Works Internally?
    How SolidQueue Works Internally? Subscribe to read
  • Move Workers, Queues, and Jobs Explained
    Workers, Queues, and Jobs Explained
    Workers, Queues, and Jobs Explained Subscribe to read
  • Move How SolidQueue Integrates with ActiveJob?
    How SolidQueue Integrates with ActiveJob?
    How SolidQueue Integrates with ActiveJob? Subscribe to read
  • Move Why SolidQueue uses Database?
    Why SolidQueue uses Database?
    Why SolidQueue uses Database? Subscribe to read
  • Move Chapter 4: Deep Dive into SolidQueue Job Execution
    Chapter 4: Deep Dive into SolidQueue Job Execution
    Chapter 4: Deep Dive into SolidQueue Job Execution
  • Move Overview
    Overview
    Overview Subscribe to read
  • Move Controlling Queue Behavior and Job Priorities
    Controlling Queue Behavior and Job Priorities
    Controlling Queue Behavior and Job Priorities Subscribe to read
  • Move Running Jobs Synchronously vs. Asynchronously
    Running Jobs Synchronously vs. Asynchronously
    Running Jobs Synchronously vs. Asynchronously Subscribe to read
  • Move Handling Job Errors, Retries, and Dead Jobs
    Handling Job Errors, Retries, and Dead Jobs
    Handling Job Errors, Retries, and Dead Jobs Subscribe to read
  • Move Advanced Execution Patterns: Delays, Recurring Jobs, and Bulk Enqueueing
    Advanced Execution Patterns: Delays, Recurring Jobs, and Bulk Enqueueing
    Advanced Execution Patterns: Delays, Recurring Jobs, and Bulk Enqueueing Subscribe to read
  • Move Chapter 5: Advanced Job Processing and Optimization
    Chapter 5: Advanced Job Processing and Optimization
    Chapter 5: Advanced Job Processing and Optimization
  • Move Job Scheduling and Delayed Execution
    Job Scheduling and Delayed Execution
    Job Scheduling and Delayed Execution Coming soon
  • Move Parallel Processing and Concurrency Management
    Parallel Processing and Concurrency Management
    Parallel Processing and Concurrency Management Coming soon
  • Move Managing Long-Running Jobs Efficiently
    Managing Long-Running Jobs Efficiently
    Managing Long-Running Jobs Efficiently Coming soon
  • Move Customizing Worker Pools and Scaling Jobs
    Customizing Worker Pools and Scaling Jobs
    Customizing Worker Pools and Scaling Jobs Coming soon
  • Move Chapter 6: Monitoring, Debugging, and Administering SolidQueue
    Chapter 6: Monitoring, Debugging, and Administering SolidQueue
    Chapter 6: Monitoring, Debugging, and Administering SolidQueue
  • Move Viewing and Managing Jobs via Rails Console
    Viewing and Managing Jobs via Rails Console
    Viewing and Managing Jobs via Rails Console Coming soon
  • Move Logging and Debugging SolidQueue Jobs
    Logging and Debugging SolidQueue Jobs
    Logging and Debugging SolidQueue Jobs Coming soon
  • Move Using Admin Interfaces for Job Monitoring
    Using Admin Interfaces for Job Monitoring
    Using Admin Interfaces for Job Monitoring Coming soon
  • Move Integrating SolidQueue with Third-Party Monitoring Tools
    Integrating SolidQueue with Third-Party Monitoring Tools
    Integrating SolidQueue with Third-Party Monitoring Tools Coming soon