Windows Herd Slow

[lvismer]

Hi

I have a client who runs a Windows machine and using WAMP with a Laravel application (default Laravel 10) takes 6seconds and even more to load any page in the application.

I was hoping that Herd was our solution. But using Herd for windows the response on any page is still the same. It is like the browser sits and waits (almost a resolving issue).

For others using Herd on Windows how is the response times for a Laravel application, is it snappy, ie 500ms or so?

Then is anyone experiencing the same on windows, and how did you solve the issue? I have the same issue on two different clients, with two different machines and setups. It makes Laravel almost unusable on Windows.

Any other pointers I can try. I'm wondering how I can test the DNS and mysql issue to make sure the bottleneck for waiting is not their.

Thanks for any help and insights.

[mpociot]

Microsoft Defender seems to be a common performance issue. You can try and exclude the Herd folder (~/.config/Herd) as well as your site paths and see if this speeds things up.

For me, the first request after starting Herd is always a bit slower and then it speeds up.

[lvismer]

@mpociot Thanks Marcel, will ask the client to try that. I know the client is using Bitdefender. I expected the first request to be slower but every request takes at least 6seconds, typically almost as if the google chrome cannot find the page, with the location spinner going.

[RomkaLTU]

Experience same problem TTFB is 2s, I tried disabling defender, no dice. Unusable at this point, need to switch to WSL.

[RomkaLTU]

I created issue, this related to InertiaJS, maybe something todo with node, everythink is fine when rendering regular blade or serving API.

[pschilly]

Has there been any movement on this issue? I have seemingly randomly started having similar issues... Was working fine up to this morning - now I get a [2024-11-10 13:40:19] local.ERROR: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded {"exception":"[object] (Symfony\\Component\\ErrorHandler\\Error\\FatalError(code: 0): Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded at C:\Users\patri\Herd\heavy\vendor\symfony\finder\Iterator\SortableIterator.php:51)` on every request (running Filament on Herd) - a standard install seems to work without issue though...

[pschilly]

For clarity - here is the full error stack: https://flareapp.io/share/bP9obBo5

Additionally - the exact same codebase that was working fine before - still is working fine via Laravel Sail on WSL2

I have tried the following:

• Complete fresh install of Herd
• Complete fresh install of the codebase from repo
• Complete fresh install of the codebase to an entirely different location on the computer (seperate physical drive)

Nothing seems to correct this issue :|

[ClaraLeigh]

Hey friends,

Here is some performance tips for windows (I'd PR this to docs but there is no github repo for it).

File System Operations

tl;dr reduce how much you are talking to the filesystem as much as possible. Your hdd speeds aren't the problem, php is

• Testing: Use DB transactions around your seeders (if you're seeding) to reduce file updates
• Debugbar: change the driver to redis from file, you'll see loads decrease by half using this alone
• Defender, disable it for the herd .config folder and your project folder

.env file changes:

CACHE_STORE=file
SESSION_DRIVER=redis

Note: weirdly I notice faster speeds when using cache file over redis. I need to come back and investigate that quirk later. You may be different.

PHP setting changes

Update both PHP and MySQL configs to tune for your system.
I have a beefy system so here is my main changes.

First in herd settings change your memory to -1 to disable the limit
Then in the php.ini - update values, don't add

realpath_cache_size = 16M
realpath_cache_ttl = 120

MySQL Changes

my.cnf - mysql, I add all of these to the end. I have a 100+gb ram so decrease these values for your system

innodb_buffer_pool_size=38G
innodb_log_file_size=4G
thread_cache_size=256
table_open_cache=20000
max_connections=300
innodb_io_capacity=10000
tmp_table_size=1G
max_heap_table_size=256M
innodb_log_buffer_size=128M
performance_schema=0

Can we do more?

I suspect there is a lot more little tweaks that can likely do. I'll try to force myself to stay on windows for a little while as I know these things will annoy me until I find a way to fix it

[pschilly]

Well - this worked... Or seems to have.

Still WAY slower than it was originally - but it does load now...

[ClaraLeigh]

yeah honestly the problem is php in windows, see this: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=80695

Looking around it looks like it's not the only windows quirk that slows things down

as said, I'll force myself to use windows for a month or so and I'll post back with anything else I find, oddly I like these sorts of challenges

[ClaraLeigh]

My experiment with windows has come to an end, never beat the slow first load which is what mainly has me back on my mac. It just doesn't seem to like creating lots of small files during the vite dev build.

If someone ever cracks that nut, hmu

[pschilly]

Interesting... I'll give those steps a whirl and see what I find out.

[MGeurts]

To me, slow performance on Windows machines is always due to Microsoft Defender.
Excluding the Herd folder and my Development Folder, solved all performance issues.

Thanks ClaraLeigh!

[mauricekindermann]

Still unusable in 2025. My mac laptop is near instant, and windows, even with all of the above, has a minimum 2 second load per page.

[ClaraLeigh]

After the first page load, mine would be a lot faster. My bottleneck on windows was narrowed down to vite asset serving.
I am back on my mac now but 2secs every time might be something like defender not respecting your rules (which is known to happen)

[mauricekindermann]

Empty controllers are around 2s. Livewire closer to 4s.

I've done all of the above several times over the last 18 months (perodically).

I don't code on Windows anymore beacuse of this, my M.2 Macbook Air is around 80-120ms per request. Shame!