PHP's CLI doesn't share opcache between separately started processes, so every long-running worker compiles your whole app into its own private memory. With 8 Laravel queue workers that's 8 copies of the same compiled code, often 50–80 MB each.

I built queue-prefork to fix that for Laravel's queue:work and Horizon:

• A small template process starts with opcache and no app code.
• Each worker is forked from it with pcntl_fork() and then boots the app itself from the normal artisan entry. So nothing booted is inherited: no DB or Redis connections, sockets, singletons or RNG state. Only the compiled code is shared, through opcache's shared memory.
• The pid your process manager started stays (a tiny /bin/sh stub for queue:work), so supervisord or systemd signals, timeouts and restarts behave as before.

Side-by-side benchmark, two identical Docker stacks on the same job stream, Laravel 13 with ~45 packages, 1 h each:

Same throughput, 0 failed jobs, and less CPU, since new workers don't recompile anything. If any safety check fails, workers run as stock and the package tells you why.

Linux only for production; Laravel 11–13. MIT: https://github.com/tevkert/queue-prefork

Happy to answer questions about the fork and opcache side.