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PHP Process Manager

A lightweight parallel process runner for PHP. Execute multiple scripts or commands concurrently with configurable parallelism, timeouts, and real-time output tracking.

Overview

What is it?

PHP Process Manager is a concurrent task runner that spawns and manages multiple OS processes simultaneously. Instead of running tasks one after another (sequential), it executes them in parallel—dramatically reducing total execution time for batch operations.

Think of it as a simple process pool or worker spawner: you queue up scripts, set a concurrency limit, and the manager handles execution, monitoring, timeouts, and result collection.

Who is it for?

Why use it?

PHP is single-threaded by default. When you have independent tasks, running them sequentially wastes time:

This package is ideal when you need to:

• Run the same script multiple times with different inputs
• Execute multiple independent scripts as part of a workflow
• Process batches of work faster by parallelising
• Add timeout protection to unreliable external calls
• Limit concurrency to avoid overwhelming external services

When to use it (and when not to)

✅ Good fit:

• Tasks are independent and don't share state
• Each task can run as a separate PHP script or CLI command
• You need timeout protection for unreliable tasks
• You want to limit concurrency (e.g., max 5 API calls at once)
• Tasks take seconds to minutes to complete

❌ Consider alternatives for:

• Tasks requiring shared memory or real-time inter-process communication → use parallel extension
• Web request handling with high throughput → use a message queue (Redis, RabbitMQ, SQS)
• Sub-second task spawning at high frequency → process overhead becomes significant
• Long-running daemon processes → use Supervisor or systemd instead

Real-World Use Cases

1. Batch Data Import

Import thousands of records by processing files in parallel:

2. Multi-API Data Collection

Fetch data from multiple APIs simultaneously:

3. Image/Video Processing Pipeline

Process media files in parallel using CLI tools:

4. Database Migration Runner

Run independent migrations concurrently:

5. Parallel Test Execution

Run test suites faster:

6. Multi-Server Deployment

Deploy to multiple servers simultaneously:

Features

• 🚀 Concurrent Execution - Run multiple processes in parallel
• ⏱️ Timeout Management - Automatically kill processes that exceed time limits
• 📊 Result Tracking - Get detailed results for each process (exit codes, output, timing)
• 🎨 Flexible Output - Console, HTML, or custom output handlers
• 🔧 Fluent API - Chain configuration methods for clean setup
• 🏷️ Fully Typed - PHP 8.2+ with strict typing and readonly classes

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or higher
• proc_open function enabled

Installation

Via Composer

Manual Installation

Clone the repository and include the autoloader:

Quick Start

Usage

Basic Configuration

Fluent API

Adding Scripts

Output Handlers

The package includes several output handlers:

Custom Output Handler

Implement the OutputHandlerInterface for custom output:

Working with Results

API Reference

ProcessManager

ProcessResult

Upgrading from v1.x

The 2.0 release is a complete rewrite with breaking changes:

Key Changes

• Namespace: DaleHurley\ProcessManager
• Class renamed: Processmanager → ProcessManager
• Method renamed: exec() → run()
• Property renamed: root → workingDirectory
• Property renamed: processes → maxConcurrentProcesses
• Output handling now uses dedicated handler classes
• Returns detailed ProcessResult objects instead of void

Testing

Run the test suite with PHPUnit:

Run static analysis with PHPStan (level 8):

Alternatives

This package is intentionally simple and lightweight. Depending on your needs, consider these alternatives:

For More Complex Process Management

For Queue-Based Processing

For True Multi-Threading

When to Choose This Package

Choose PHP Process Manager when you need:

• ✅ Simple, zero-dependency process spawning
• ✅ Quick setup without infrastructure (no Redis, no queue server)
• ✅ Timeout management built-in
• ✅ Result collection from all processes
• ✅ CLI script orchestration
• ✅ Lightweight alternative to full queue systems

Choose alternatives when you need:

• ❌ Persistent job storage and retry logic → use queues
• ❌ Distributed processing across servers → use message queues
• ❌ Shared memory between tasks → use parallel extension
• ❌ Web-scale throughput → use dedicated worker systems

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Credits

• Original concept by Matou Havlena (havlena.net)
• Modernized by Dale Hurley (dalehurley.com)