As your Rails app grows, it’s not just about fancy features and slick design—it's about keeping things running like clockwork behind the scenes. That’s where background jobs come in, quietly handling all the heavy lifting while your app stays fast and responsive. 

But here’s the real question: Sidekiq or ActiveJob? Which one should you choose to supercharge your scaling efforts? 

In this blog, we’ll break down the Sidekiq vs ActiveJob showdown, guide you through the Sidekiq Rails setup, and explore how ActiveJob can be your secret weapon in keeping things smooth. Ready to level up? Let’s dive in!

Background Jobs Rails: Why So Important?

Many operations in modern Rails apps, such as emailing users, analyzing massive datasets, or calling external APIs, can be time-consuming and hinder user-application interaction. 

It is recommended that time-consuming operations be executed asynchronously in the background to prevent bottlenecks and preserve a seamless user experience without interfering with the primary application flow. 

Rails apps can manage these tasks more effectively thanks to background jobs, which increase scalability and performance. 

Common use cases for background jobs include:

- Sending emails

- Processing file uploads

- Generating reports

- Performing scheduled tasks (e.g., cleanup or maintenance)

Using background job processing systems like Sidekiq or SoliqQueue enables Rails apps to offload these tasks to workers who handle them independently, ensuring the application remains responsive.

Setting Up Sidekiq and SoliqQueue: Installing and Configuring the Gems

First, let’s learn how to set up Sidekiq and SolidQueue.

1. Sidekiq Installation

Follow these steps in the same manner to install Sidekiq on your system. 

First, Install the gem.

To use Sidekiq, add the following gem to your Rails app's `Gemfile`:

gem 'sidekiq'

Then, run `bundle install` to install it.

Configure Sidekiq.

Create a configuration file for Sidekiq (usually `config/sidekiq.yml`):

:concurrency: 5

:queues:

  - default

  - mailers

In your Rails application configuration (`config/application.rb`), include the following:

config.active_job.queue_adapter = :sidekiq

Finally, set up the Sidekiq process in your environment using Redis:sidekiq

2. SoliqQueue Installation

To install SolidQueue, follow these steps:

Install the gem.

Similarly, add SoliqQueue to your `Gemfile` following this key:

gem 'soliq_queue'

Run `bundle install.`

Configure SoliqQueue. 

Create a SoliqQueue configuration file (`config/soliq_queue.yml`):

:concurrency: 3

:queues:

  - default

  - high_priority

In your `config/application.rb`:

config.active_job.queue_adapter = :soliq_queue

Both Sidekiq and SoliqQueue integrate with ActiveJob, making it easy to switch between them if needed.

Writing Background Jobs: Example of Sending Emails Asynchronously

Now that we know how to install the Sidekiq and SolidQueue, let’s head on to write active job rails:

1. Example with Sidekiq

To send emails asynchronously using Sidekiq, you would create a job like this:

class UserMailerJob < ApplicationJob

  queue_as :mailers

  def perform(user)

UserMailer.welcome_email(user).deliver_later

  end

end

You can then enqueue the job:

UserMailerJob.perform_later(@user)

This sends the email in the background, ensuring the main thread is not blocked.

2. Example with SoliqQueue

Similarly, with SoliqQueue, you create a job to send emails:

class UserMailerJob < ApplicationJob

  queue_as :mailers

  def perform(user)

UserMailer.welcome_email(user).deliver_later

  end

end

And you can enqueue it in the same way:

UserMailerJob.perform_later(@user)

Sidekiq and SoliqQueue allow job prioritization by assigning tasks to specific queues, ensuring that high-priority jobs are executed promptly.

Monitoring and Managing Jobs: How to Use the Sidekiq Web Interface

Sidekiq has an integrated web interface that allows you to monitor background jobs. You can keep an eye on all active, pending, and failed jobs and remove failed jobs to make the interface look more sophisticated.
You must first add the following to your `config/routes.rb} to enable the Sidekiq web interface:

require 'sidekiq/web'

mount Sidekiq::Web => '/sidekiq'

Now you can access the Sidekiq dashboard by visiting `/sidekiq` in your browser.

Unfortunately, SoliqQueue does not have a built-in web interface. However, you can monitor its jobs using third-party tools or custom dashboards.

Scaling Background Jobs: Best Practices for Handling Large Queues

As your application grows, so will the demand for your background job system. Here are some best practices for scaling Sidekiq and SoliqQueue:

Increase concurrency: Both Sidekiq and SoliqQueue allow you to configure the number of workers processing jobs concurrently. To handle more jobs simultaneously, increase the concurrency setting in your configuration file.

Employ distinct queues: Make separate queues to split the tasks that need immediate attention. You can make a `high_priority` queue and a `low_priority` queue.
Horizontal scaling: To spread the burden in large-scale applications, you can set up several Sidekiq or SoliqQueue workers on various hosts

 Monitor job execution: Regularly monitor job performance to identify bottlenecks. For Sidekiq, the web interface is a great way to track job health. With SoliqQueue, custom monitoring solutions can help keep track of job execution.

Conclusion

Sidekiq is a well-known, high-performance background job processing solution for Ruby on Rails. It includes a web interface for monitoring and Redis-based job queuing. Because of its community support, scalability, and reliability, it is the preferred choice for most Rails applications.

Although less common, SoliqQueue is made for more straightforward use cases where a more basic job processing system might be sufficient. Smaller apps or those that don't require Sidekiq's sophisticated functionality and monitoring capabilities might be a suitable choice.

In conclusion, Sidekiq is a superior option if you're developing an application that requires great scalability, real-time monitoring, and a dependable queuing mechanism. When simplicity is crucial, SoliqQueue might be considered for smaller, lighter applications. 

Get to know which one is best by discussing it with Techdots. 

‍