ACacid__·Apr 27, 2022
Hah, yes, I've unironically used https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer in production before. ~900 stars on Github...
In We unplugged a data center to test our disaster readinesskzk
unicorn-worker-killer
Ruby2013–2022
kzk / unicorn-worker-killer
unicorn-worker-killer
Automatically restart Unicorn workers based on 1) max number of requests and 2) max memory
6Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
894GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Automatically restart Unicorn workers based on 1) max number of requests and 2) max memory
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-02-27 04:06:52 UTC to 2022-04-27 02:45:50 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
6 sourcesYou might want to look into using https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer which _should_ be enabled by default (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/bce482a59a235ed...). Besides that we're working on fixing performance problems, cutting down memory usage, etc.
In GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees departAdmittedly, the "restart server process after N connections" method of dealing with memory leaks is not specific to just PHP.
It's also present in Apache, and thus mod_rails and mod_wsgi, by default[1], is an option in Gunicorn[2], and a gem is also available to provide the same in Unicorn.[3]
1 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mpm_common.html#maxrequ...
2 http://gunicorn-docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/settings.html...
3 https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer
In Lumen – A micro-framework by LaravelThanks for your support. Indeed, communication and transparency into how the product works as far as how it affects your app are two things we'd like to get better at.
Regarding your app: indeed, Unicorn is a huge improvement, but far from the end of the story. "Performance" is like "security" or "uptime" — it's not a one-time feature, something you check off a list and move on. It's something that requires constant work, and every time you fix one problem or bottleneck that just leads you to the next one.
Over time, though, your vigilance pays off with a service that its users deem to be fast or secure or have good uptime. Yet there's no such thing as a finish line on these.
Bringing it back to details. Kazuki from Treasure Data made this Unicorn worker killer that might help you: https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer If you're st
Read the rest
ill not happy with your app's performance, give me a shout at adam at heroku dot com and we'll see if we can help.
One of the comments on the Heroku article mentions this gem, which does just that:
https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer
In Adding Concurrency to Rails Apps with UnicornI am glad to see them mentioning this. We use Unicorn, and have for quite a while, as a means of lowering the bottlenecks and slow response times. I strongly suggest looking at Unicorn Worker Killer too (https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer) given the cap on memory for the dynos
In Adding Concurrency to Rails Apps with Unicorn