Laravel already has last_activity timestamp column in sessions table by default; I believe it updates on every request. Is that what you need?
1 like
Jun 18, 2026
13
Track user's last activity
I want to track user's last activity. I'm using Vue, Inertia, and Laravel.
I think having a session table or adding a last_activity column in users table is fine. Then update that every request.
Wouldn't it be expensive performance-wise, since it creates transaction to the database every single request? What about recording that data to JS sessionStorage instead?
Level 6
That's probably it. Would it break if I remove ip_address, user_agent, and payload? I only need last_activity
Level 33
Yes it would. Don't "fix" Laravel internal mechanisms, they work fine. Just use them.
Level 6
Writing to the DB on every single request will definitely crush your database once you start seeing real traffic.
JS sessionStorage won't work if you actually need the server to know their status (for example, to show an "online" badge to other users or for backend analytics), since it only lives in the client's browser.
Level 50
Writing to the DB on every single request will definitely crush your database once you start seeing real traffic.
That's a massive hyperbole, unless your definiton of "real traffic" is thousands of requests per second. And then you're hitting other bottle necks first.
If Laravel accesses the DB during each request, e.g. by pulling a user model, the additional cost of updating a single timestamp is minimal. Most of the overhead comes from establishing a database connection.
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Level 6
I'm only using database as the session driver. Would it cause problem?
Level 50
It's no problem if you don't see any problems.
If you start seeing database errors due to a high volume of traffic, you can switch to something like Redis.
As already mentioned, the sessions table already has a last_activity column (Unix timestamp) that's updated on every request.
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Level 6
I'll use database driver for now. Would it break if I remove the cols other than the FK and last_activity, though?
Level 50
Yes it would. Where would the session data be stored? And why are you even thinking about removing columns?
Not sure exactly what it is you want to track here, but a table trigger might be an alternative if you want to track changes made byt the user.
https://tray2.se/posts/using-table-triggers-to-log-changes-in-your-database-tables
1 like
Level 6
I just want the time when the user was last active. The sessions table provided by laravel could suffice it. Would it break if I remove the cols other than the fk and last_activity?
Level 2
what kind of activity?
Level 6
The time when user was active
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