Does observer runs in the background or frontend

Question

I am trying to understand about the events and observers in magento.

I created an observer to listen to an event in the checkout page. I have configured it and it triggers after the place order button is pressed.

My doubt is the observer running in background or in foreground?

Note : I saw that the error in the observer stops the order execution.

One more question I have:

If it runs in foreground, what if I have more than one observer which configured to use the same event. What will be the order of execution?

It depends on the dispatched event for which you have created an observer. — Magento TridhyaTech
– Magento TridhyaTech, Commented May 16, 2024 at 12:33
Foreground is the short answer. Follow where dispatchEvent is used in the codebase — Herve Tribouilloy
– Herve Tribouilloy, Commented May 16, 2024 at 19:06
@HerveTribouilloy looks like you are correct. But if i want to run the observer in the background is there any way to do that? — Haarish Infant Raj
– Haarish Infant Raj, Commented May 17, 2024 at 9:13
use crons, I suspect I would need to understand the context of your query. You need to add more details — Herve Tribouilloy
– Herve Tribouilloy, Commented May 17, 2024 at 9:31

Haarish Infant Raj · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-23 05:58:42Z

Observer runs in foreground only. It will stop if any exception occurs.
To control the order use Plugins instead of Observers, where before, after and around orders are there.
If the execution is need to be asynchronised, use Message Queues. refer:use message queues in magento2
Sort order is not possible in events.xml

Note: This is a compiled answer from above comments. Thanks herve and jigar

General Grievance · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-24 04:05:43Z

0

Yes, it's run in the foreground if more than one event defined. It's not fixed which event is called first

But if you specified sort order in events.xml, then it called base on this sort order.

4571 gold badge7 silver badges12 bronze badges

answered Jul 23, 2024 at 13:28

8134 gold badges22 silver badges42 bronze badges

2 Answers 2