All You Need to Know About Salesforce Governor Limits

The concept of Salesforce Governor Limits exists because Salesforce and Apex run in a multi-tenant environment.

In this article, I will explain what Governor Limits actually are in Salesforce. I’ll also provide some examples of the different types while highlighting why they are so important within a multi-tenancy set-up.

Salesforce Multi-tenancy => Salesforce architecture is so popular because of its multi-tenancy.

Multitenancy is a means of providing a single application to multiple organizations, such as different companies or departments within a company, from a single hardware-software stack. Because of multitenancy, any developer can develop an application, upload it to the cloud, and easily share it with multiple clients or groups. Multiple users share the same server and applications, making it very cost-effective. In Salesforce, thanks to this multi-tenant architecture, all customer data is stored in a single database.

Salesforce Governor Limits?

In order for the code to run efficiently, Salesforce.com sets certain restrictions. Simply put, Salesforce Governor Limits are usage limits enforced by Salesforce to ensure efficient processing. They enable multiple users of the platform without limiting performance.

Types of Salesforce Governor Limits

Per-transaction Certified Managed Package Apex Limits
Static Apex Limits
Lightning Platform Apex Limits
Size-specific Apex Limits
Per-transaction Apex Limits
Miscellaneous Apex Limit

Don't forget to check out: Learn About the Governor Limits in Salesforce

Per Transaction Certified Managed Package Limits: If a managed package developed by a Salesforce ISV has passed a security review, it is generally granted higher transaction limits.

Overview	Governor Limit
SOQL queries issued (total number)	1100
Records retrieved by Database.getQueryLocator (total number)	110000
SOSL queries issued (total number)	220
DML statements issued (total number)	1650
Governor Limits in Salesforce for the total number of callouts (HTTP requests or web services calls) per transaction	1100
SendEmail methods allowed (total number)	110

Static Apex Limit: Apex Limits that apply to all transactions.

Overview	Governor Limit
Default timeout of callouts (HTTP requests or Web services calls) in a transaction	10 sec.
Max. size of callout request or response (HTTP request or Web services call)	6 MB for synchronous Apex \| 12 MB for asynchronous Apex
Max. SOQL query run time prior to transaction cancellation by Salesforce	120 sec.
Max. number of class and trigger code units in Apex deployment	5000
Batch size of Apex trigger	200
Batch size for loop list	200
Max. record number returned for a Batch Apex query in Database.QueryLocator	50000000

Per-Transaction Apex Limits: These limits are calculated for each Apex transaction. For Batch Apex, these limits are reset for each execution of a batch of records in the execution method.

Overview	Governor Limits for Synchronous Transactions	Governor Limits for Asynchronous Transactions
SOQL queries issues(total numbers)	100	200
Record retrieved by SOQL queries (total numbers)	5000
Record retrieved by Database.getQueryLocator (total number)	10000
SOSL queries issued (total number)	20
Records retrieved by one SOSL query (total number)	2000
DML statements issued (total number)	150
Records processed as a result of DML statements, Approval.process, or database.emptyRecycleBin (total number)	10000
Stack depth total for any Apex invocation that recursively fires triggers because of insert, update, or delete statements	16
Callouts (HTTP requests or web services calls) per transaction (total number)	100
Max. cumulative timeout for all callouts (HTTP requests or Web services calls) per transaction	120 sec.
Max. number of methods with the future annotation allowed per Apex invocation	50	0 in batch and future contexts; 1 in queueable context
Max. number of Apex jobs added to the queue with System.enqueueJob	50	1
Allowed sendEmail methods (total number)	10
Heap size total	6MB	12MB
Max. CPU time on the Salesforce servers	10 thousand milliseconds.	60 thousand milliseconds.
Max. execution time per Apex transaction	10 min.
Max. number of push notification method calls allowed per Apex transaction	10
Max. number of push notifications that can be sent in each push notification method call	2000

Lightning Platform Apex Limit: These limits are not specific to the Apex transaction and are enforced by the Lightning platform.

Overview	Governor Limit
The maximum number of asynchronous Apex method executions (Batch Apex, future methods, Queueable Apex, and Scheduled Apex) per 24-hour period	Either 250,000 or the number of user licenses in the org multiplied by 200, whichever is greater
The number of synchronous concurrent transactions for long-running transactions, which last longer than 5 seconds for each org.	10
The maximum number of Apex classes scheduled concurrently	100. In Developer Edition org, the limit is 5
The maximum number of Batch Apex jobs in the Apex flex queue that is in the Holding status	100
The maximum number of Batch Apex jobs queued or active concurrently	5
The maximum number of Batch Apex job start method concurrent executions	1
The maximum number of batch jobs that can be submitted in a running test	5
The maximum number of test classes that can be queued in a 24-hour period (in Production org other than Developer Edition)	Either 500 or 10 multiplied by the number of test classes in the org, whichever is greater
The maximum number of test classes that can be queued in a 24-hour period (Sandbox and Developer Edition org)	Either 500 or 20 multiplied by the number of test classes in the org, whichever is greater
The maximum number of query cursors open concurrently per user	50
The maximum number of query cursors open concurrently per user for the Batch Apex start method	15
The maximum number of query cursors open concurrently per user for Batch Apex execute and finish methods	5

Size-Specific Apex Limit: Apex Limits related to code size.

Check out another amazing blog here: Bypass Salesforce Governor Limits when Working with Files

Overview	Governor Limit
The maximum number of characters in a class	1 million
The maximum number of characters in a trigger	1 million
The maximum amount of code used by all Apex codes in org1	6 MB
The method size limit 2	65,535 bytecode instructions in a compiled form

Miscellaneous Apex Limit: Inbound Email Limits, Push Notification Limits, Governor Limits for Salesforce API Requests, Chatter REST API Limits, SOAP API Call Limits, API Query Cursor Limits, Metadata Limits, SOQL and SOSL Governor Limits in Salesforce, Visualforce Limits

Advantages of Governor Limits in Salesforce

Governor limits in Salesforce prevent other organizations from using and thus running lengthy code that can take up a lot of memory and even the entire cloud CPU.
Apex has completely different or unique coding limits.
These governor limits help us stay in the right coding space with Apex.

Best Practices to Avoid Governor Limits

Do not have DML statements or SOQL queries inside a For loop.
Try not to use DML or SOQL operations in a loop.
Try to bulkify the code and use Helper Methods.
Query large datasets.
If we want to process 50,000 records, use Batch Apex.
One trigger per object.
Use query and collection simplifications for loops.
Use @future Appropriately.
Avoid hard-coding IDs.

I hope you now understand how governor limits in Apex work and how to avoid them.

Conclusion

We hope you now understand how governor limits work in Apex and how to avoid them. When working on code and managing an organization, it's crucial to be aware of the limitations that Salesforce has.