Inngest vs Upstash QStash
Agent-native side-by-side. Scores are curated estimates on a 0–10 scale. Lock-in: higher = worse. Prefer JTBD picks via /api/decide when choosing for a job.
| Dimension | Inngest | Upstash QStash |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | 8.1 | 8.4 |
| Capability fit | 8.2 | 8.2 |
| Price / performance | 8.0 | 9.2 |
| Latency / reliability | 8.4 | 8.4 |
| Developer & agent DX | 9.0 | 9.2 |
| Privacy / data retention | 7.8 | 7.8 |
| Lock-in risk (higher = worse) | 4.2 | 3.5 |
| Maturity / track record | 7.8 | 8.0 |
| Pricing | As of 2026-09-14: Hobby $0 (50k executions); Pro from $99/mo (1M executions, PAYG to 20M); Enterprise custom. OSS self-host available. Step functions with retries, fan-out, and observability aimed at event-driven agents. | As of 2026-09-14 (upstash.com/pricing/qstash): Free 1k messages/day, 50 GB, 1 MB max. PAYG $1 per 100k messages (unlimited/day, 10 MB, 1-year delay); bandwidth free to 50 GB then $0.05/GB. Fixed 1M $180/mo; Fixed 10M $42… |
| Tagline | Best DX default for durable agent workflows in TypeScript/Python. Temporal when you need harder multi-lang… | Depot pick for a raw serverless agent event backbone (webhooks, delayed retries, fan-out) without operating… |
Inngest
Best DX default for durable agent workflows in TypeScript/Python. Temporal when you need harder multi-lang scale. Strengths: Great DX for durable steps; Fair free tier; OSS escape hatch.
Strengths
- Great DX for durable steps
- Fair free tier
- OSS escape hatch
Weaknesses
- Less multi-language maturity than Temporal
- Execution pricing to model
- Younger at extreme scale
Upstash QStash
Depot pick for a raw serverless agent event backbone (webhooks, delayed retries, fan-out) without operating Kafka/SQS. Inngest when you need durable steps; NATS/Synadia when you need a real messaging fabric; WarpStream/Confluent when you already are Kafka. Strengths: Serverless HTTP queue/scheduler with almost no ops —
Strengths
- Serverless HTTP queue/scheduler with almost no ops — ideal agent callback bus
- Penny-level PAYG and a real free tier
- Works from Workers/Vercel/edge without a VPC
Weaknesses
- Not a workflow engine (no step state like Inngest/Temporal)
- Retries are billable
- SOC2 requires add-on until Enterprise
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