Free and open first
Best Task Queue Software in 2026
Task queue software lets applications hand off work for processing outside the immediate request, including jobs that need retries or scheduled execution. Compare deployment model, official SDK languages and maximum payload size alongside custom retry policy and dead-letter queue support. Scheduled jobs may be important for work that should run later; free-plan availability and paid-from pricing add cost considerations. IronWorker, Faktory and Inngest are among the entries. Think about how your application should handle failed work, which languages fit your stack, and what payloads your jobs need to carry. The listed criteria help you compare queue behavior and deployment fit.
- 37 apps
- Research read 23 Sept 2026
- How the order is worked out
- 1
Gearman
Free plan Open source APILinuxMac+2Choose Gearman if you need a free, self-hosted framework for routing jobs among clients, job servers, and workers, with support for multiple languages and job server failover.
- 2
Graphile Worker
Free plan Open source APILinuxMac+2Graphile Worker combines PostgreSQL-backed jobs, scheduling, and retry behavior in a self-hosted package.
- 3
Hangfire
Free plan Open source APILinuxSelf-hosted+2Hangfire provides background job processing, persistent storage, and a dashboard for .NET applications. Its Core is free, while Pro and Ace add features through paid plans.
- 4
Inngest
Free plan Open source APILinuxMac+3Inngest provides durable execution, observability, and flow controls for asynchronous workflows.
- 5
Celery
Free plan APILinuxMac+1Celery offers a self-hosted queue with scheduling, worker management, and several documented transports. Teams should account for broker-specific capability limits and the project's security guidance.
- 6
beanstalkd
Free plan LinuxMacSelf-hostedBeanstalkd provides a straightforward queue model with tubes, blocking reservations, and optional binlog recovery.
- 7
Django Q2
Free plan LinuxMacSelf-hosted+1Django Q2 brings task execution, scheduling, and monitoring into a Django-oriented application, with several broker choices. Confirm that its supported Python and Django versions fit your project.
- 8
Faktory
Free plan LinuxMacSelf-hosted+1Faktory pairs persistent job storage with a web UI and worker bindings across many languages.
- 9
Asynq
Free plan APISelf-hostedAsynq provides task queueing and worker processing for Go applications backed by Redis, with scheduling and operational controls.
- 10
Agenda
Free plan APIChoose Agenda if you need a self-hosted Node.js job scheduler with configurable execution and a choice of storage backends.
- 11
Google Tasks
Free plan AndroidiPhoneWebGoogle Tasks covers recurring reminders, lists, subtasks, and selected collaboration features at no charge. Note that it requires internet access and shared-document task assignment is plan-limited.
- 12
Hatchet
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted+1Choose Hatchet if you need durable workflow execution, controls for retries and scheduling, and options to self-host the orchestration engine.
- 13
IronWorker
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted+2IronWorker combines queued task execution, scheduling, and multiple deployment choices for custom background work.
- 14
pg-boss
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted+1pg-boss provides scheduling and queue controls within a PostgreSQL-based setup. Account for its runtime and database requirements, and make handlers safe for possible repeated delivery.
- 15
Procrastinate
Free plan APILinuxMac+2Procrastinate covers scheduling, retries, and lock-based job ordering for Python applications using PostgreSQL.
- 16
BullMQ
Free plan Self-hostedBullMQ provides scheduling, retries, job flows, rate controls, and monitoring for distributed background work.
- 17
Delayed Job
Free plan Self-hostedDelayed Job provides queueing, scheduling, and retry controls for background work in a self-hosted package.
- 18
Dramatiq
Free plan LinuxSelf-hostedWindowsDramatiq provides task queuing, retries, scheduling, workflow composition, and testing tools for Python projects. Review broker, deployment, and message-format requirements before adopting it.
- 19
GoodJob
Free plan Self-hostedWebGoodJob provides a wide range of job-processing controls for Rails applications using PostgreSQL.
- 20
JobRunr
Free plan APISelf-hostedWebJobRunr combines JVM job scheduling with a free OSS plan and paid capabilities for queues, workflows, and larger deployments.
- 21
Bee-Queue
Free plan APISelf-hostedBee-Queue provides core Redis-backed job processing for Node.js, including scheduling, retries, and event reporting.
- 22
Huey
Free plan Self-hostedHuey provides scheduling, retries, task controls, and workflow composition for Python projects, with framework integrations and multiple worker models.
- 23
RQ (Redis Queue)
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hostedChoose RQ if you need a free, self-hosted Python queue with scheduling, retries and worker-based execution.
- 24
Machinery
Free plan Self-hostedMachinery provides a broad queue and workflow feature set in a self-hosted Go library with no listed cost. Broker, result-backend, inspection, and JSON constraints should shape deployment choices.
- 25
Oban
Free plan Self-hostedOban offers a free foundation and paid features for workflow recovery and cluster-wide job controls. Choose a plan with its application limit and the Open Source feature exclusions in mind.
#1Places #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 on this list can be bought by the makers of the software on it. See the price
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