Amazon SQS vs Inngest
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Amazon SQS and Inngest built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose Amazon SQS if…
AWS-resident systems that want a queue with a permanent free million requests a month and no capacity to plan — SQS scales without a throughput setting to choose.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Inngest if…
Multi-step workflows that need durable execution and retries between steps, rather than a bare queue you write a consumer for.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Amazon SQS: Billing is per request rather than per message, and a 1 MiB payload counts as sixteen, so chatty polling or large messages cost far more than the message count suggests.
- Inngest: Every step is a billable execution, so a three-step workflow costs three times what the run count implies, and the free plan allows five concurrent steps.
13 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Amazon SQS 0
Inngest 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Amazon SQS | Inngest |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month. | $99/month for Pro, described as a starting price with usage above the included allowance billed on top. |
| Pricing model | Per request, not per message: every API action counts, and a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests. FIFO queues cost $0.50 per million against standard's $0.40 in us-east-1, and fair queue requests add $0.10 per million on top of the standard rate. | Per execution, where a step counts the same as a run, plus separate meters for events ingested, span data, scores and realtime connections. The pricing page ships a calculator because the execution count is not the run count. |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Regions | 34 commercial AWS Regions plus 2 AWS GovCloud (US) Regions listed in the SQS service endpoints table. | All customer data hosted on AWS databases located in the United States; no other region offered on the security page. |
| Queues | ||
| Included per month | 1,000,000 requests a month free, permanently and across all regions. Beyond that, standard queues are $0.40 per million in us-east-1, falling to $0.30 above 100 billion and $0.24 above 200 billion. | 50,000 executions a month on the free Hobby plan and 1,000,000 on Pro, pay-as-you-go to 20M. An execution is one function run or one step, so a run with two steps counts as three. |
| Maximum message size | 256 KB per message. A single request carries 1 to 10 messages up to 1 MiB total, and each 64 KB chunk of payload is billed as one request. | 4 MiB per step-returned payload; 32 MiB total function run state; 10 MiB hard cap per event batch. |
| Message retention | 4 days by default; configurable from 60 seconds up to 14 days per queue. | Queue depth rather than a time window: 100,000 queued items on the free plan and 1,000,000 or more on Pro. Trace retention is 7 days on Pro and 90 on Enterprise. |
| Maximum delay | 15 minutes maximum per-message delay (message timer) or per-queue delay; default is 0 seconds. | Step sleeps up to 1 year on paid plans; the free plan supports sleeps up to 7 days. |
| Concurrency | Approximately 120,000 in-flight messages per standard queue (received but not yet deleted); API call rate on standard queues is nearly unlimited. | 5 concurrent steps on the free plan, 100 or more on Pro, custom on Enterprise. |
| Compliance | ||
| SOC 2 | Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. | SOC 2 Type II compliant; report available on request via the trust center. |
| HIPAA | Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page. | HIPAA BAAs offered as an add-on for healthcare compliance (Enterprise column of the pricing table). |
| Encryption at rest | Server-side encryption of queue contents with SQS-managed keys (SSE-SQS) or AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS). | All data in Inngest databases is encrypted at rest and in transit; optional encryption middleware lets you bring your own key. |
| Customer-managed keys | Supported via SSE-KMS: queues can use a customer managed KMS key created and policy-controlled in AWS KMS. | Bring-your-own-key via SDK encryption middleware that encrypts payloads client-side before they reach Inngest; not a server-side KMS option. |
| Role-based access control | IAM identity-based policies on users, groups and roles plus resource-based queue policies control access to queues and actions. | SAML, RBAC and audit trails listed as Enterprise plan features. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- Amazon SQS
- No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month.
- Inngest
- $99/month for Pro, described as a starting price with usage above the included allowance billed on top.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon SQS Pricing ↗
“With AWS SQS, you pay only for what you use and there is no minimum fee.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- Pricing — Inngest ↗
“Pro [...] Starting at $99/mo [...] 1M executions included Pay as you go up to 20M”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing model
- Amazon SQS
- Per request, not per message: every API action counts, and a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests. FIFO queues cost $0.50 per million against standard's $0.40 in us-east-1, and fair queue requests add $0.10 per million on top of the standard rate.
- Inngest
- Per execution, where a step counts the same as a run, plus separate meters for events ingested, span data, scores and realtime connections. The pricing page ships a calculator because the execution count is not the run count.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List API — AWSQueueService, us-east-1 ↗
“"$0.50 per million Amazon SQS FIFO requests in Tier1 in US East" [...] "$0.40 per million Amazon SQS standard requests in Tier1" [...] "$0.10 per million Amazon SQS fair queue requests in US East"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Inngest ↗
“TOTAL EXECUTIONS PER MONTH (30,000 runs × 2 steps per run) + 30,000 runs = 90,000 executions [...] 500 MB span data ingested [...] 10K scores [...] 500k events ingested [...] 50 realtime connections”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Regions
- Amazon SQS
- 34 commercial AWS Regions plus 2 AWS GovCloud (US) Regions listed in the SQS service endpoints table.
- Inngest
- All customer data hosted on AWS databases located in the United States; no other region offered on the security page.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon Simple Queue Service endpoints and quotas - AWS General Reference ↗
“Region Name Region Endpoint Protocol US East (Ohio) us-east-2 sqs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com [...] AWS GovCloud (US-West) us-gov-west-1 sqs.us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Security | Inngest ↗
“All of our data is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) databases. These databases are all located in the United States.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
Included per month
- Amazon SQS
- 1,000,000 requests a month free, permanently and across all regions. Beyond that, standard queues are $0.40 per million in us-east-1, falling to $0.30 above 100 billion and $0.24 above 200 billion.
- Inngest
- 50,000 executions a month on the free Hobby plan and 1,000,000 on Pro, pay-as-you-go to 20M. An execution is one function run or one step, so a run with two steps counts as three.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List API — AWSQueueService, us-east-1 ↗
“"First 1,000,000 Amazon SQS Requests per month are free" [...] "$0.40 per million Amazon SQS standard requests in Tier1 in US East" [...] "$0.30 per million ... Tier2" [...] "$0.24 per million ... Tier3"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Inngest ↗
“50k executions [...] 1M executions included Pay as you go up to 20M [...] (30,000 runs × 2 steps per run) + 30,000 runs = 90,000 executions [...] A single durable function run or step execution”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum message size
256 KB per message. A single request carries 1 to 10 messages up to 1 MiB total, and each 64 KB chunk of payload is billed as one request.
4 MiB per step-returned payload; 32 MiB total function run state; 10 MiB hard cap per event batch.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon SQS Pricing — AWS ↗
“A single request can have from 1 to 10 messages, up to a maximum total payload of 1 MiB. [...] Each 64 KB chunk of a payload is billed as 1 request (for example, an API action with a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests).”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- Inngest usage limits - Inngest Documentation ↗
“Step-returned payload size 4MiB Applies to data returned by a step. Function run state size 32MiB Includes event data, step data, function return data, and internal metadata.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Message retention
- Amazon SQS
- 4 days by default; configurable from 60 seconds up to 14 days per queue.
- Inngest
- Queue depth rather than a time window: 100,000 queued items on the free plan and 1,000,000 or more on Pro. Trace retention is 7 days on Pro and 90 on Enterprise.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon SQS message quotas - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“Message retention By default, a message is retained for 4 days. The minimum is 60 seconds (1 minute). The maximum is 1,209,600 seconds (14 days).”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Pricing — Inngest ↗
“100k queue depth [...] 1M+ queue depth [...] Granular tracing, metrics, alerts + 7 day trace retention [...] Advanced tracing, metrics, alerts + 90 day trace retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum delay
15 minutes maximum per-message delay (message timer) or per-queue delay; default is 0 seconds.
Step sleeps up to 1 year on paid plans; the free plan supports sleeps up to 7 days.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon SQS message quotas - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“Message timer The default (minimum) delay for a message is 0 seconds. The maximum is 15 minutes.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Inngest usage limits - Inngest Documentation ↗
“Step sleep duration Up to 1 year Free plan supports sleeps up to 7 days.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Concurrency
- Amazon SQS
- Approximately 120,000 in-flight messages per standard queue (received but not yet deleted); API call rate on standard queues is nearly unlimited.
- Inngest
- 5 concurrent steps on the free plan, 100 or more on Pro, custom on Enterprise.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon SQS standard queue quotas - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“For most standard queues (depending on queue traffic and message backlog), there can be a maximum of approximately 120,000 in flight messages (received from a queue by a consumer, but not yet deleted from the queue).”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Pricing — Inngest ↗
“5 concurrent steps [...] 100+ concurrent steps [...] Custom concurrent steps”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
SOC 2
- Amazon SQS
- Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page.
- Inngest
- SOC 2 Type II compliant; report available on request via the trust center.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Services in Scope for SOC ↗
“Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) listed with a checkmark on the SOC services-in-scope page.”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
- Security | Inngest ↗
“Inngest is SOC 2 Type II compliant. [...] Read our announcement , request a copy of the report or contact us for additional questions.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
HIPAA
- Amazon SQS
- Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page.
- Inngest
- HIPAA BAAs offered as an add-on for healthcare compliance (Enterprise column of the pricing table).
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS HIPAA Eligible Services Reference ↗
“Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) listed on the HIPAA-eligible services reference page.”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
- Pricing | Inngest ↗
“Dedicated slack channel Direct P0 support from our team HIPAA BAAs for healthcare compliance Add-on”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
Encryption at rest
- Amazon SQS
- Server-side encryption of queue contents with SQS-managed keys (SSE-SQS) or AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS).
- Inngest
- All data in Inngest databases is encrypted at rest and in transit; optional encryption middleware lets you bring your own key.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Encryption at rest in Amazon SQS - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“SSE protects the contents of messages in queues using SQS-managed encryption keys (SSE-SQS) or keys managed in the AWS Key Management Service (SSE-KMS).”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Security - Inngest Documentation ↗
“End to end encryption All data in Inngest databases is encrypted at rest and encrypted in transit, including between Inngest's servers and your servers.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Customer-managed keys
- Amazon SQS
- Supported via SSE-KMS: queues can use a customer managed KMS key created and policy-controlled in AWS KMS.
- Inngest
- Bring-your-own-key via SDK encryption middleware that encrypts payloads client-side before they reach Inngest; not a server-side KMS option.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Encryption at rest in Amazon SQS - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“You can create KMS keys, define the policies that control how KMS keys can be used, and audit KMS key usage using the Customer managed keys section of the AWS KMS console or the CreateKey AWS KMS action.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Security - Inngest Documentation ↗
“For an added layer of encryption and control of your data, install encryption middleware and bring your own encryption key.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Role-based access control
- Amazon SQS
- IAM identity-based policies on users, groups and roles plus resource-based queue policies control access to queues and actions.
- Inngest
- SAML, RBAC and audit trails listed as Enterprise plan features.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Overview of managing access in Amazon SQS - Amazon Simple Queue Service ↗
“An account administrator can attach permissions policies to IAM identities (users, groups, and roles), and some services (such as Amazon SQS) also support attaching permissions policies to resources.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Pricing | Inngest ↗
“Advanced tracing, metrics, alerts + 90 day trace retention Dedicated Slack channel SAML, RBAC, audit trails”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Amazon SQS or Inngest?
Amazon SQS: No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month.
Inngest: $99/month for Pro, described as a starting price with usage above the included allowance billed on top.
Should I choose Amazon SQS or Inngest?
Pick Amazon SQS if AWS-resident systems that want a queue with a permanent free million requests a month and no capacity to plan — SQS scales without a throughput setting to choose.
Pick Inngest if Multi-step workflows that need durable execution and retries between steps, rather than a bare queue you write a consumer for.