# Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Hatchet

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-hatchet/

Every value below is read from Google Cloud Pub/Sub's and Hatchet's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Google Cloud Pub/Sub | Hatchet |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage. | Usage-first: every plan is "free + usage" or "$N/mo + usage" at $10 per million task runs, with the plan fee buying users, tenants, retention and throughput rather than volume. Self-hosting is offered with support on the enterprise tier. |
| Included per month | 10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source. | 100,000 task runs included free, then $10 per million. The cleanest per-unit rate in this category — Hatchet counts task runs where Cloudflare counts 64 KB operations and Inngest counts steps. |
| Message retention | Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days. | 3 days on the Team plan, stated alongside a 500 requests-per-second throughput ceiling. |
| SOC 2 | Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally. | SOC 2 Type II compliant; reports available through the Hatchet Trust Center. |
| HIPAA | Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. | HIPAA compliant per the security docs; the Scale plan ($1,000/mo) lists audit logs and HIPAA. |

## Where they differ

### Pricing model

- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing))
- Hatchet: Usage-first: every plan is "free + usage" or "$N/mo + usage" at $10 per million task runs, with the plan fee buying users, tenants, retention and throughput rather than volume. Self-hosting is offered with support on the enterprise tier. ([source](https://hatchet.run/pricing))

### Included per month

- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: 10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing))
- Hatchet: 100,000 task runs included free, then $10 per million. The cleanest per-unit rate in this category — Hatchet counts task runs where Cloudflare counts 64 KB operations and Inngest counts steps. ([source](https://hatchet.run/pricing))

### Message retention

- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing))
- Hatchet: 3 days on the Team plan, stated alongside a 500 requests-per-second throughput ceiling. ([source](https://hatchet.run/pricing))

### SOC 2

- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/soc-2))
- Hatchet: SOC 2 Type II compliant; reports available through the Hatchet Trust Center. ([source](https://docs.hatchet.run/v1/security))

### HIPAA

- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/hipaa))
- Hatchet: HIPAA compliant per the security docs; the Scale plan ($1,000/mo) lists audit logs and HIPAA. ([source](https://docs.hatchet.run/v1/security))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Google Cloud Pub/Sub if Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.

Pick Hatchet if Task workloads that want a countable unit — 100,000 runs free and $10 per million is the least ambiguous pricing in this category.

Consider something else: Google Cloud Pub/Sub — Throughput counts bytes both in and out, so a message read once is billed twice, and retention is a storage charge rather than an included window — the headline $40 per TiB is not the whole bill.

Consider something else: Hatchet — The jump from free to the first paid tier is $500 a month, which buys retention and throughput rather than volume, so a small production workload pays a lot for features it may not need.

## Documented by only one

- Entry paid plan: Hatchet: $500/month for Team, which adds users, tenants, retention and throughput on top of usage. Scale is $1,000/month.
- Regions: Hatchet: 3 live AWS regions (Oregon, N. Virginia, Ireland) plus Sydney in private beta; control plane in aws-us-west-2.
- Ingest price per GB: Google Cloud Pub/Sub: $40 per TiB, which is $0.039 per GiB, for standard publish and subscribe throughput in every Google Cloud region.
- Maximum message size: Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub bills on bytes rather than message count; the pricing page states no per-message size ceiling and prices throughput and storage instead.
- Concurrency: Hatchet: 500 requests per second of throughput on Team; higher tiers are not published as a number.
- ISO 27001: Google Cloud Pub/Sub: The Google Cloud Services ISMS holds an accredited ISO/IEC 27001 certification, audited by an independent third party.
- GDPR / data residency: Hatchet: GDPR compliant per the security docs; EU data plane available in aws-eu-west-1 (Ireland).
- PCI DSS: Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub is listed among the individual Google Cloud products certified against PCI DSS via annual third-party audit.
- Encryption at rest: Hatchet: Data stored in Hatchet Cloud is encrypted at rest; API and worker traffic encrypted with TLS in transit.
- Role-based access control: Hatchet: Hierarchical tenant roles OWNER, ADMIN, MEMBER, VIEWER plus organization roles; payload visibility can be restricted per member.
- Dedicated infrastructure: Hatchet: Bring-your-own-cloud and self-host support on the Enterprise plan (contact sales).

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose Google Cloud Pub/Sub or Hatchet?**

Pick Google Cloud Pub/Sub if Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.
Pick Hatchet if Task workloads that want a countable unit — 100,000 runs free and $10 per million is the least ambiguous pricing in this category.