Hatchet vs Upstash QStash
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Hatchet and Upstash QStash built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Upstash QStash if…
HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Hatchet: The jump from free to the first paid tier is $500 a month, which buys retention and throughput rather than volume, so a small production workload pays a lot for features it may not need.
- Upstash QStash: The free plan is capped per day rather than per month, so a single burst can exhaust it while a monthly allowance elsewhere would absorb the same volume.
3 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Hatchet 0
Upstash QStash 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Hatchet | Upstash QStash |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Usage-first: every plan is "free + usage" or "$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. | Per message rather than per operation, metered against a daily ceiling on the free plan and priced at $1 per 100,000 on Pay as You Go, with monthly bandwidth caps alongside — 50 GB on the smaller plans, 1 TB and 5 TB above. |
| Queues | ||
| Included per month | 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. | 1,000 messages a day on the free plan. Pay as You Go is $1 per 100,000 messages with no daily cap; fixed plans run $180 a month for 1M a day and $420 for 10M. |
| Message retention | 3 days on the Team plan, stated alongside a 500 requests-per-second throughput ceiling. | Dead letter queue retention of 3 days on the free plan, 7 days on Pay as You Go, 30 days and 3 months on the fixed plans. |
Where they differ.
Pricing model
- Hatchet
- Usage-first: every plan is "free + usage" or "$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.
- Upstash QStash
- Per message rather than per operation, metered against a daily ceiling on the free plan and priced at $1 per 100,000 on Pay as You Go, with monthly bandwidth caps alongside — 50 GB on the smaller plans, 1 TB and 5 TB above.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Hatchet ↗
“Developer Free + usage $10 per 1M task runs [...] Team $500 /mo + usage [...] SSO Audit logging Bring your own cloud Self-host support Custom SLAs”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“$1 per 100K messages [...] Max Messages per Day 1,000 Unlimited 1 M 10 M 100M+ [...] Max Monthly Bandwidth 50 GB 50 GB 1 TB 5 TB Unlimited”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Included per month
- 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.
- Upstash QStash
- 1,000 messages a day on the free plan. Pay as You Go is $1 per 100,000 messages with no daily cap; fixed plans run $180 a month for 1M a day and $420 for 10M.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Hatchet ↗
“Developer Free + usage $10 per 1M task runs First 100,000 runs included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Free $0 [...] Messages per Day 1,000 [...] Pay as You Go $1 per 100K messages [...] Messages per Day Unlimited [...] $180 / month [...] 1M [...] $420 [...] 10M”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Message retention
3 days on the Team plan, stated alongside a 500 requests-per-second throughput ceiling.
Dead letter queue retention of 3 days on the free plan, 7 days on Pay as You Go, 30 days and 3 months on the fixed plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Hatchet ↗
“10 users & 5 tenants 3-day retention 500 RPS throughput”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Max DLQ Retention 3 days 7 days 30 days 3 months Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · 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.
Should I choose Hatchet or Upstash QStash?
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.
Pick Upstash QStash if HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.