Skip to content
inetGeek

Zeplo vs Upstash QStash

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Zeplo and Upstash QStash built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 17 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Zeplo if…

Turning an HTTP endpoint into a queued, retried job without running a consumer — and keeping a month of logs while doing it, which nothing else here offers on a free plan.

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…

  • Zeplo: The free tier's overage is $20 per 100,000 requests, twenty times the Company plan's rate, so staying free past 500 requests is the most expensive way to use it.
  • 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.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Zeplo alternatives · Upstash QStash alternatives

7 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Zeplo documentationVisit Upstash QStash documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionZeploUpstash QStash
Pricing
Free tierYesYes
Kind of free offerFree tierFree tier
What the free plan includes500 requests a month, described as free forever, for a single developer with 30-day log retention.1,000 messages a day.
Pricing modelPer HTTP request rather than per message or per execution, with unlimited jobs on every tier and team size as a separate axis — three members included on Company, $15 for each beyond.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 month500 requests free, then $20 per 100,000. The Company plan includes 1,000,000 requests and charges $10 per million beyond — five times cheaper per request than the free plan's overage rate.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.
Maximum message size
256 KB inline request body (unlimited via S3 offload); plan payload caps are 64 KB on Developer and 1 MB on Company.
1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.
Message retention30 days of log retention on every plan — free, Company and Enterprise alike. The longest window in this category by a wide margin.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.
Maximum delay30 days (2,592,000 seconds) maximum delay_seconds per request.7 days on the free plan; 1 year on Pay as You Go and unlimited on the fixed plans.
Dead letter queue
Limited — Dead-letter handling is a webhook fired on permanently failed requests, not a separate queue you consume.
Supported

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

What the free plan includes

Zeplo
500 requests a month, described as free forever, for a single developer with 30-day log retention.
Upstash QStash
1,000 messages a day.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

Zeplo
Per HTTP request rather than per message or per execution, with unlimited jobs on every tier and team size as a separate axis — three members included on Company, $15 for each beyond.
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) →
  • Pricing — Zeplo ↗

    “Jobs Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Included team members 1 3 Custom Addition team members $15 $15 $15 Log retention 30 days 30 days 30 days”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • 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 · Report a correction

Included per month

Zeplo
500 requests free, then $20 per 100,000. The Company plan includes 1,000,000 requests and charges $10 per million beyond — five times cheaper per request than the free plan's overage rate.
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) →
  • Pricing — Zeplo ↗

    “Free 500 requests included $20 / 100k requests [...] $39 /month 1M requests included $10 / million requests”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • 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 · Report a correction

Maximum message size

Zeplo

256 KB inline request body (unlimited via S3 offload); plan payload caps are 64 KB on Developer and 1 MB on Company.

Upstash QStash

1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.

Sources (2) →

Message retention

Zeplo
30 days of log retention on every plan — free, Company and Enterprise alike. The longest window in this category by a wide margin.
Upstash QStash
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) →

Maximum delay

Zeplo
30 days (2,592,000 seconds) maximum delay_seconds per request.
Upstash QStash
7 days on the free plan; 1 year on Pay as You Go and unlimited on the fixed plans.
Sources (2) →

Dead letter queue

Zeplo
Limited — Dead-letter handling is a webhook fired on permanently failed requests, not a separate queue you consume.
Upstash QStash
Supported
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

Confirm by email; unsubscribe from any issue. Your address goes to Kit and nowhere else — what we do with it.

03.

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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

When the free offer endsZeplo: Never — 500 requests a month, free forever.
Entry paid planZeplo: $39/month for Company, including 1,000,000 requests and three team members. Additional members are $15 each.
RegionsZeplo: Hosted on Google Cloud Platform; no selectable region is offered and data may be transferred between countries.
ConcurrencyZeplo: API rate limit rather than a concurrency figure: 100 requests/min on Developer (Free) and 2,000 requests/min on Company ($39/mo).
GDPR / data residencyZeplo: Privacy policy permits storage, processing and transfer of personal information between any of the countries in which Zeplo operates. zeplo.io policy, last updated February 7, 2022; the newer v2.zeplo.io policy is silent on transfers.
Encryption at restZeplo: Privacy policy states industry-standard measures including encryption in transit (TLS), encryption at rest, and access controls. v2.zeplo.io policy, last updated February 21, 2026; no cipher or key-management detail published.
Role-based access controlZeplo: Workspaces support multiple members with role-based access; roles are admin, member and viewer. Team invites are managed in the dashboard under Settings, Team; the API invite endpoint takes the same three roles.
Dedicated infrastructureZeplo: Not listed on the Developer or Company plans; the pricing page says to contact sales for custom volume, SLAs or dedicated infrastructure. From the "Need more?" block under the Developer (free) and Company ($39/mo) plan cards.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Should I choose Zeplo or Upstash QStash?

Pick Zeplo if Turning an HTTP endpoint into a queued, retried job without running a consumer — and keeping a month of logs while doing it, which nothing else here offers on a free plan.

Pick Upstash QStash if HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.

Provider pages

ZeploHTTP request queue priced per request, with 30-day log retention on every plan including free.Upstash QStashHTTP-based message queue and scheduler, priced per message with a per-day cap rather than a monthly allowance.

Related comparisons

Amazon SQS vs ZeploAzure Queue Storage vs Upstash QStashAzure Queue Storage vs ZeploCloudflare Queues vs Upstash QStashCloudflare Queues vs ZeploGoogle Cloud Pub/Sub vs Upstash QStashGoogle Cloud Pub/Sub vs ZeploHatchet vs Upstash QStash

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.