Absurd Workflows
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 5 of 12 workflow engines by recommenders
Recommended as a minimal, simple durable workflow engine that leaves you full control over how it is used.
Recommended as a minimal, simple durable workflow engine that leaves you full control over how it is used.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 92%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 11 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Minimal and simple by design
“Absurd, like Pi, is minimal and let's you have full control.”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “I've Sold Out” “even simpler than DBOS. Their comparison is a great read”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Just Use Postgres for Durable Workflows” “I hope we find some simple solutions like Absurd too.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres” - Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres”
- Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Just Use Postgres for Durable Workflows”
Praised as a brilliant idea
“I am so impressed that I am rewriting the state management of my workflow engine with Absurd”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres” “pretty happy to see Armin's shot at this”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres” “I think it's a brilliant idea.”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres”
Other workflow engines people recommend
The four most recommended other workflow engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal | 138 | 43 | 76% | 12 | 1 yr13 owners | Approved |
| DBOS | 39 | 9 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Apache Airflow | 18 | 5 | 78% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Restate | 16 | 3 | 84% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Absurd WorkflowsThis page | 11 | 1 | 92% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
13 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“check out what the pi people have to say”
“There's great projects like https://github.com/NikolayS/pgque and https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/4/4/absurd-in-production/ that give you even some tooling around that.”
“even simpler than DBOS. Their comparison is a great read”
“keep the client side extremely simple”
“Absurd, like Pi, is minimal and let's you have full control.”
“it's much easier to use and to operate than many of the solutions on the market today”
“Look at the example that runs an AI conversation. It always starts from the system prompt.”
“I hope we find some simple solutions like Absurd too.”
“The main thing you need for durable execution is 1) retries (absurd does this)”
“pretty happy to see Armin's shot at this”
“I am so impressed that I am rewriting the state management of my workflow engine with Absurd”
“I think it's a brilliant idea.”
“It's really just trying to be as simple as possible.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.