# DBOS

39 Hacker News commenters recommended DBOS and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for durable workflows and queues on Postgres, with far less complexity than Temporal. Common caveat: scaling and executor elasticity sit behind a paid tier.

## Why people recommend it

- Much simpler than Temporal (5 comments): "Same thesis: durable and reliable workflows are hard to manage -- it just doesn't have to be as hard as Temporal makes it be" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48340494)) "it's much easier to integrate than Temporal and it Just Uses Postgres(tm)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327014)) "DBOS is much less complexity compared to Temporal. That's the benefit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317970))
- Runs on existing Postgres database (4 comments): "It turns your app into its own durable executor using your database for coordination." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47330572)) "especially if you use a library like DBOS, which only adds a database write" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595487)) "it's much easier to integrate than Temporal and it Just Uses Postgres(tm)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327014))
- Easy to integrate as library (3 comments): "form factor matters! Building this as a library was technically tricky, but unlocks a lot of use cases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932750)) "Much easier to integrate and not nearly as heavyweight for you/your customers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851735)) "It has everything you need (queues, crons, easy to understand pure Python)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45837198))
- Exactly-once execution and recovery (2 comments): "do a lot of the heavy lifting to get the idempotency, exactly once and recovery" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46835203)) "DBOS can guarantee exactly once execution if your API calls are idempotent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852846))

## What people warn about

- Scaling and recovery need paid tier (4 comments): "Making the workflow engine of DBOS depend on the paid component (Conductor) for scaling and recovery makes it a no-go." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317032)) "Right now the messaging is "you shouldn't use DBOS for production unless you are a paying customer"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47222715)) "DBOS is price-gated as well, and pricing is based on usage whereas River's is not." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632625))
- Uneven language support and SDKs (2 comments): "the Go one doesn't support SQLite as a backend for example while the Python one does" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220099)) "they don't have SDKs for the languages we use at work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49698686))
- Unclear Postgres dependence and scale limits (2 comments): "DBOS is tied to Postgres, right? That wouldn't scale anywhere near where we need either." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46010644)) "It’s not clear what part of the functionality is specific to Postgres, and why." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921935))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Temporal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/temporal.md): 138 recommend
- [Apache Airflow](https://hackerapproved.com/p/airflow.md): 18 recommend
- [Restate](https://hackerapproved.com/p/restate.md): 16 recommend
- [Windmill](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windmill.md): 11 recommend
- [Absurd Workflows](https://hackerapproved.com/p/absurd.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "DBOS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dbos/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).