Oban

What hackers pick instead

• CeleryPeople recommend it as a mature, easy-to-start distributed task queue for background jobs and high message volumes; the most common caveat is a complicated interface that is hard to debug.33recommend
• Solid QueueRails' built-in job backend that runs on your existing database, so no Redis is needed. Critics say it is early, thinly documented, and lacks a UI.22recommend
• SidekiqWidely recommended Ruby background job processor, praised for scaling, reliability and a sustainable paid model for its maintainers.14recommend
• Django background tasksBuilt into Django, with a simple interface and a database backend that needs no extra services. Critics note it is mostly an API so far, with few backends.9recommend
• BullMQPeople recommend it as a solid, well-liked Redis-backed job queue for background work, including one-off jobs, and some moved their work queues off Postgres to it.7recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 61 comments. Each links to the original.

1. we've written about running one million jobs a minute on a single queue, and there are numerous companies running hundreds of millions of jobs a day with oban/postgres

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

2. it’s so much simpler than spinning up another piece of infrastructure like Kafka or rabbitmq

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Using PostgreSQL as a Dead Letter Queue for Event-Driven Systems”

3. what Oban supports with workflows, crons, partitioning, dependent jobs, failure handling

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

4. I can basically have a guarantee that some complex process will run eventually

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban Comes to Python”

5. The Oban folks have done amazing, well-engineered work for years now

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

6. in follow-up research we've sustained 12k/s with a p99 under ~100ms

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Postgres Queues Actually Scale”

7. a lot of postgres envs are not going to have pgmq, so just use Oban

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Bridging Elixir and Python with Oban”

8. Their benchmark shows a million jobs per minute on a single node

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I Love You, Redis, but I'm Leaving You for SolidQueue”

9. Support only options aren't going to cut it in our experience

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

10. covers a lot of the celery feature set and is free as well

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

11. I don't think we hit a single production issue with Oban

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Ending my elixir exploratory writing”

12. some fairly core features are gated behind a Pro tier

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

13. Satisfied former Oban user here. Oban is engineered.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering”

14. a production service largely backed by Oban Pro

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Ending my elixir exploratory writing”

15. it's really the only option for Elixir

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

16. allows for very high throughput

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

17. This feels like core functionality is locked away, and the opensource part is nothing more than a shareware, or demo/learning version.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

18. That's a feature that I think shouldn't be gated behind a monthly pro subscription

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

19. I'm very confused at locking the process pool behind a pro subscription

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

20. it feels bad to have 'same thing but better' gated behind payment

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

21. make this seem like a paid-version-only product

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

22. not lock technical features behind a paywall

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

23. Oban is one of the most beautiful elegant parts of working with Elixir/Phoenix. They have saved me so much heartache and tears over the years

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

24. Oban does not rely on a large volume of NOTIFY in order to process a large volume of jobs

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I Love You, Redis, but I'm Leaving You for SolidQueue”

25. I used it at work too - the first thing that page suggests is using `Oban.Notifiers.PG`

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I Love You, Redis, but I'm Leaving You for SolidQueue”

26. you'll likely push stuff through Oban, Phoenix PubSub or some other convenience library

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Process-Based Concurrency: Why Beam and OTP Keep Being Right”

27. Oban is incredible and this type of software will continue to grow in importance.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

28. Recent Oban release for example had a note that all the docs a human-written.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Ending my elixir exploratory writing”

29. Oban has been doing this in Elixir at real scale for a decent while now.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

30. We're committed to what this interop brings to both Python and Elixir.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

31. Oban has been very good about deciding what features to lock away.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

32. You can use a queue like Oban on your own server to kick off jobs.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Ask HN: What CI do you use instead of GitHub Actions?”

33. a heavy layer that makes control flow more complex to follow

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Your Agent Framework Is Just a Bad Clone of Elixir”

34. None of that means Oban or similar queues don't/can't scale

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I Love You, Redis, but I'm Leaving You for SolidQueue”

35. Congratulations to Shannon and Parker on shipping this!

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

36. I used it for a project in Elixir and it was painless.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

37. the joy and ease of using Oban in their ecosystem

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban Comes to Python”

38. It works really well embedded in a small service.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”

39. I would argue that Oban isn't overengineered.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering”

40. I agree this is an awesome feature.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python”