PgQue
Shares rank 10 of 19 message brokers by recommenders
Postgres-based queue that gives durable messaging without running Kafka or RabbitMQ, built on an insert-only event table to avoid bloat. Critics doubt the zero-bloat claim.
Postgres-based queue that gives durable messaging without running Kafka or RabbitMQ, built on an insert-only event table to avoid bloat. Critics doubt the zero-bloat claim.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not 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: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Bloat-free insert-only event design
“operates bloat-free (one of the largest operational hurdles in queue-like Postgres workloads)”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “Does Postgres Scale?” “active event table is INSERT-only. Each consumer remembers its own pointer”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “PgQue: Zero-Bloat Postgres Queue” Well-designed, interesting trade-offs
“the different approach is refreshing to see and interesting for different system trade off”
Comment from 29 May 2026 in “Just Use Postgres for Durable Workflows” “it seems really well-designed”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Postgres Queues Actually Scale” Polished tooling around Postgres queues
“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.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “PostgreSQL Is Enough” “Something like pgque would have made that much more polished.”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “pg_durable: Microsoft open sources in-database durable execution”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Zero-bloat claim questioned
“the idea of considering a queue built inside a database to be "zero bloat" leaves me scratching my head”
Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “PgQue: Zero-Bloat Postgres Queue”
Other message brokers people recommend
The four most recommended other message brokers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Kafka | 53 | 55 | 49% | 12 | — | — |
| NATS | 34 | 16 | 68% | 9 | 7.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Amazon SQS | 18 | 14 | 56% | 8 | — | — |
| Redpanda | 17 | 4 | 81% | 7 | — | Approved |
| PgQueThis page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it seems really well-designed”
“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.”
“Something like pgque would have made that much more polished.”
“the different approach is refreshing to see and interesting for different system trade off”
“operates bloat-free (one of the largest operational hurdles in queue-like Postgres workloads)”
“I'm thinking this thru, and will likely rename”
“It's not really solving the problems you claim it solves.”
“active event table is INSERT-only. Each consumer remembers its own pointer”
“Postgres durability without having to run Kafka or RabbitMQ clusters seems pretty enticing”
“the idea of considering a queue built inside a database to be "zero bloat" leaves me scratching my head”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.