SimpleQ
SimpleQ is a managed job queue designed for AI and API-heavy backends, enabling developers to reliably offload asynchronous work to HTTP-based workers without managing infrastructure. Jobs are published via REST API or the TypeScript SDK, and SimpleQ delivers them to a configurable webhook endpoint with built-in retries, exponential backoff, and a dead-letter queue. It supports advanced features like idempotency keys for deduplication and delay scheduling. Acknowledgment mode allows workers to immediately respond to webhooks while processing long-running tasks out-of-band, reporting success or failure via /ack, /nack, or /defer endpoints. Backpressure is handled by honoring downstream 429/503/529 responses, deferring jobs without consuming retry attempts. The service eliminates the need for polling workers or message brokers, simplifying architecture for serverless and containerized deployments. It includes signature verification for secure webhooks.
- Category
- Dev Tools
- Pricing
- Free
Problem solved
SimpleQ solves the challenge of building reliable asynchronous processing pipelines for AI and API-driven applications by providing a fully managed, webhook-based job queue. It abstracts away the complexity of retries, rate limiting, backpressure, and idempotency, allowing developers to focus on business logic without managing message brokers or worker polling infrastructure.
Use cases
- Asynchronous AI model inference
- Rate-limited API request scheduling
- Webhook-based workflow orchestration
- Reliable background job processing
- Offline media transcoding
- Serverless event processing
- Idempotent task deduplication
Audience
- Developers
- ML Engineers
Pros
- Fully managed, no infrastructure to maintain
- Webhook-native delivery with automatic retries
- Ack mode supports long-running jobs beyond 15s timeout
- Built-in backpressure and rate limiting
- Idempotency keys prevent duplicate processing
Cons
- Maximum webhook timeout of 15 seconds for synchronous responses
- Requires a publicly accessible HTTP endpoint (or tunnel for local dev)
- Currently only TypeScript SDK provided (other languages use REST)
- Limited to webhook workers (no pull-based consumers)
- Relatively new service with smaller community
Official website: https://docs.simpleq.io/
Canonical LambdaBase page: https://www.lambdabase.com/tools/simpleq