Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#1

Post by ent1c3d » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

Setting up Kafka or such enterprise oriented software with their clusters or dedicated servers is heavy and bothering enough that most small teams or indie hackers skip it entirely and making compromise to use in-memory queues.

I wanted something in between: a persistent queue that is simple to run (one binary, which makes one sqlite db), gets real fault isolation and crash recovery due to Elixir, easy to inspect (open ezra.db in any SQLite browser and see every task), and requires no new client library - it speaks the Redis Streams wire protocol, so any Redis client in any language just works out of the box.

Very short demo video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLYyD3DVWmE]

Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering
github.com

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#2

Post by anapeksha » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 6:58 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#3

Post by neoecos » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:04 AM UTC

Oban is really awesome, are you inspired by it?

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#4

Post by cpursley » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

This is nice. For those wanting to stay on Postgres for DAG type of workflows, check out pgmq based PgFlow: https://github.com/agoodway/pgflow

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#5

Post by tenwz1 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

good

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#6

Post by abrookewood » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

Congrats on the launch. Using the Redis protocol was a pretty clever choice. Does it have to run as a stand-alone server?

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#7

Post by skrebbel » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:55 AM UTC

neoecos wrote: post #3

Oban is really awesome, are you inspired by it?

Title said “no overengineering” so I doubt it.

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#8

Post by xlii » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 9:31 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #7

neoecos wrote: post #3

Oban is really awesome, are you inspired by it?

Title said “no overengineering” so I doubt it.

I would argue that Oban isn't overengineered.

If so should we also consider PostgreSQL overengineered?

It's a shame OP decided to use Elixir as base, many ecosystems don't have mature task queues (e.g. for Rust I had to roll my own: simple_queue) so the space IMO would be more welcoming.

On OTP doubt anything can even make a dent in Oban user base.

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#9

Post by bhaney » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 10:20 AM UTC

> This project is maintained by a single author and pull requests are not accepted

Save yourself the headache of people not reading this and just disable pull requests in the repo settings

Re: Show HN: Lightweight Task queue on Erlang/OTP, SQLite-backed, no overengineering

#10

Post by gamache » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 10:45 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #7

neoecos wrote: post #3

Oban is really awesome, are you inspired by it?

Title said “no overengineering” so I doubt it.

Satisfied former Oban user here. Oban is engineered. Your use-case may be petty, though, like your comment.