Axel vs Hookbridge
Axel
axelapp.ai
Hookbridge
hookbridge.ioSide by side
| Figure | Axel | Hookbridge |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 4 |
| Spec score · Webhook Management Software | 8.6 (#7) | 8.5 (#9) |
| Integrations | Listed destinations include Postgres, MongoDB, S3, Cloudflare R2, Databricks, BigQuery, and signed HTTP webhooks; generic webhook and custom HMAC sources are supported. | The inbound webhook page names Stripe, GitHub, and Shopify as example providers. |
| Product | Axel captures, routes, and replays third-party webhooks to databases, warehouses, object storage, and HTTP services. | Hookbridge lets software teams send webhooks to customer endpoints, receive third-party webhooks, or store incoming events for workers to retrieve through an API. |
| Retention | Default retention is 30 days for raw payloads and event traces, 90 days for dead letters, 30 days for replay-request records, and 365 days for audit logs. | Webhook payload and delivery log retention depends on the plan and customer settings, with automatic purging after the configured retention window. |
| Security | The security page says the edge requires TLS 1.2 or newer, raw R2 payload objects are encrypted at rest, source tokens are stored as SHA-256 hashes, and access is workspace-scoped. | The service supports outbound HMAC-SHA256 signatures and inbound verification using configured HMAC signatures, static tokens, or IP allowlists. |
| Support | The Free plan includes community support; Axel Cloud customers can also use the configured support address for private account or billing questions. | The site lists [email protected] as a contact address for inquiries and requests. |
Plans
In their own words
Axel
Axel captures third-party webhooks, routes them to data systems or HTTP services, and replays retained events. It stores an accepted event’s original payload before returning HTTP 202, then delivers it asynchronously. Declarative filters and field transformations can route one event to several destinations. Listed destinations include Postgres, MongoDB, S3, Cloudflare R2, Databricks, BigQuery, and signed HTTP webhooks; generic webhook and custom HMAC sources are also supported. The dashboard and CLI can replay retained events, while Axel Cloud provides 30 days of searchable event and delivery history. Data Contracts infer event and field types and check for schema changes every five minutes, but do not block delivery or guarantee destination acceptance. Delivery is at least once with a stable event ID across retries, so signed receivers should deduplicate. The Free plan includes 10,000 accepted inbound events monthly and community support. Pro costs $20 a month, with additional accepted events at 0.015 USD per 1,000; unused credit expires monthly. Axel is web, API, and self-hosted.
Hookbridge
Hookbridge is a cloud service for software teams that send webhooks to customer endpoints, receive third-party webhooks or hold incoming events for workers to retrieve through an API. Its send API queues a message and returns an ID, so delivery continues outside the application's request path. Outbound retries use exponential backoff and jitter according to a configured schedule for retryable failures. Retained messages can be replayed from the console or API after successful or failed delivery. Security options include outbound HMAC-SHA256 signatures and inbound checks using configured HMAC signatures, static tokens or IP allowlists. Hookbridge says it encrypts data in transit and uses access controls and monitoring; payload and delivery-log retention depends on plan and customer settings, with automatic purging after the configured window. Developers can use an HTTP API and SDK examples for Node.js, Python, Go, Ruby and PHP. Tools include a CLI tunnel, a GitHub Action for CI testing and an account-free browser request inspector.