IronWorker vs pg-boss

IronWorker is a container-based platform for running custom code as queued, asynchronous background tasks. It supports parallel processing, and jobs can run once, a set number of times or on a recurring schedule. Workers run in Docker containers and support Ruby, Python, PHP, Java,.NET, Node.js and Go. Tasks can be triggered by HTTP POST webhooks, other workers or IronMQ queues; the Iron.io dashboard displays task status and performance. The platform describes SSL connections, isolated Docker sandboxes and OAuth2 for task execution. Deployment choices include shared, dedicated, hybrid and on-premise environments. Listed uses include image and video processing, push notifications, ETL, email delivery and cron replacement. Basic costs nothing and includes five hours per month, one concurrency, 512 MB RAM and a 30-minute runtime. Standard costs $169 a month and includes unlimited hours with ten concurrency. Premium costs $699 a month. A 14-day trial is available only for non-dedicated clusters.

pg-boss is a Node.js job queue that uses PostgreSQL for background processing and asynchronous job execution. It can add a job in the same database transaction as the data change it belongs to, so the job is created only when that transaction commits. Workers use PostgreSQL SKIP LOCKED to claim jobs without blocking one another, with atomic commit safety; delivery is at least once, so a handler may run more than once. Queue controls include priorities, rate limits, debouncing, concurrency policies, retries with exponential backoff, and dead-letter queues. Scheduling covers cron and RRULE, deferral, and dependency-based workflows. Transaction adapters are available for Knex, Kysely, Drizzle, and Prisma. Supported databases include PostgreSQL, CockroachDB, YugabyteDB, Citus, and PGlite. A dashboard can monitor and manage jobs, queues, and schedules, while a JSON HTTP API proxy serves non-Node runtimes. It is MIT-licensed and self-hosted, with a listed price of free. It requires Node 22.12 or higher or Bun, plus PostgreSQL 13 or higher.