Background Jobs
3 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Language | License | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Celery Distributed task queue for Python | 28.3k | +72/wk | Python | — | 69 |
 Sidekiq Background job processing for Ruby | 13.5k | +1/wk | Ruby | — | 69 |
 BullMQ Premium message queue for Node.js based on Redis | 8.6k | +49/wk | TypeScript | MIT License | 73 |
Our Analysis
Celery is the Python background job processor that's been quietly running production workloads for over a decade. Send emails, process images, run ML inference, crunch reports — anything that shouldn't block your web request goes to Celery. If you're building a Django or Flask app and need async task processing, Celery is the default. Dramatiq is the cleaner, more modern alternative with better defaults and less configuration pain. Huey is lightweight for simple use cases. RQ (Redis Queue) is dead simple but limited. Commercially, AWS SQS + Lambda handles async processing without managing workers. The broker flexibility is nice — Redis or RabbitMQ as the message backend, with automatic retries, rate limiting, task chaining, and scheduled tasks. The catch: Celery's configuration is sprawling and confusing. The docs have improved but still overwhelm newcomers. Memory leaks in long-running workers are a recurring complaint. The project's development pace has slowed, and the codebase shows its age. If you're starting fresh, seriously evaluate Dramatiq — it solves the same problem with fewer footguns.
Sidekiq is the background job processor that made Ruby on Rails apps actually scale. Where ActiveJob gives you the abstraction, Sidekiq gives you the performance — multi-threaded, Redis-backed, and processing thousands of jobs per second on a single process. If you're running Rails and need background jobs, Sidekiq is the answer. DelayedJob (database-backed) is simpler but orders of magnitude slower. Resque (Redis-backed, forking) is the older alternative with higher memory usage. GoodJob is the newer PostgreSQL-backed option that avoids Redis entirely. Commercially, Sidekiq itself has paid tiers (Pro, Enterprise) for batches, rate limiting, and unique jobs. The web dashboard shows you job queues, failures, and processing rates in real-time. The threading model means one Sidekiq process handles what would take 25 Resque workers. The catch: the open-source version (LGPL) lacks critical features that serious apps need — rate limiting, batch processing, and unique jobs are Pro/Enterprise only. The pricing is per-application, which adds up. And Sidekiq is Ruby-only; if you're in Python or Node, look at Celery or BullMQ instead.