BullMQ

BullMQ is the go-to job queue for Node.js applications, backed by Redis, with priorities, scheduling, retries, concurrency limits, and rate limiting built in. You push jobs onto a queue, workers pick them up and process them. Retries, delays, rate limiting, priorities, repeatable jobs, and job dependencies are all built in.

It's the Node.js equivalent of Celery (Python) or Sidekiq (Ruby). You define a queue, add jobs to it, and BullMQ handles the rest, including the messy parts like failed job retries, stalled job recovery, and concurrency control.

MIT. Requires Redis (or any Redis-compatible store like Valkey or KeyDB).

The catch: you need Redis running. That's either a managed Redis service ($15-50/mo) or self-hosted Redis (free but you maintain it). BullMQ also has a paid companion: Bull Dashboard Pro for $99/yr gives you a nicer UI for monitoring jobs. The free Bull Board works fine for most needs. The bigger catch: if your stack isn't Node.js, BullMQ doesn't help you. It's Node-only.