Show HN: Sidequest.js – Background jobs for Node.js using your database

My guess is the 2-level separation. You WILL need to make some part in your system LGPL by using "Sidequest.js" tightly, but then expose very simple APIs (like /start /status etc..) that will stop the LGPL from "infecting" other parts, as they can replace the "linking" with anything that will support those simple APIs.

Which is a good way to get improvements other are doing that relate to your source code through LGPL's source exposing, while not forcing it everywhere (GPL case). Especially, for backend libs.

And since AGPL will essentially make it non viable for SaaS (as network separation won't do), LGPL is what left.

AFAIK, the relinking requirement only applies if you distribute the software to someone.

If you’re running Sidequest entirely on your own infrastructure to orchestrate jobs across your backend, you’re not distributing the software at all, you’re providing a service. The tight coupling does not itself trigger extra obligations. What matters legally is distribution, not architecture.

Edgecase is if you give your software to a customer to run on their own servers (self‑hosted deployment/docker image shipped to customer). In those cases, you would need to allow them to replace Sidequest.js (ie, not obfuscating it away).

Someone more knowledgeable can correct me, if I'm wrong

Well, Sidequest comes with a comprehensive built-in dashboard that provides real-time monitoring, job management, and performance analytics, so there's that.

You can probably deploy Sidequest a job processor for all your 20+ services. Each service can enqueue the jobs and you can run as many machines as you want with Sidequest just to run the jobs. You maintain the 12-factor principle - your services remain stateless and delegate scheduled work to Sidequest.

The only requirement here is that the scripts to be executed must be in the same path in all machines. As long as you follow that, you can deploy it and run your jobs :)

Interesting lib!

Graphile Worker: PostgreSQL only

Sidequest: Multiple backends (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB)

Graphile Worker: No built-in dashboard - you need external monitoring

Sidequest: Comprehensive built-in web dashboard for job monitoring

Graphile Worker: Single queue with job prioritization

Sidequest: Multiple queues with individual: i) Concurrency limits; ii) Priority levels; iii) State management (active/paused); iv) Isolated workloads.

Graphile Worker: Direct PostgreSQL integration, very lightweight

Sidequest: Worker threads for non-blocking processing, more comprehensive job lifecycle management

Graphile Worker: Optimized for PostgreSQL performance (3ms latency)

Sidequest: Balanced performance with rich feature set

I hope that helps answering your question.

Well, you don't need to worry. Sidequest only locks the rows it's gonna use, i.e., the job rows it manages. Any other data in your DB is not touched by Sidequest, so you should be safe :)

Hello! One of the creators of Sidequest here.

Great question!

Sidequest uses transaction-level row locks (`SELECT ... FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED`) when fetching jobs. This means each worker thread only locks the specific job rows it’s about to process, minimizing lock contention and avoiding blocking other queries. This pattern is inspired by Oban’s advisory-lock approach, but instead of using explicit advisory locks, Sidequest relies on the database’s built-in row locking mechanism.

The only drawback is that Sidequest will require one or two connections to your DB. If you enqueue jobs from within other jobs, then each job that requests an enqueue will also connect to your DB (lazily connected upon request - if your job does not enqueue, no connection is created). However, you can configure the number of concurrent workers per queue and globally, so you control how much load Sidequest puts on your database.

I hope that answers your question :)

Nice to know SQLite will be useful. Just be mindful that SQLite does not work well in highly concurrent systems. So, if you have a single job runner process, it will work wonderfully. However, if you have many workers, then you might see a few issues.

Thanks for the question! I just checked out pg-boss. Solid library if you're fully on Postgres. Sidequest.js takes a broader and more flexible approach. Key differences:

Database agnostic: Sidequest isn't tied to Postgres. It also works with MySQL, MongoDB, and SQLite, which helps if your stack isn’t Postgres-based.

Job isolation: Jobs run in worker threads, so heavy tasks won’t block your main Node.js process. Express APIs stay responsive.

Distributed coordination: Designed to run across multiple instances. One node picks up the job, and if it fails, another can retry. This is built-in.

Built-in dashboard: Includes a web UI to inspect, retry, or cancel jobs.

More than queues: Supports cron jobs, uniqueness constraints, per-queue concurrency, and configuration. Some of this overlaps with pg-boss, but the intent behind Sidequest is to provide a complete solution for job processing.

If you just need simple queues in a Postgres-only setup, pg-boss is great. If you want more flexibility, tooling, and backend options, Sidequest may be a better fit.