Simulating QStash with Upstash Kafka and HTTP connector

The blog post explores how to simulate the functionalities of QStash, a versatile HTTP-based messaging and scheduling service, by using Upstash Kafka with an HTTP connector. QStash provides features like message pushing, PubSub topics, delayed message delivery, and improved delivery guarantees, but it has quota limitations that can lead to exceptions if exceeded. The proposed solution is to use Upstash Kafka, which has no throughput limit, to mimic QStash by converting a pull-based Kafka topic into a push-based messaging pipeline. The process involves creating a test API using Next.js, deploying it to Vercel, and setting up a Kafka topic connected to this API through an HTTP connector. This connector is configured to send messages as HTTP requests, and the simulation demonstrates how messages can be effectively transmitted beyond QStash's limitations. The blog concludes by suggesting that this method can be a viable alternative for those facing message transmission constraints with QStash.