Why We Chose QStash and Upstash Workflow at Scale

Streamlined, an analytics and automation platform built on HighLevel CRM, faced challenges in managing workflows, queues, and real-time webhooks while adhering to strict API rate limits and scaling efficiently. Adam Skjervold, the founder of Streamlined, evaluated several workflow platforms, including Trigger.dev, Cloudflare Workflows, and Inngest, but ultimately chose QStash and Upstash Workflow due to their ability to address key constraints: concurrency limits, compute choices, and flow control. Unlike other platforms, Upstash offers no hard concurrency ceiling, flexible compute options, and an effective flow control system that coordinates various work types under shared rate limits, allowing seamless integration and cost-effective scaling. Despite Cloudflare Workflows' step-based execution and cost advantages, its runtime limitations and lack of concurrency control for external resources were drawbacks. Upstash's approach allows for more efficient and scalable operations, enabling Streamlined to handle more workload at significantly lower costs without architectural overhauls, though further enhancements like priority queues and per-step concurrency constraints could improve the system.