# Hook0 vs Upstash QStash

> Upstash QStash scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Hook0's 64.6 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Hook0 leads on maintenance & community. Both do events webhooks send. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Upstash QStash scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Hook0's 64.6 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Hook0 leads on maintenance & community. Both do events webhooks send.

- Hook0: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #313 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hook0.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hook0.json
- Upstash QStash: grade BB, 72.3/100, rank #105 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/upstash-qstash.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/upstash-qstash.json

## Which one, for what

### Hook0 (B)

Good for: A product that has to send signed webhooks to its own customers' endpoints with retries, replay and a delivery log, and that wants EU hosting or the option to self-host the same code.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 77

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Six advisories were published between 6 August and 9 September 2026, including a High-rated SSRF in the delivery worker fixed on 11 August

### Upstash QStash (BB)

Good for: Agents and serverless apps that need a delayed, retried or scheduled HTTP call without running a queue.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 83 against 70
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 65

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Hook0 loses 4 points for them

Watch for: One full-access token and one read-only token per region. No per-queue or per-destination scopes were found


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Hook0 | Upstash QStash | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 83 | Upstash QStash +13 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 78 | Hook0 +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 83 | Upstash QStash +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 61 | Hook0 +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 77 | Hook0 +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 81 | Hook0 +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.6 · B** | **72.3 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Hook0 | Upstash QStash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | FGRibreau SARL | Upstash |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://qstash.upstash.io/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | SSPL-1.0 for the server (source available, not an OSI licence). The SDKs and the `hook0-mcp` server are MIT per crates.io and npm. Hook0 Cloud is a hosted service under Hook0's terms of service | Proprietary hosted service under Upstash's terms of service. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the MCP server are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 23 | 10 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.upstash/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-27 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-09 |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 1.5k stars, 507 npm/wk, 11 PyPI/wk | 269 stars, 816k npm/wk, 91k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Hook0.** Hook0 Cloud sends signed webhooks from one REST call, with a public OpenAPI document, RFC 7807 errors and service tokens that can be narrowed offline to one application, an expiry or read-only actions. Six security advisories were published between August and September 2026, one rated High. Signup needs a browser check, and no uptime commitment exists below Enterprise.

**Upstash QStash.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 file covers 43 operations, and publishing has no per-second limit, deduplication IDs and a dead letter queue with replay. Each region has one full-access token and one read-only token, and the token may travel in the URL. The Markdown pricing page contradicts itself on whether retries are billed.

## Before you call either

### Hook0

1. Use a service token narrowed to one application and an expiry. A root service token covers the whole organisation, and an application secret can delete its application
2. Send your own UUID as `event_id` on `POST /api/v1/event/`. A repeat returns `EventAlreadyIngested` (409), which means the first call succeeded
3. Create the event type before sending. Unknown types fail with `EventTypeDoesNotExist`, and `labels`, `occurred_at` and `payload_content_type` are required
4. Send `payload` as a string, with JSON serialised inside it, up to 512 KiB
5. Set `HOOK0_API_URL` for `hook0-mcp` to the origin without `/api/v1`, and set `HOOK0_READ_ONLY=true` to hide the ten write tools

### Upstash QStash

1. Use the regional host that matches the token. `qstash.upstash.io` is the EU region, and US tokens work only on `qstash-us-east-1.upstash.io`
2. Send `Upstash-Deduplication-Id` on every publish so a retried request isn't queued twice. The window is 10 minutes
3. Budget for retries. Per the pricing FAQ each delivery attempt is billed as a message, so set `Upstash-Retries` deliberately
4. Give monitoring agents the read-only token, and set `Upstash-Redact-Fields` on publish, because that token still reads message bodies and headers
5. Make the destination idempotent on `Upstash-Message-Id`. Delivery is at least once, and duplicates can follow a server restart

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Hook0 or Upstash QStash?

Upstash QStash scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Hook0's 64.6 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Hook0 leads on maintenance & community.

### Do Hook0 and Upstash QStash need an API key?

Hook0 needs an API key. Upstash QStash takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Hook0 and Upstash QStash without installing anything?

Hook0 runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Upstash QStash has a hosted endpoint at https://qstash.upstash.io/v2.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hook0-vs-upstash-qstash.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "hook0", "b": "upstash-qstash"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare hook0 upstash-qstash`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hook0.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/upstash-qstash.json

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