Hookdeck vs Inngest (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Inngest grades higher than Hookdeck: 2.4 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Hookdeck grades higher on ease of use. Inngest grades higher on the free plan and features. They get the same grade on value for money and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Hookdeck
Gateway for receiving, queueing and routing webhooks
Inngest
Durable execution for background jobs, event-driven apps and agents
Which one is for you
Pick Hookdeck if
- Fits if you receive webhooks from Stripe or Shopify and need retries
- Works for developers debugging webhooks on localhost
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you pass 10,000 events a month on the free plan, as the dashboard locks
- Pricey if you want a static IP, an add-on of $100 a month
- Watch out: a support SLA is an add-on on Team and Growth
- Skip it if you need to send webhooks as well, since Outpost is priced separately
Pick Inngest if
- Fits if you are a developer who needs reliable background jobs
- Works for a small team that can stay inside 50k executions
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you do not write code, as there is no drag-and-drop builder
- Tight if you stay free: 5 concurrent steps and 24 hours of traces
- Watch out: Pro and Business bill extra executions, steps, workers and span data
- Watch out: HIPAA is an add-on on Pro and Business, and sandboxes in open beta are billed per second
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAHookdeckFair | 2.4GPAInngestFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CTeam starts at $39 a month, inside the category's dearer quarter at $49, and Growth is $499. Extra events are metered. | CPro is $99 a month for 15 seats, which is about $20 a head for five people, near the middle of automation ($19). Extra executions cost $50 per 1M. |
| Free plan and trial | CDeveloper is free but capped at 10,000 events a month, 1 user and 3-day retention; the dashboard locks past it. | BFree plan with no card: 5 seats, 50k executions, 500k events a month and 24 hours of traces. One small project can live on it. |
| Features | CQueueing, retries and debugging for incoming webhooks. Outpost for sending webhooks is priced separately. | BDurable step functions, queues, events, observability and AI agent tooling. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core work. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. You point providers at Hookdeck and set up routing. | DWorkflows are written in code with an SDK, so it needs a developer. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb dashboard with Slack, Discord, Teams, PagerDuty, Sentry and Datadog connections. | BWeb service with open-source SDKs and a Datadog integration. No desktop or phone app. |
| Best for | catching and retrying incoming webhooks | background jobs written in code |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Hookdeck and Inngest. How we grade
Price against what you get
Hookdeck starts at $39 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Inngest starts at $99 a month and scores 2.3.
They score the same, and Hookdeck starts $60 a month lower. Of the other automation tools on the chart, 15 score higher than Hookdeck for less, and 17 score higher than Inngest for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Inngest is open source, according to its own site.
- Inngest also covers AI agents.
At a glance
| Hookdeck | Inngest | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $39 per month and up, plus usage beyond 10,000 events | $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated |
| Free plan | Developer plan: $0 a month with up to 10,000 events, 3-day retention and 1 user. | 5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history. No credit card required. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Hookdeck Technologies Inc. | Inngest Inc. |
| Price read from | hookdeck.com | inngest.com |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Hookdeck
- Developer is capped at 10,000 events a month; past that the dashboard locks until you upgrade or the billing period renews.
- Extra events are metered, and the page says pricing falls to as low as $0.33 per 100k at volume.
- A static IP add-on costs $100 a month, and a support SLA is an add-on on Team and Growth.
- Outpost, for sending webhooks, is priced separately from the Event Gateway.
Inngest
- Workflows are written in code using an SDK; there is no drag-and-drop builder.
- Pro and Business prices are shown as a base with usage on top: extra executions, concurrent steps, workers and span data are billed beyond the included amounts.
- HIPAA support is an add-on on Pro and Business, and included only on Enterprise.
- Sandboxes are in open beta and are billed per second: $0.000011 for a vCPU and $0.000003 for 1 GB of memory.
Key features
Hookdeck
- Queueing and rate limits
- Inbound requests are always accepted. Delivery above a destination's throughput ceiling is queued, not rejected, within the retention window.
- Connections and transformations
- Connections link sources to destinations, and transformations modify events with custom functions before delivery. Both are unlimited on every plan.
- Issues and metrics
- Issues flag failing events or queue backpressure, and metrics show latency, throughput and error rates. Alerts go to Slack, PagerDuty, Sentry and others.
- Local testing
- A CLI receives and debugs webhooks on localhost, and Inspect previews webhook payloads before they reach your code.
- Outbound delivery
- Outpost, a separate product with its own pricing, handles sending webhooks and events to your own customers.
Inngest
- Durable step functions
- Functions are split into steps that are retried and resumed on failure. A single run can last up to 30 days on Free, 90 on Pro and 366 on Business, including sleeps and waits.
- Queues and flow control
- Concurrency and queue depth are managed for you. Concurrent steps start at 5 on Free and 100 on Pro, with more sold in packs of 25 for $25.
- Events and webhooks
- Functions start from events sent from your app or other sources. Free allows 500k events a month and 256 KiB per event; paid plans allow 3 MiB.
- Observability
- Every function run is traced, with metrics and span data. Trace history is 24 hours on Free, 7 days on Pro, 14 days on Business and 90 days on Enterprise.
- AI agents and sandboxes
- Inngest has an AgentKit project and a sandbox product, in open beta, billed per second for vCPU and memory. Agent evaluation scores are metered by plan.
- Open source SDKs
- The server and SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go and Kotlin are published on GitHub, and you can develop locally before moving to Cloud.
Plans
Hookdeck
Developer$0
Up to 10,000 events, 3-day retention, 1 user, SOC 2 compliance. The dashboard locks if the event limit is passed.
Team$39
per month and up
Pay-as-you-go events, 7-day retention, unlimited users and alert integrations. Extra events from $0.33 to $1.00 per 100k.
Growth$499
per month and up
Uptime and latency SLAs, 30-day retention, metrics export, SSO, SAML, SCIM and HIPAA compliance.
EnterpriseCustom
Premium support, a support manager, Slack Connect channel, custom security compliance, SLAs and contracts.
Inngest
Free$0
5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps, 3 workers and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history.
Pro$99
per month and up, includes 1M executions
15 seats ($10 per extra), 100 concurrent steps, 20 workers, 5M+ events and 7 days of traces. Extra executions $50 per 1M.
Business$499
per month and up, includes 10M executions
30 seats ($10 per extra), 500 concurrent steps, 100 workers, 50M+ events and 14 days of traces. Extra executions $25 per 1M.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom limits, 90 days of trace history, SAML, RBAC, audit trails, HIPAA included and a dedicated Slack channel.
Ways to pay less
Hookdeck
- Startups
Growth plan discounts for eligible startups
The pricing page says eligible startups can get a discount on the Growth plan and should contact Hookdeck for details.
Inngest
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Hookdeck or Inngest?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Hookdeck is cheaper to start with: $39 a month, against $99 a month for Inngest. Hookdeck starts at $39 per month and up, plus usage beyond 10,000 events, and Inngest starts at $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated.
Which has a free plan, Hookdeck or Inngest?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Hookdeck and Inngest have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.