Self-description (hatchet.run): “🪓 An orchestration engine for background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows”
Hatchet is an MIT-licensed orchestration engine built on Postgres, with a paid hosted version called Hatchet Cloud. It started in Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch, and its repository has grown to about 8,000 stars. The biggest jumps in stars came around the same time as the founder's Hacker News posts. Those included Show HN and Launch HN posts and deep technical posts about Postgres. The open-source README points new users to the cloud product, and the company reports that its cloud revenue grew 9x in 2025.
A plausible loop shows up in the evidence. Hatchet co-founder Alexander Belanger's technical posts and launches on Hacker News bring developers to the open-source repo. The README sends even would-be self-hosters to Hatchet Cloud, where the company reports significant revenue. Feedback from Discord and shared Slack channels shapes what gets built next. For example, fanout workflows were the most common request after the Show HN, so Hatchet launched child workflows. Each new feature or engineering lesson becomes another post, and star spikes followed several of these posts. The data shows timing only, so whether the posts caused the growth is not established.
Moderate inference| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 15, 2023 | Repository | hatchet-dev/hatchet repository created |
| Dec 27, 2023 | Release | First release v0.2.0-alpha.0 |
| YC Winter 2024 | Funding | Joined Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch |
| Jan 02, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.1 |
| Jan 02, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.2 |
| Jan 02, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.3 |
| Jan 03, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.5 |
| Jan 03, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.6 |
| Jan 04, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.7 |
| Jan 04, 2024 | Release | Release v0.3.0-alpha.8 |
| Jan 08, 2024 | Release | Release v0.4.0-alpha.0 |
| Jan 10, 2024 | Release | Release v0.4.0-alpha.1 |
| Jan 12, 2024 | Show HN | Show HN: Hatchet – open-source, event-based workflow engine |
| Jan 20, 2024 | Release | Release v0.5.0-alpha.0 |
| Jan 22, 2024 | Release | Release v0.6.0 |
| Jan 27, 2024 | Release | Release v0.7.0 |
| Feb 03, 2024 | Release | Release v0.8.0 |
| Feb 03, 2024 | Release | Release v0.9.0 |
| Feb 05, 2024 | Release | Release v0.10.0 |
| Feb 19, 2024 | Release | Release v0.10.3 |
| Feb 19, 2024 | Release | Release v0.11.0 |
| Feb 20, 2024 | Release | Release v0.11.1 |
| Feb 20, 2024 | Release | Release v0.11.2 |
| Feb 20, 2024 | Release | Release v0.11.3 |
| Feb 27, 2024 | Release | Release v0.12.0 |
| Feb 27, 2024 | Release | Release v0.13.0 |
| Feb 28, 2024 | Release | Release v0.13.1 |
| Mar 08, 2024 | Show HN | Show HN: Hatchet – Open-source distributed task queue |
| Apr 18, 2024 | Content | Blog post on multi-tenant queues in Postgres |
| Apr 18, 2024 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: Multi-tenant queues in Postgres |
| Jun 05, 2024 | Content | Blog post critiquing Celery |
| Jun 05, 2024 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: The Problems with Celery for Python |
| Jun 27, 2024 | Launch | Self-serve Hatchet Cloud launched via Launch HN |
| Jun 27, 2024 | Launch HN | Launch HN: Hatchet (YC W24) – Open-source task queue, now with a cloud version |
| 2025 | Team | Founding engineers joined |
| April 2025 | Release | Hatchet v1 full engine rewrite launched |
| Apr 03, 2025 | Show HN | Show HN: Hatchet v1 – A task orchestration platform built on Postgres |
| Apr 10, 2025 | Content | Positioning post: task queue for modern Python |
| May 2025 | Strategy | Decided against terminal coding-agent product line |
| May 16, 2025 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: The fastest Postgres inserts |
| Jun 04, 2025 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: Go is a good fit for agents |
| Jun 26, 2025 | Content | Migration post from FastAPI Background Tasks |
| Dec 12, 2025 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: How to think about durable execution |
| Dec 16, 2025 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: The pitfalls of partitioning Postgres yourself |
| Jan 13, 2026 | Content | Two-year reflection blog post |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: Building a TUI is easy now |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Product | Hatchet CLI announced |
| Mar 06, 2026 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: Supertoast tables |
| Mar 23, 2026 | Product | VSCode extension announced |
| Mar 24, 2026 | Team | OSS maintainer introduced |
| Mar 25, 2026 | Product | OpenTelemetry support announced |
| Mar 26, 2026 | Product | Webhooks launched |
| Jul 22, 2026 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: The startup's Postgres survival guide |
| Jul 27, 2026 | Product | Multi-team and enterprise readiness features |
| Jul 28, 2026 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: The First Idempotency Key |
| Aug 10, 2026 | Product | Idempotency keys and batch tasks launched |
| Aug 17, 2026 | Hacker News | On Hacker News: Bufo pulls the andon cord |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Product | Workflow Pause and Viewer Roles announced |
| Sep 08, 2026 | Product | New concurrency features announced |
| Sep 29, 2026 | Pricing | New pay-as-you-go pricing |
| Oct 05, 2026 | Release | Release rb/0.9.0 |
+152 stars in 17 day(s); peak day Jan 04 with +56. 10 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+2,076 stars in 21 day(s); peak day Mar 08 with +915. 9 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+450 stars in 11 day(s); peak day Apr 19 with +176. 2 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+336 stars in 14 day(s); peak day Jun 27 with +183. 2 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+833 stars in 22 day(s); peak day Apr 04 with +327. 2 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+49 stars in 3 day(s); peak day Dec 22 with +23. No high-confidence public event found.
+121 stars in 9 day(s); peak day Feb 13 with +33. 1 public event(s) observed within this window (timing only).
+158 stars in 7 day(s); peak day Apr 23 with +65. No high-confidence public event found.
| When | Launch episode | Stars before | +24h | +7 days | +30 days | +90 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 02, 2024 – Jan 12, 2024 | Hacker News launch, Jan 2024 | 2 | +8 | +80 | +165 | +2.5K |
| Mar 08, 2024 | Hacker News launch, Mar 2024 | 264 | +1.3K | +2K | +2.3K | +3K |
| Apr 18, 2024 | Hacker News attention, Apr 2024 | 2.6K | +231 | +394 | +594 | +1.1K |
| Jun 27, 2024 | Hacker News launch, Jun 2024 | 3.3K | +240 | +292 | +399 | +623 |
| Apr 03, 2025 | Hacker News launch, Apr 2025 | 4.6K | +482 | +675 | +873 | +1.1K |
| Jun 04, 2025 | Hacker News attention, Jun 2025 | 5.5K | +10 | +55 | +166 | +356 |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Hacker News attention, Feb 2026 | 6.5K | +54 | +112 | +226 | +667 |
| Jul 22, 2026 | Hacker News attention, Jul 2026 | 7.5K | +34 | +87 | +237 | — |
Each row's "state before" and outcome details are in the evidence drawer. Comparing rows shows how the project's situation and response differed between launches.
10 related public event(s): release, show hn. State before: About 2 stars the day before; repository 18 days old; first launch episode Pigtail found.
Stars went from 2 the day before to 2,504 (+24h: +8, +48h: +64, +7d: +80, +30d: +165, +90d: +2,502). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): show hn. State before: About 264 stars the day before; repository 84 days old; 1 earlier launch episode(s).
Largest star spike (+915 on Mar 8, 2024) coincided with the Show HN post.
After the Show HN, fanout workflows were the top request and Hatchet launched child workflows.
Stars went from 264 the day before to 3,242 (+24h: +1,349, +48h: +1,659, +7d: +2,045, +30d: +2,282, +90d: +2,978). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): hacker news post. State before: About 2,579 stars the day before; repository 125 days old; 2 earlier launch episode(s).
Stars went from 2,579 the day before to 3,689 (+24h: +231, +48h: +266, +7d: +394, +30d: +594, +90d: +1,110). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
2 related public event(s): launch, launch hn. State before: About 3,330 stars the day before; repository 195 days old; 3 earlier launch episode(s).
Stars went from 3,330 the day before to 3,953 (+24h: +240, +48h: +246, +7d: +292, +30d: +399, +90d: +623). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): show hn. State before: About 4,561 stars the day before; repository 475 days old; 4 earlier launch episode(s).
Star spike starting Apr 3, 2025 coincided with the v1 Show HN.
Stars went from 4,561 the day before to 5,689 (+24h: +482, +48h: +553, +7d: +675, +30d: +873, +90d: +1,128). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): hacker news post. State before: About 5,528 stars the day before; repository 537 days old; 5 earlier launch episode(s).
Stars went from 5,528 the day before to 5,884 (+24h: +10, +48h: +16, +7d: +55, +30d: +166, +90d: +356). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): hacker news post. State before: About 6,453 stars the day before; repository 2.2 years old; 6 earlier launch episode(s).
Stars went from 6,453 the day before to 7,120 (+24h: +54, +48h: +73, +7d: +112, +30d: +226, +90d: +667). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
1 related public event(s): hacker news post. State before: About 7,521 stars the day before; repository 2.6 years old; 7 earlier launch episode(s).
Stars went from 7,521 the day before to 7,758 (+24h: +34, +48h: +43, +7d: +87, +30d: +237). Observed after the launch; not proof that the launch caused the change.
Alexander Belanger was previously CTO at Porter. There he spent several years building an in-house orchestration system and wrote three versions of its provisioner. He later researched durable execution platforms and built a Terraform automation project on Temporal, which he abandoned. He then introduced Temporal at another company before starting Hatchet. Hatchet was co-founded with Gabe Ruttner, the former CTO of Clearmix. The founders describe it as built out of frustration with existing tools and a belief that Postgres is the right base for a task queue. It entered YC W24 with just an idea, and the repository was created on December 15, 2023.
The first users appear to have been developers reached through Hacker News during the YC batch. A January 2024 Show HN got little response (7 points). A March 8, 2024 Show HN for an 'open-source distributed task queue' drew 578 points. That same day the repository gained 915 stars, within a 21-day run of 2,076 stars. At that point the focus was on open source, and the cloud was invite-only. Hatchet pitched itself as an alternative to Celery, BullMQ and Sidekiq, and the founders say they migrated a number of Celery users. The sources do not identify specific early customers by name.
Moderate inference| Oct 05, 2026 | 90 contributors |
| 2025 | 9 multiple |
| 2025 | 1K commits |
| Date unknown | 25 shards |
| Date unknown | 10K tasks/second |
| Date unknown | 33 repositories |
Recurring posts by Hatchet co-founder Alexander Belanger on Postgres, durable execution, agents and tooling reaching HN.
How it works: Repeated technical posts bring developer attention to Hatchet.
MIT-licensed self-hostable project with managed cloud as revenue source.
How it works: Open-source adoption feeds paid cloud usage; README pushes cloud.
Adoption of AI agents driving orchestration usage.
How it works: Agent builders need durable task orchestration.
Use Show HN for the open-source launch, Launch HN for the cloud launch, and Show HN again for a major version.
Mar 2024: Show HN for open-source distributed task queue (578 points).
Jun 2024: Launch HN announcing self-serve cloud.
Apr 2025: Show HN for Hatchet v1 built on Postgres.
Publish a post critiquing the incumbent tool your product replaces and position as a drop-in replacement.
Jun 2024: Co-founder blog post 'The Problems with Celery for Python'.
Write in-depth posts about internal infrastructure problems and publish example code/packages alongside.
Apr 2024: Multi-tenant queues in Postgres post with postgres-fair-queue example repo.
May 2025: Fastest Postgres inserts post and open-sourced 'buffered' package / pg-events repo.
Jul 2026: Postgres survival guide post.
Publish guides showing how to move from a common framework feature to your product.
Jun 2025: 'From FastAPI Background Tasks to Hatchet' migration post.
Promote a new feature with a long-form history piece about the concept.
Jul 2026: 'The First Idempotency Key' post promoting idempotency keys.
Keep documentation examples as tested code in SDK repos, extracted via comment markup and published by CI.
2025: Moved docs examples into SDK repos published via GitHub Actions after 2025 docs drift.
Recommend signing up for the managed cloud as the fastest way to start, even for self-hosters.
Date unknown: README recommends Hatchet Cloud first; blog posts direct readers to try Cloud.
Support customers through shared Slack channels alongside a public Discord.
Date unknown: Customer support via shared Slack; feature requests gathered via Discord.
Early Show HN (Jan 2024) then a larger Show HN (Mar 2024) with focus on open source, followed by Launch HN for self-serve cloud in June 2024.
Positioned as Postgres-backed alternative to Celery/BullMQ/Sidekiq; published Celery critique, Postgres engineering posts, Python and FastAPI migration content.
Moved to describing itself as orchestration for AI agents, background tasks and durable workflows, and as Temporal/DBOS replacement; states AI agent adoption drives growth.
In 2026 shipped CLI, TUI, VSCode extension, OpenTelemetry, webhooks, enterprise/multi-team features, idempotency keys, concurrency features and pay-as-you-go pricing.
Hatchet started in YC W24 with just an idea; repo created Dec 2023; fully open source with an invite-only cloud offering at launch.
Self-serve Hatchet Cloud launched in June 2024. Hatchet is MIT licensed with no enterprise edition and says its cloud version generates significant revenue.
In 2025, Hatchet says, cloud revenue grew 9x, founding engineers joined and the v1 rewrite shipped. Its infrastructure later ran on more than 25 shards in 3 regions, and pay-as-you-go pricing was announced in September 2026.
Hatchet chose Postgres as its only required dependency, so it can run on any Postgres provider. It built its own partitioning instead of relying on extensions. It also shipped a full platform with observability, alerting, replays and logging, rather than a library. The whole product is MIT licensed with no enterprise edition, and revenue comes from the hosted cloud. Its marketing leaned on detailed engineering writing about running Postgres at scale more than on product announcements. This reading is interpretive.
Moderate inference