--- title: When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building... description: Cue is a new open-source distributed job queue built around the Raft consensus algorithm, designed to fill the gap between Redis (fast but lacking durability)... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building a Simpler Distributed Job Queue | daily.dev og:description: Cue is a new open-source distributed job queue built around the Raft consensus algorithm, designed to fill the gap between Redis (fast but lacking durability)... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pcAlsEUWq.png og:image:alt: When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building a Simpler Distributed Job Queue og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building a Simpler Distributed Job Queue **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Cue is a new open-source distributed job queue built around the Raft consensus algorithm, designed to fill the gap between Redis (fast but lacking durability) and Kafka (powerful but operationally heavy). It offers durable job storage via a Write-Ahead Log, automatic retries with exponential backoff, dead-letter queue handling, and at-least-once delivery — all in a single binary with no external dependencies. A companion stateless gateway (CueProxy) handles HTTP/WebSocket communication with producers and consumers, while inter-node communication uses QUIC with mTLS. The system is in-memory and bounded by RAM, making it suitable for predictable background job workloads rather than high-throughput event streaming. The project is early-stage and open-source under Apache 2.0. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How to build a distributed queue in a single JSON file on object storage](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-a-distributed-queue-in-a-single-json-file-on-object-storage-o3mtwysho) · Hacker News · 6 upvotes · 0 comments - [A deep dive into Apache Kafka's KRaft protocol](https://daily.dev/posts/a-deep-dive-into-apache-kafka-s-kraft-protocol-cwsw0si5z) · Red Hat Developer · 5 upvotes · 0 comments - [Netflix Adopts Cloud-Native Job Queueing System Kueue to Replace an In-House Solution](https://daily.dev/posts/netflix-adopts-cloud-native-job-queueing-system-kueue-to-replace-an-in-house-solution-7gbkjcg1w) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#distributed-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/distributed-systems), [#kafka](https://daily.dev/tags/kafka), [#redis](https://daily.dev/tags/redis) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building a Simpler Distributed Job Queue","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T07:35:54.410Z","dateModified":"2026-07-24T07:42:04.692Z","description":"Cue is a new open-source distributed job queue built around the Raft consensus algorithm, designed to fill the gap between Redis (fast but lacking durability)...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e0f76585765ef03478fe3867dd04228a?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e0f76585765ef03478fe3867dd04228a?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-kafka-is-too-much-and-redis-isn-t-enough-building-a-simpler-distributed-job-queue-pcalseuwq","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"architecture,distributed-systems,kafka,redis","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"When Kafka Is Too Much, and Redis Isn’t Enough: Building a Simpler Distributed Job Queue"}]} ```