Opportunities › Workflow orchestration and reliability for distributed systems › Proposed app
Keepstep
Durable workflows in TypeScript that run on your own Postgres
- Score
- 70
- confidence 44
- Evidence
- 6
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 1
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2017
- Established market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Backend teams write and debug multi-step TypeScript workflows, review execution history and step details—keyboard-intensive work requiring a large screen. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Executions
Last 24 hours3 failed
- charge-customer
About this appAI proposal
Keepstep lets a small backend team write multi-step jobs and API workflows as ordinary TypeScript functions. Every step's result is saved to Postgres, so if a process crashes or restarts, the workflow resumes at the step where it stopped instead of starting over.
It includes per-step retries with backoff, timeouts, durable timers, and signals that send outside events into a running workflow. A simple web view shows running and failed executions, with step history, errors and a manual retry button.
It differs in three ways: it runs on the Postgres you already operate, with no separate cluster; it supports one language and one deployment model, so there is less to learn; and pricing is based on workers, not on a count of every action.
- Tagline
- Crash all you like. Pick up at the next step.
- Voice
- CalmPrecisePractical
- Why this name
- Keep a step, never lose it. Two plain words joined: the engine keeps each completed step so work continues after a failure.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Workflows as plain functions
Write a workflow in TypeScript. Completed steps are replayed from the log, so code resumes exactly where it left off.
No member yet
Steps saved in Postgres
Each step result goes into an event log in your own database, so a restart or partial outage loses no progress.
No member yet
Retries and timeouts per step
Set backoff, maximum attempts and a timeout on each step instead of writing retry loops by hand.
No member yet
Durable timers
Sleep for minutes or days. The timer is stored, so it still fires after a deploy or restart.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#1F6F5CPine · primary#F6F3ECPaper · surface#1F2A30Ink · text#E0803AEmber · accent#3B5B8CSlate blue · data
Typography
Aa
Keepstep
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Crash all you like. Pick up at the next step.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. It only says an incumbent earns more as billable actions grow. These worker-based tiers are a starting point to test, not a benchmark.
Self-hosted
Free
- Engine and TypeScript SDK
- Runs on your Postgres
- Basic execution web view
- Community support
Team
$49 a month
- Up to 5 workers
- Full web UI with manual retry
- Execution history retention
- Email support
Business
$199 a month
- Up to 25 workers
- Longer history retention
- Execution count reports
- Priority support
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$190,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. Keepstep runs inside customers' own backends, and its web view is internal. It reaches new teams through docs, open source code, tutorials and developer communities, not through its own use.
- Do they become customers?
- Readers of docs and repos can become paying users directly, but this needs testing: whether self-hosting teams upgrade to the Team tier once they have more than a few workers.
- First customers
- Backend teams of 3 to 15 engineers at small TypeScript and Postgres shops running background jobs and multi-step API workflows, such as payments, onboarding or data sync.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News and dev forums: Post a worked example of a crash-safe workflow on plain Postgres and invite teams to try the open source engine.
- Technical blog and docs: Write guides on retries, timers and migrating hand-built job queues, aimed at engineers searching for these problems.
- Direct outreach to small backend teams: Offer a free setup call to teams that mention failed background jobs or hand-written retry code.
- First milestone
- Ten teams run it in production, and five of them pay for the Team tier within 90 days.
Why people already pay for this
- Public claimTemporal has over 4,300 paying customers
- Public claimAnnualized revenue run rate is growing at over 200% year over year
- Public claimNet dollar retention above 200% since February, indicating strong expansion revenue
- Public claimPlatform processed 1.9 trillion billable actions in August alone, growing 350% year over year
- Public claimOpen source installs passed 43 million, growing 134% since December 2025
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Workflow enginePostgres event log with row-level task leasingStep results, timers and task leases live in the team's own Postgres, using SKIP LOCKED style polling.
- This app · Worker SDKPublished npm package for Node.jsDevelopers write workflows as functions and run workers in their own services.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalDeterministic replay is hard to get right. Non-deterministic code in a workflow can corrupt resumed runs, so the SDK needs clear guards and tests.
- TechnicalPostgres as a queue and event log may hit throughput limits at high volume, which limits who can use it.
- CommercialThe material shows an established incumbent with many paying customers and a large open source base. Small teams may not switch for lower ops effort alone.
- CommercialA free self-hosted tier may keep most users from paying. Worker-based limits must be tested for a fair upgrade point.
- DataStep results may hold sensitive payloads. Teams will want encryption and retention controls early, which the first version leaves out.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.