An instance persistence command for an update to a state of an instance of an application can be issued. In response to the persistence command, a transaction with an instance store can be initiated. As part of the transaction, a first representation of the update can be stored in the instance store and a second representation of the update can be stored in a queue. The transaction can be committed after storing the first and second representations. After the transaction is committed, the second representation can be processed to store a third representation of the update in a query store. Application instance state information in the query store can be updated and queried without locking the instance store so that such operations in the query store can be performed asynchronously with operations in the instance store.