Dagster vs Inngest
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Dagster
Data orchestrator for the full development lifecycle
VS
Inngest
Event-driven workflow and background job platform
| Feature | Dagster | Inngest |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 90 · Excellent |
| Category | Automation & Workflows | Automation & Workflows |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Python | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,199 | ★ 5,879 |
| First released | 2019 | 2021 |
| Replaces | AWS Step Functions, Azure Data Factory | Zapier, AWS Step Functions |
What are Dagster and Inngest?
Dagster
Dagster is an orchestration platform for data assets that emphasizes testability and observability. It models pipelines around the assets they produce and can be fully self-hosted.
- Asset-oriented orchestration
- Built-in testing and typing
- Integrated data lineage
- Web-based control plane
Inngest
Inngest is an open-source platform for building event-driven workflows and reliable background jobs. It provides durable step functions, automatic retries and a local development server, and the execution engine can be self-hosted.
- Event-driven background jobs
- Durable step functions
- Local development server
- Self-hostable execution engine
Dagster vs Inngest: key differences
Dagster is written in Python, while Inngest is built with Go. Inngest is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Dagster. Dagster is the more established project (first released 2019), while Inngest arrived in 2021. Dagster has the considerably larger community, at 16,199 GitHub stars versus 5,879.
Why pick each one
Choose Dagster if…
- Strong developer tooling
- Great for data-centric teams
Watch out for
- Conceptual model takes time to learn
Choose Inngest if…
- Good developer experience
- Reliable step execution
Watch out for
- Some features tied to Inngest Cloud
Frequently asked questions
Is Dagster or Inngest better?
Neither is universally better. Dagster has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Dagster and Inngest free and open-source?
Yes. Dagster is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Inngest under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Dagster and Inngest with Docker?
Dagster: yes. Inngest: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Dagster or Inngest?
Inngest has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Dagster. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.