Inngest vs Trigger.dev
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Inngest | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 90 · Excellent | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Automation & Workflows | Automation & Workflows |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,879 | ★ 16,387 |
| First released | 2021 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Zapier, AWS Step Functions | Zapier |
What are Inngest and Trigger.dev?
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
Trigger.dev
Trigger.dev is an open-source platform for writing long-running background jobs and workflows directly in code with no timeouts. It targets developers building reliable async tasks. It is deployed via Docker.
- Background jobs written in code
- No execution timeouts
- Built-in retries and observability
- Scheduling and webhooks
Inngest vs Trigger.dev: key differences
Inngest is written in Go, while Trigger.dev is built with TypeScript. Inngest is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Trigger.dev. Trigger.dev has the considerably larger community, at 16,387 GitHub stars versus 5,879.
Why pick each one
Choose Inngest if…
- Good developer experience
- Reliable step execution
Watch out for
- Some features tied to Inngest Cloud
Choose Trigger.dev if…
- Code-first and developer friendly
- Reliable long-running tasks
- Good observability
Watch out for
- Aimed at developers only
- Requires Postgres and Redis
Frequently asked questions
Is Inngest or Trigger.dev better?
Neither is universally better. Trigger.dev has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Inngest and Trigger.dev free and open-source?
Yes. Inngest is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Trigger.dev under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Inngest and Trigger.dev with Docker?
Inngest: yes. Trigger.dev: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Inngest or Trigger.dev?
Inngest has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Trigger.dev. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.