Inngest vs Restate (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Inngest grades higher than Restate: 2.4 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Inngest grades higher on features and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money, the free plan and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Inngest
Durable execution for background jobs, event-driven apps and agents
Restate
Durable execution runtime for backends and AI agents
Which one is for you
Pick Inngest if
- Fits if you are a developer who needs reliable background jobs
- Works for a small team that can stay inside 50k executions
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you do not write code, as there is no drag-and-drop builder
- Tight if you stay free: 5 concurrent steps and 24 hours of traces
- Watch out: Pro and Business bill extra executions, steps, workers and span data
- Watch out: HIPAA is an add-on on Pro and Business, and sandboxes in open beta are billed per second
Pick Restate if
- Fits if you're a backend team who need workflows to survive restarts
- Works for people who want to start free and self-host the open source server
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you don't write backend code
- Tight if you pass 100k actions a month, because the free plan has no overage
- Pricey if you want multi-AZ or a HIPAA BAA, extra at $200 to $500 and $300
- Watch out: the page doesn't say if the monthly prices are annual billing
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAInngestFair | 2.0GPARestateFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CPro is $99 a month for 15 seats, which is about $20 a head for five people, near the middle of automation ($19). Extra executions cost $50 per 1M. | CStarter is $75 a month for 5M actions, Business $300 for 20M and Premium $1,000 for 50M. The page doesn't say whether billing is monthly or annual. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree plan with no card: 5 seats, 50k executions, 500k events a month and 24 hours of traces. One small project can live on it. | BFree plan: 100k durable actions a month, no card, though only 1 day of history and no overage option. |
| Features | BDurable step functions, queues, events, observability and AI agent tooling. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core work. | CDurable workflows and agents. Throughput is rate-limited per plan; multi-AZ redundancy and a HIPAA BAA cost extra. |
| Ease of use | DWorkflows are written in code with an SDK, so it needs a developer. | DNo store rating on record. It's a code-level service for backend developers. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb service with open-source SDKs and a Datadog integration. No desktop or phone app. | CWeb console on the listing, with no integrations named. |
| Best for | background jobs written in code | durable workflows that survive crashes |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Inngest and Restate. How we grade
Price against what you get
Inngest starts at $99 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Restate starts at $75 a month and scores 1.7.
Inngest scores higher, and starts $24 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other automation tools on the chart, 17 score higher than Inngest for less, and 57 score higher than Restate for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Restate is self-hostable, according to its own site.
At a glance
| Inngest | Restate | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated | $75 per month for 5M actions |
| Free plan | 5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history. No credit card required. | 100k durable actions a month with community support, no credit card required. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Inngest Inc. | Restate |
| Price read from | inngest.com | restate.dev |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Inngest
- Workflows are written in code using an SDK; there is no drag-and-drop builder.
- Pro and Business prices are shown as a base with usage on top: extra executions, concurrent steps, workers and span data are billed beyond the included amounts.
- HIPAA support is an add-on on Pro and Business, and included only on Enterprise.
- Sandboxes are in open beta and are billed per second: $0.000011 for a vCPU and $0.000003 for 1 GB of memory.
Restate
- Throughput is rate-limited per plan, with burst headroom, and actions past the allotment are billed as overage.
- Multi-AZ redundancy and a HIPAA BAA cost extra: $200 to $500 and $300 respectively.
- The Free plan has no overage option and keeps only 1 day of history.
- The pricing page does not say whether the monthly prices are billed monthly or annually.
Key features
Inngest
- Durable step functions
- Functions are split into steps that are retried and resumed on failure. A single run can last up to 30 days on Free, 90 on Pro and 366 on Business, including sleeps and waits.
- Queues and flow control
- Concurrency and queue depth are managed for you. Concurrent steps start at 5 on Free and 100 on Pro, with more sold in packs of 25 for $25.
- Events and webhooks
- Functions start from events sent from your app or other sources. Free allows 500k events a month and 256 KiB per event; paid plans allow 3 MiB.
- Observability
- Every function run is traced, with metrics and span data. Trace history is 24 hours on Free, 7 days on Pro, 14 days on Business and 90 days on Enterprise.
- AI agents and sandboxes
- Inngest has an AgentKit project and a sandbox product, in open beta, billed per second for vCPU and memory. Agent evaluation scores are metered by plan.
- Open source SDKs
- The server and SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go and Kotlin are published on GitHub, and you can develop locally before moving to Cloud.
Restate
- Durable actions
- The unit of billing is a durable action: a call, completion, step, sleep, awakeable, RPC, promise or state access. Each started 64KiB of payload adds one.
- Virtual objects
- Stateful virtual objects keep their data in Restate, with storage included per plan and extra billed at $0.50 per GB a month.
- Bring your own cloud
- BYOC runs the managed service inside your own cloud account and VPC, so data stays in your infrastructure.
- Self-hosting
- The Restate server is open source under a license that allows production use, and can be run for free.
- Security options
- A HIPAA BAA is available for $300 on the higher plans, and SAML SSO and SCIM are listed for the top tiers.
Plans
Inngest
Free$0
5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps, 3 workers and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history.
Pro$99
per month and up, includes 1M executions
15 seats ($10 per extra), 100 concurrent steps, 20 workers, 5M+ events and 7 days of traces. Extra executions $50 per 1M.
Business$499
per month and up, includes 10M executions
30 seats ($10 per extra), 500 concurrent steps, 100 workers, 50M+ events and 14 days of traces. Extra executions $25 per 1M.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom limits, 90 days of trace history, SAML, RBAC, audit trails, HIPAA included and a dedicated Slack channel.
Restate
Free$0
100k actions a month, 10 actions per second, 1 GB virtual object storage, 1-day history, community support.
Starter$75
per month for 5M actions; billing basis not stated
50 actions per second, 5 GB storage, 3-day history, 99.9% SLA. Extra actions $25 per million.
Business$300
per month for 20M actions; billing basis not stated
200 actions per second, 20 GB storage, 7-day history, email support. Extra actions $25 per million.
Premium$1,000
per month for 50M actions; billing basis not stated
500 actions per second, 50 GB storage, 30-day history, dedicated Slack channel. Extra actions $15 per million.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom volume, up to hundreds of thousands of actions per second, 99.99% SLA, 24/7 P0 support, legal review.
Ways to pay less
Inngest
No public discounts listed.
Restate
- Startups
Startup and high-volume discounts on request
The pricing FAQ says higher tiers include volume discounts and that startups should get in touch to ask about discounts.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Inngest or Restate?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Restate is cheaper to start with: $75 a month, against $99 a month for Inngest. Inngest starts at $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated, and Restate starts at $75 per month for 5M actions.
Which has a free plan, Inngest or Restate?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Inngest and Restate have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.