Inngest vs Trigger.dev (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Inngest grades higher than Trigger.dev: 2.4 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Inngest grades higher on the free plan and features. Trigger.dev grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on ease of use and platforms.
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
Trigger.dev
Open-source platform for long-running background tasks 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 Trigger.dev if
- Fits if you write TypeScript and need jobs that run for minutes or days
- Works for developers building AI agents that must survive crashes
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a visual builder, as everything is code in your own project
- Tight if you stay free: $5 of credits a month, 10 schedules and 1 day of logs, and tasks stop when the credits are gone
- Pricey if you need more runs, since extra concurrency is $10 a month per 50 and Pro seats beyond 25 are $20 each
- Watch out: compute is billed per second by machine size plus $0.25 per 10,000 runs, so the bill is hard to predict
- Watch out: a HIPAA BAA is a $500 a month add-on
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAInngestFair | 2.2GPATrigger.devFair | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | BHobby is $10 a month with $10 of usage credits, which is the edge of the cheapest quarter ($10) in this category. Compute is billed per second on top, and a signed HIPAA BAA is $500 a month extra. |
| 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. | CA free plan with $5 of monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members and 1 day of log retention. When the credits run out, tasks stop. |
| Features | BDurable step functions, queues, events, observability and AI agent tooling. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core work. | CTasks with no time limit, schedules, queues, webhooks, a dashboard and open-source self-hosting. There's no visual workflow builder, and schedules are capped from 10 on Free to 1,000 on Pro. |
| Ease of use | DWorkflows are written in code with an SDK, so it needs a developer. | DNo store rating on record. Tasks are TypeScript in your own codebase, and self-hosting is an option, so you need to be a developer to start. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb service with open-source SDKs and a Datadog integration. No desktop or phone app. | BWeb dashboard, with an API, webhooks, streaming to a frontend through Realtime and a self-hosting guide. |
| Best for | background jobs written in code | running long background jobs in code |
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 Trigger.dev. 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. Trigger.dev starts at $10 a month and scores 2.0.
Inngest scores higher, and starts $89 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 5 score higher than Trigger.dev 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
- Trigger.dev is self-hostable, according to its own site.
At a glance
| Inngest | Trigger.dev | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated | $10 per month (Hobby), with $10 of usage credits included |
| Free plan | 5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history. No credit card required. | $5 of monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 10 schedules, 1 day of log retention and community support. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Inngest Inc. | API Hero Ltd. |
| Price read from | inngest.com | trigger.dev |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 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.
Trigger.dev
- Tasks are written in TypeScript in your own codebase; there is no visual workflow builder.
- Compute is billed per second by machine size, plus $0.25 per 10,000 runs; a Small 1x machine costs $0.0000338 a second.
- A signed HIPAA BAA is a $500 a month add-on on the Hobby and Pro plans.
- The Free plan stops running tasks once its $5 of monthly credits is used up.
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.
Trigger.dev
- Tasks with no maximum duration
- Tasks are code that run on managed workers with no set time limit, so a single run can last minutes, days or longer. Waiting on a subtask or a long delay does not count toward compute.
- AI agents and chat
- Agent runs can last minutes or hours and survive crashes. Responses and tool calls can be streamed to a frontend through Realtime, and it works with the Vercel AI SDK.
- Schedules and webhooks
- Cron-style scheduled tasks and verified webhooks start runs. Schedules are capped by plan, from 10 on Free to 1,000 on Pro.
- Concurrency and queues
- Queues control how many runs execute at once. Limits only count while code is running, and extra concurrency on Pro is sold in bundles of 50 for $10 a month.
- Self-hosting
- The platform is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and the vendor publishes a self-hosting guide for running it on your own infrastructure.
- Observability
- Runs are monitored and traced in a dashboard, with billing alerts at set share-of-budget levels. Log retention runs from 1 day on Free to 30 days on Pro.
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.
Trigger.dev
Free$0
$5 monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 10 schedules and 1 day of log retention.
Hobby$10
per month, with $10 of usage credits included
50 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 100 schedules, 7 days of log retention and 3 alert destinations.
Pro$50
per month, with $50 of usage credits included
200+ concurrent runs, 25+ team members ($20 per extra seat), 1,000+ schedules, 30 days of logs and Slack support.
EnterpriseCustom
Everything in Pro plus custom log retention, priority support, role-based access control, SSO and SOC 2 and pen-test reports.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Inngest or Trigger.dev?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Trigger.dev is cheaper to start with: $10 a month, against $99 a month for Inngest. Inngest starts at $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated, and Trigger.dev starts at $10 per month (Hobby), with $10 of usage credits included.
Which has a free plan, Inngest or Trigger.dev?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Inngest and Trigger.dev 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.