Inngest vs Windmill (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Windmill grades higher than Inngest: 2.6 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 6, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 10, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Windmill grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on the free plan, features, 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
Windmill
Open-source platform for scripts, workflows and internal apps
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 Windmill if
- Fits if your automations are a pile of cron jobs and stray scripts that need one home
- Works for engineering teams who want every change reviewed as a diff before it goes live
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if nobody on the team writes code, because most steps are written in a programming language
- Tight if you're on Cloud Free, where each extra second of compute counts as another of your 1,000 executions
- Tight if you self-host for free, as Community stops at 3 workspaces and 50 users and keeps run details for 30 days
- Pricey if you self-host and need audit logs or SAML, as that's Enterprise from $120 a month
- Watch out: there's no connector library, and paid self-hosted instances report seat and memory use to Windmill
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAInngestFair | 2.6GPAWindmillGood | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | BCloud Team is $10 a seat a month with 10,000 executions in each seat, which sits inside this category's lowest-priced quarter, under $15. Self-hosting costs more, oddly: Pro is $48 a month minimum and only open to firms under 10 people, and audit logs or SAML mean Enterprise from $120. |
| 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. | BThe Community Edition is free and open source with unlimited executions for up to 50 users, which a small team could run on forever, as long as somebody is willing to look after Docker or Kubernetes. The no-effort route, Cloud Free, is thinner: 1,000 executions a month, no card. |
| Features | BDurable step functions, queues, events, observability and AI agent tooling. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core work. | BFor an engineering team it covers the job: scripts in 20-odd languages turned into endpoints, flows with retries, approvals and parallel branches, internal apps in React or Svelte, AI agents across 12 model providers, and forks, diffs and rollback. What it hasn't got is a connector library. |
| Ease of use | DWorkflows are written in code with an SDK, so it needs a developer. | DNo rating on record, and the listing is blunt about it: scripts and most flow steps are written in a programming language. The free edition means hosting it yourself with Docker or Kubernetes. Hand this to someone who doesn't code and nothing happens. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb service with open-source SDKs and a Datadog integration. No desktop or phone app. | BWeb only, with nothing for phones or the desktop, though you can run it on Windmill Cloud or your own Docker or Kubernetes. It reaches GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Stripe, Snowflake and PostgreSQL, and every script you write becomes an API endpoint. |
| Best for | background jobs written in code | engineers who want automations kept as 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 Windmill. 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. Windmill starts at $10 a month for each person and scores 2.3.
They score the same, and Windmill starts $89 a month lower. Of the other automation tools on the chart, 17 score higher than Inngest for less, and 3 score higher than Windmill 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
- Windmill is self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Windmill also covers app builder.
At a glance
| Inngest | Windmill | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated | $10 per seat / month (Cloud Team); self-hosted Pro from $48 / month |
| Free plan | 5 seats, 50k executions, 5 concurrent steps and 500k events a month, with 24 hours of trace history. No credit card required. | Self-hosted Community Edition: unlimited executions, up to 3 workspaces and 50 users. Windmill Cloud Free: 1,000 executions a month, with no credit card required. |
| Free trial | None listed | One-month free trial of the self-hosted Enterprise Edition |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Inngest Inc. | Windmill Labs, Inc. |
| Price read from | inngest.com | windmill.dev |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Oct 6, 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.
Windmill
- Windmill is code-first: scripts and most flow steps are written in a programming language, so it suits engineers more than non-technical users.
- The free self-hosted edition stops at 3 workspaces, 50 users and 10 SSO users, has no audit logs and keeps run details for up to 30 days.
- Cloud Free covers 1,000 executions a month, and an execution is one job of under a second; each extra second of compute counts as another.
- Enterprise and Pro bill at least 2 compute units, and their instances report seat and memory use to Windmill through license telemetry.
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.
Windmill
- Scripts in more than 20 languages
- A function in TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust, Bash, SQL, PHP or another supported language becomes an API endpoint and a form. Imports are resolved and versions locked at each deploy.
- Workflows as a graph or as code
- Flows are drawn in a flow editor or written in Python or TypeScript and called as an API endpoint. Retries, approval steps and parallel branches are built in.
- Internal apps
- An app is a React or Svelte frontend whose backend is your existing scripts and workflows. It can be shared with teams, published publicly or embedded in another product.
- AI agents and AI-assisted building
- Agents run on any of 12 model providers or your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint, with scripts and MCP servers as their tools. Scripts and flows can also be generated with AI in the UI.
- Forks, review and rollback
- Changes are made in a fork of the workspace, reviewed as a diff, then deployed to staging and production. Each deployment keeps its version, so an earlier one can be redeployed.
- Run history and observability
- Every run keeps its inputs, logs and result, and a failure can alert a team on Slack, Teams or by email. Enterprise adds audit logs, queue metrics and OpenTelemetry tracing.
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.
Windmill
Free and Open-source$0
Self-hosted Community Edition with unlimited executions, capped at 3 workspaces, 50 users, 4 groups and 10 SSO users. Community support on Discord.
Free (Cloud)$0
Windmill Cloud with 1,000 executions a month, sign-in with Google, GitHub or GitLab, and community support on Discord. No credit card required.
Team (Cloud)$10
per seat / month, billed by usage each month
Set per workspace. A seat covers one developer or two operators and includes 10,000 executions a month. 10 seats at most, with audit logs kept for 7 days.
Pro (self-hosted)From $48
per month: $8 per seat plus compute units
For individuals, seed-stage startups and companies under 10 employees and $250k in revenue. Capped at 10 compute units and 10 SSO users, with no audit logs.
Enterprise (self-hosted)From $120
per month: $20 per builder seat, $50 per compute unit
Audit logs, SAML and SCIM, Git sync, autoscaling, a commercial license and 24/7 priority support with a 3-hour response time. Non-builders count as half a seat.
Enterprise (Cloud)From $840
per month: $40 per developer seat plus compute
A dedicated Windmill Cloud instance with isolated workers and database, unlimited audit log retention and 24/7 priority support.
Ways to pay less
Inngest
No public discounts listed.
Windmill
- Annual discount
16% off Enterprise and Pro with annual billing
With the Annually option selected, the pricing page applies a 16% annual discount to Enterprise and Pro subscriptions, which comes to 10 months' price for the year.
- Nonprofit
40% off Enterprise for nonprofits
Windmill gives non-profits the regular Enterprise plan at a 40% discount: $12 per developer seat a month instead of $20 when self-hosted.
- Education
40% off Enterprise for universities
Universities get the same 40% discount on the regular Enterprise plan that Windmill gives non-profits.
- Startups
Pro plan for seed-stage startups
The self-hosted Pro plan, at $8 per seat against $20 on Enterprise, is open to individuals, seed-stage startups and businesses with fewer than 10 employees and $250k in revenue.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Inngest or Windmill?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Inngest starts at $99 per month (Pro), billing basis not stated, and Windmill starts at $10 per seat / month (Cloud Team); self-hosted Pro from $48 / month. One is priced for each person and the other is not, so which costs less depends on how many of you use it.
Which has a free plan, Inngest or Windmill?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Inngest and Windmill 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.