Kestra vs Trigger.dev (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Kestra if

• Fits if you are an engineer who wants to own the orchestrator
• Works for data teams already using dbt, Spark or Kafka

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you do not write YAML or run servers
• Tight if you need SSO, roles, audit logs or multi-tenancy, as those are Enterprise
• Watch out: no Cloud or Enterprise price is published
• Watch out: you run and upgrade the platform yourself

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

Kestra

• No Cloud or Enterprise price is published; Cloud is by access request and Enterprise by contact with sales.
• SSO, role-based access, audit logs and multi-tenancy are Enterprise Edition features.
• Workflows are defined in YAML, so it assumes engineering skills.
• Self-hosting means running and upgrading the platform yourself.

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.

Kestra

Declarative workflows

Workflows, triggers and dependencies are written as YAML, versioned in Git and deployed through CI/CD.

Code and no-code editors

Flows can be written in code or built in a visual editor.

Event-driven scheduling

Flows run on schedules, on events or through the API, with retries, backfills and failure handling.

2,600+ plugins

Plugins and scripts orchestrate SQL, Python, shell, APIs, Terraform, dbt and Spark in one workflow.

AI features

An MCP server for AI agents is in open source; an agentic AI copilot on any LLM is an Enterprise feature.

Enterprise governance

Enterprise adds SSO, LDAP and SCIM, role-based access, audit logs, multi-tenancy and secrets management.

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.

Kestra

• Open Source$0

  Self-hosted under Apache 2.0. Unlimited flows and executions, queue on PostgreSQL or MySQL.

• CloudCustom

  Managed by Kestra with scaling and enterprise plugins; priced by usage, access by request.

• Enterprise EditionCustom

  Annual subscription per instance, with SSO, RBAC, audit logs, worker groups and SLA support.

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.