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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Trigger.dev

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.