Head to head · Human approval · October 2026 research run
Hatchet vs Trigger.dev
Trigger.dev scores 74.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do human approval.
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Which one, for what
Hatchet B
Good for It suits a team already running background jobs or agent loops on Hatchet that wants an approval pause inside the same durable task, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No approver inbox, Slack or email channel, routing or reminder. The owner builds the request and the way the answer is pushed
Trigger.dev BB
Good for A TypeScript team that wants an approval pause inside background jobs or AI chat agents, with the reviewer UI built in their own app.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 75 against 66
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 85
- Security & auth, 73 against 62
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
Watch for
10-minute default timeout on tokens
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Hatchet | Trigger.dev | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 66 | 75 | Trigger.dev +9 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 85 | 91 | Trigger.dev +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 82 | 79 | Hatchet +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 62 | 73 | Trigger.dev +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 90 | 90 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 71 | 73 | Trigger.dev +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| Total | 68.3 · B | 74.7 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Hatchet | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Hatchet Technologies, Inc. | Trigger.dev |
| Hosted endpoint | https://cloud.hatchet.run | https://api.trigger.dev |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 7 | 31 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | io.github.triggerdotdev/trigger.dev |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-07-17 | 2026-06-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-18 | 2025-12-23 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.6/5 (8) |
Verdicts
Hatchet
A durable task waits for a keyed event without holding a worker slot, and resumes from its event log after a restart, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby. Hatchet supplies only the pause and resume. It has no approver inbox, notification channel or record of who answered, and its MCP server cannot push the event.
Trigger.dev
Tokens complete from a backend, a pre-signed callback URL or the browser with a token scoped to one waitpoint. 10-minute default timeout on tokens.
Before you call either
Hatchet
- Put the approval wait in a durable task, and keep API calls, database reads and random values in child tasks, because the code between checkpoints is replayed
- Add a sleep condition in the same or group as the event condition to set a deadline, and treat the sleep firing first as a timeout
- Give the event a scope and the wait a lookback window when the answer can arrive before the wait starts. Both must be set together
- Filter with a CEL expression such as
input.user_id == '1234'so one approval key cannot resume another request's task - Push the answer with the SDK's event push or
POST /api/v1/tenants/{tenant}/events. The MCP server has no tool for it - Grant the MCP server one profile with
hatchet mcp auth --grant <profile>. It refuses profiles that were not granted
Trigger.dev
- Pass an explicit
timeouttowait.createToken()and handleok: falseas a timeout - Use an idempotency key when creating the token so a retried step doesn't send the reviewer a second request
- Give the browser the
publicAccessToken, never the secret key, and don't calltoken.urlfrom client code - Tag tokens with the user or task ID so pending approvals can be listed per reviewer
- Start the MCP server with
--readonlywhen the agent only needs to inspect runs
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Hatchet or Trigger.dev?
Trigger.dev scores 74.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.
Are Hatchet and Trigger.dev open source?
Yes. Hatchet is open source (MIT). Trigger.dev is open source (Apache-2.0).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/hatchet-vs-trigger-dev.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/hatchet.json·/api/v1/tools/trigger-dev.json - From a terminal
anchor compare hatchet trigger-dev(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "hatchet", "b": "trigger-dev"}at/mcp, no key