# Inngest vs Temporal

> Temporal has a score of 77.2 (BB) against Inngest's 66.3 (B). Both do hitl approve. The largest gap is reliability, 28 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Temporal has a score of 77.2 (BB) against Inngest's 66.3 (B). Both do hitl approve. The largest gap is reliability, 28 points.

- Inngest: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #160 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inngest.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/inngest.json
- Temporal: grade BB, 77.2/100, rank #21 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/temporal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/temporal.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Inngest for payments & pricing (+20).

Pick Temporal for reliability (+28), agent ergonomics (+9), security & auth (+26), transparency & trust (+14).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Inngest | Temporal | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 85 | Temporal +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 91 | Temporal +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 85 | Temporal +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 86 | Temporal +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Inngest +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 90 | Temporal +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 70 | Temporal +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.3 · B** | **77.2 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Inngest | Temporal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Inngest | Temporal Technologies |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://inn.gs/e/` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | SSPL with delayed Apache-2.0 (server), Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-15 |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3.6/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Inngest.** Waits are durable and cost nothing while suspended, with runs up to 30 days on Free and 366 on Business. No reviewer inbox, Slack app or email, so the human side is your code.

**Temporal.** Waits of any length with a timeout survive worker restarts and deploys. No reviewer inbox, notifications or routing, so the human side is all your code.

## Before you call either

### Inngest

1. Use `step.waitForSignal()` when one run waits for one answer, and `waitForEvent` only when one answer resumes many runs
2. Register the wait before you send the approval request, or check the external state first, since early events are missed
3. Use a unique approval ID per tool call and `match` on it, so parallel approvals resolve independently
4. Treat `null` or `undefined` as a timeout and decide on purpose whether that rejects, approves or escalates
5. Set an event `id` when sending the answer, so a retried send is dropped within 24 hours

### Temporal

1. Put the decision in a typed Signal payload (approver, decision, comments, timestamp) instead of a bare boolean
2. Always wait with a timeout and treat the timeout path as a rejection or an escalation on purpose
3. Use the workflow ID as the approval ID, so the reviewer's tool only needs one value to send the Signal
4. Use an Update instead of a Signal when the approver's tool needs an acknowledgement back
5. Expect `ResourceExhausted` under load and let the SDK retry it, since signals are throttled last

## Other comparisons with Inngest or Temporal

- [gotoHuman vs Inngest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-inngest.md)
- [gotoHuman vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-temporal.md)
- [Inngest vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
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- [Inngest vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-pushary.md)
- [Inngest vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-temporal.md)
- [Permit MCP Gateway vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-temporal.md)
- [Pushary vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-temporal.md)
- [Temporal vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-trigger-dev.md)