# Inngest vs Trigger.dev

> Trigger.dev has a score of 74.8 (BB) against Inngest's 66.3 (B). Both do hitl approve. The largest gap is reliability, 18 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev.md (~1,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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

Trigger.dev has a score of 74.8 (BB) against Inngest's 66.3 (B). Both do hitl approve. The largest gap is reliability, 18 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
- Trigger.dev: grade BB, 74.8/100, rank #46 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/trigger-dev.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/trigger-dev.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Inngest for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Trigger.dev for reliability (+18), security & auth (+13), transparency & trust (+18).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Inngest | Trigger.dev | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 75 | Trigger.dev +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 91 | Trigger.dev +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 79 | Trigger.dev +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 73 | Trigger.dev +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 90 | Trigger.dev +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 74 | Trigger.dev +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.3 · B** | **74.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Inngest | Trigger.dev |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Inngest | Trigger.dev |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://inn.gs/e/` | `https://api.trigger.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | SSPL with delayed Apache-2.0 (server), Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 31 |
| 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 | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.triggerdotdev/trigger.dev` |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-10-01 |
| 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.

**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

### 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

### Trigger.dev

1. Pass an explicit `timeout` to `wait.createToken()` and handle `ok: false` as a timeout
2. Use an idempotency key when creating the token so a retried step doesn't send the reviewer a second request
3. Give the browser the `publicAccessToken`, never the secret key, and don't call `token.url` from client code
4. Tag tokens with the user or task ID so pending approvals can be listed per reviewer
5. Start the MCP server with `--readonly` when the agent only needs to inspect runs

## Other comparisons with Inngest or Trigger.dev

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