Trigger.dev

Open SourceApache-2.0Self-hostable

Background jobs and AI workflows in plain TypeScript — retries, queues, schedules and no timeouts, living in your repo and deployed like the rest of your code.

Open source alternative to

Zapier

n8n

Visit Trigger.dev View source

About Trigger.dev

Trigger.dev asks a simple question: if your product is code, why is your automation a diagram in someone else's SaaS? With it, background jobs and long-running workflows are plain TypeScript functions in your repository — reviewed in PRs, tested in CI, deployed with your app.

The platform supplies what's hard about background work: durable execution with no timeouts, automatic retries, queues, cron schedules, concurrency controls and a dashboard with full run traces. Long-running AI agent workflows — hours of LLM calls, tool use and waits — are a headline use case.

It's Apache-2.0, self-hostable with Docker, and pairs a polished cloud offering with the option to keep everything on your own infrastructure. For product engineers, it replaces both the flaky in-house job runner and the temptation to duct-tape n8n into the backend.

Key features

No-timeout durable runs — Jobs run for seconds or days — checkpointed and resumed, no serverless time limits.
Just TypeScript — Define tasks in your codebase with full type safety — no DSL, no canvas, no vendor UI to click through.
Built for AI agents — Long chains of LLM calls, tool use, human-approval waits and streaming — with per-run observability.
Retries, queues, schedules — Production-grade reliability primitives out of the box, visible in a clean runs dashboard.

How to install Trigger.dev

The honest read

What we like

Automation lives in your repo with code review and CI
Durable execution — no timeout ceilings
First-class fit for AI agent workloads
Excellent developer experience and dashboard
Apache-2.0 and self-hostable

Worth knowing

TypeScript only — no visual builder for non-devs
No library of SaaS connectors; you call APIs yourself
Self-hosting v3+ is more involved than a single container
Young compared to queue veterans like Celery

FAQ

Is Trigger.dev free?

The open-source platform is Apache-2.0 and free to self-host. Trigger.dev Cloud has a free tier, with paid plans priced on usage.

How is Trigger.dev different from n8n?

n8n gives non-developers a visual canvas with hundreds of connectors. Trigger.dev gives developers code — tasks written in TypeScript inside your repo, with durability and observability handled. Pick by who's building the automation.

Can Trigger.dev run AI agents?

Yes — it's one of its main use cases. Durable, no-timeout runs suit long agent loops, with retries for flaky model calls and waitpoints for human approval.

Can I self-host Trigger.dev?

Yes — official Docker/Kubernetes setups run the webapp, worker and Postgres on your infrastructure. Most teams start on the cloud and move in-house when compliance requires.