head to head · open source
rowboat vs Trigger
rowboat has 17,871 GitHub stars, 1,776 forks, 167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trigger has 16,324 stars, 1,462 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rowboat leads on adoption by 9% (17,871 vs 16,324 stars). rowboat is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. rowboat has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Trigger 9%. Trigger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, ai-agents), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| rowboat | Trigger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rowboat if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Trigger if
- You want the Trigger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Trigger fits your workflow better
About rowboat
Rowboat is an open source desktop AI coworker, licensed Apache 2.0 and written in TypeScript, that maintains a memory of your work as a local Markdown knowledge graph and provides built in surfaces — email, notes, browser, code mode, meeting notes — for acting on that memory.
read the full rowboat overview →
About Trigger
Trigger is an open source TypeScript platform for building and deploying AI agents and workflow tasks. It lives in the infrastructure, orchestration, and scheduling ecosystem, and it is positioned as a way to run long running AI tasks without typical serverless timeout constraints. The project provides a software development kit, a deployment target, and operational features such as retries, queues, observability, and elastic scaling.
read the full Trigger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rowboat or Trigger more popular?
rowboat has 17,871 GitHub stars and Trigger has 16,324. rowboat has the larger community by that measure.
Are rowboat and Trigger free?
Both are open source. rowboat is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Trigger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rowboat and Trigger?
rowboat is written in TypeScript and Trigger in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rowboat or Trigger?
Choose rowboat if you want the larger community (17,871 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Trigger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.