head to head · open source
Temporal vs Trigger
Temporal has 24,138 GitHub stars, 2,068 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trigger has 16,699 stars, 1,523 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Temporal leads on adoption by 45% (24,138 vs 16,699 stars). Temporal is written in Go under MIT; Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Temporal has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Trigger 9%. Temporal was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-automation), 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
| Temporal | Trigger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 17K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Temporal if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 Temporal
Temporal—durable execution platform Introduction • Getting Started • Contributing • Temporal Docs • Temporal 101 Introduction Temporal is a durable execution platform that enables developers to build scalable applications without sacrificing productivity or reliability. The Temporal server executes units of application logic called Workflows in a resilient manner that automatically handles intermittent failures, and retries failed operations. Temporal is a mature technology that originated as a fork of Uber's Cadence. It is developed by Temporal Technologies, a startup by the creators of…
read the full Temporal overview →
About Trigger
Build and deploy fully‑managed AI agents and workflows Website Docs Issues Example projects Feature requests Public roadmap Self hosting About Trigger.dev Trigger.dev is the open source platform for building AI workflows in TypeScript. Long running tasks with retries, queues, observability, and elastic scaling. The platform designed for building AI agents Build AI agents using all the frameworks, services and LLMs you're used to, deploy them to Trigger.dev and get durable, long running tasks with retries, queues, observability, and elastic scaling out of the box. Long running without timeouts : Execute your…
read the full Trigger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Temporal or Trigger more popular?
Temporal has 24,138 GitHub stars and Trigger has 16,699. Temporal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Temporal and Trigger free?
Both are open source. Temporal is licensed under MIT and Trigger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Temporal and Trigger?
Temporal is written in Go 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, Temporal or Trigger?
Choose Temporal if you want the larger community (24,138 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Trigger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.