head to head · open source
Trigger vs agent-orchestrator
Trigger has 16,699 GitHub stars, 1,523 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. agent-orchestrator has 14,021 stars, 1,911 forks, 711 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trigger leads on adoption by 19% (16,699 vs 14,021 stars). Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; agent-orchestrator is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Trigger has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, agent-orchestrator 14%. agent-orchestrator was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Trigger | agent-orchestrator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Trigger if
- You weight community size — 17K 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 agent-orchestrator if
- You want the agent-orchestrator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and agent-orchestrator fits your workflow better
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 →
About agent-orchestrator
Agent Orchestrator Plan, run, and supervise coding agents from one place. Give every coding task its own agent, workspace, and feedback loop. Plan and delegate larger outcomes with a project aware orchestrator. Follow every worker, pull request, CI run, and review in a live Kanban. Download AO • Documentation • Releases • Contributing • Discord English · 简体中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Español · Français · Deutsch · Português (Brasil) A workspace for agent driven development One coding agent can handle a task. Running several across a project creates a different job: deciding what matters, splitting work…
read the full agent-orchestrator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trigger or agent-orchestrator more popular?
Trigger has 16,699 GitHub stars and agent-orchestrator has 14,021. Trigger has the larger community by that measure.
Are Trigger and agent-orchestrator free?
Both are open source. Trigger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and agent-orchestrator under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Trigger and agent-orchestrator?
Trigger is written in TypeScript and agent-orchestrator in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Trigger or agent-orchestrator?
Choose Trigger if you want the larger community (16,699 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose agent-orchestrator if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.