head to head · open source
Trigger vs Dagu
Trigger has 16,712 GitHub stars, 1,524 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Dagu has 4,543 stars, 395 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trigger leads on adoption by 268% (16,712 vs 4,543 stars). Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Dagu is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Trigger has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Dagu 9%. Dagu 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 | Dagu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 395 |
| 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 Dagu if
- You want the Dagu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Dagu 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 Dagu
Docs · CLI · API · Examples · Live demo (username/password: demouser) · Discord Dagu Dagu is a local first workflow engine for operations and internal automation. It is open source and self hostable: a single binary with a built in Web UI, no external database or message broker, running on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Define DAGs in a declarative YAML format. It natively supports shell commands, Docker containers, Kubernetes Jobs, remote commands via SSH, and more through Dagu Actions. Dagu turns existing scripts and runbooks into production workflows with scheduling, retries, human tasks, and run history. It runs…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trigger or Dagu more popular?
Trigger has 16,712 GitHub stars and Dagu has 4,543. Trigger has the larger community by that measure.
Are Trigger and Dagu free?
Both are open source. Trigger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Dagu under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Trigger and Dagu?
Trigger is written in TypeScript and Dagu 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 Dagu?
Choose Trigger if you want the larger community (16,712 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Dagu if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.