head to head · open source
Trigger vs dolphinscheduler
Trigger has 16,699 GitHub stars, 1,523 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. dolphinscheduler has 14,551 stars, 5,123 forks, 128 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trigger leads on adoption by 15% (16,699 vs 14,551 stars). Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; dolphinscheduler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Trigger has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, dolphinscheduler 35%. dolphinscheduler was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (orchestration), 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 | dolphinscheduler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 5.1K |
| 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 dolphinscheduler if
- You want the dolphinscheduler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and dolphinscheduler 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 dolphinscheduler
Apache Dolphinscheduler About Apache DolphinScheduler is a modern data orchestration platform that empowers agile, low code development of high performance workflows. It is dedicated to handling complex task dependencies in data pipelines and provides a wide range of built in job types out of the box . Key features for DolphinScheduler are as follows: Easy to deploy, providing four deployment modes including Standalone, Cluster, Docker, and Kubernetes. Easy to use, workflows can be created and managed via Web UI, Python SDK or Open API Highly reliable and high availability, with a decentralized, multi master and…
read the full dolphinscheduler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trigger or dolphinscheduler more popular?
Trigger has 16,699 GitHub stars and dolphinscheduler has 14,551. Trigger has the larger community by that measure.
Are Trigger and dolphinscheduler free?
Both are open source. Trigger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dolphinscheduler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Trigger and dolphinscheduler?
Trigger is written in TypeScript and dolphinscheduler in Java. 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 dolphinscheduler?
Choose Trigger if you want the larger community (16,699 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dolphinscheduler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.