head to head · open source
Trigger vs happier
Trigger has 16,725 GitHub stars, 1,525 forks, 342 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. happier has 2,163 stars, 218 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Trigger leads on adoption by 673% (16,725 vs 2,163 stars). Trigger is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; happier is written in TypeScript under MIT. Trigger has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, happier 10%. happier 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 | happier | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 218 |
| 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 happier if
- You want the happier feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and happier 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 happier
One control room for all your coding agents. The way orchestrating agents should feel. From your phone, desktop and browser. Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi and more, working together and in parallel on your own machines. Sessions can spawn subagents across agents: e.g. Claude asking Codex for a review, or Codex delegating to Claude subagents. Switch agents mid session. Approve, steer, review and commit from wherever you are. Open source · Self hostable · End to end encrypted Get started · Downloads · Docs · Self host · Discord Latest Happier project update Happier is free and open source. Your agents keep…
read the full happier overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trigger or happier more popular?
Trigger has 16,725 GitHub stars and happier has 2,163. Trigger has the larger community by that measure.
Are Trigger and happier free?
Both are open source. Trigger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and happier under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Trigger and happier?
Trigger is written in TypeScript and happier 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, Trigger or happier?
Choose Trigger if you want the larger community (16,725 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose happier if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.