# Temporal vs Trigger.dev

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/temporal-vs-trigger-dev/

Every value below is read from Temporal's and Trigger.dev's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Temporal | Trigger.dev |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $100/month for Essentials, including 1 million Actions, 1 GB active storage and 40 GB retained storage. Business starts at $500/month with 2.5 million Actions. | $10/month for Hobby, which includes $10 of credits; Pro is $50/month including $50 of credits. |
| Pricing model | Per Action, with storage billed separately and split between open and closed workflows. Plans buy SLA tier and support response rather than volume — Essentials is 99.9% with one business day P0 response, Business adds scale. An open-source self-hosted edition runs the same service on your own infrastructure. | A monthly plan fee that is also a credit balance — the fee buys compute rather than sitting on top of it — with concurrency, preview branches, dashboards and schedules each priced as separate add-ons beyond the plan's allowance. |
| Included per month | 1,000,000 Actions a month on Essentials and 2.5 million on Business. An Action is Temporal's own unit — a workflow operation — and is not comparable to a message, an operation or an execution elsewhere in this category. | Credits rather than a message or execution count: $5 a month free, $10 included on Hobby and $50 on Pro, spent against compute. |
| Message retention | Storage rather than a time window: 1 GB of active storage for open workflows and 40 GB retained for closed ones on Essentials, 2.5 GB active on Business. Temporal keeps workflow event history, so retention is bounded by bytes rather than by days — recorded without a magnitude because it is not the quantity this criterion ranks. | Log retention of 1 day on the free plan, 7 days on Hobby and 30 days on Pro, with the query period matching. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Temporal: $100/month for Essentials, including 1 million Actions, 1 GB active storage and 40 GB retained storage. Business starts at $500/month with 2.5 million Actions. ([source](https://temporal.io/pricing))
- Trigger.dev: $10/month for Hobby, which includes $10 of credits; Pro is $50/month including $50 of credits. ([source](https://trigger.dev/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Temporal: Per Action, with storage billed separately and split between open and closed workflows. Plans buy SLA tier and support response rather than volume — Essentials is 99.9% with one business day P0 response, Business adds scale. An open-source self-hosted edition runs the same service on your own infrastructure. ([source](https://temporal.io/pricing))
- Trigger.dev: A monthly plan fee that is also a credit balance — the fee buys compute rather than sitting on top of it — with concurrency, preview branches, dashboards and schedules each priced as separate add-ons beyond the plan's allowance. ([source](https://trigger.dev/pricing))

### Included per month

- Temporal: 1,000,000 Actions a month on Essentials and 2.5 million on Business. An Action is Temporal's own unit — a workflow operation — and is not comparable to a message, an operation or an execution elsewhere in this category. ([source](https://temporal.io/pricing))
- Trigger.dev: Credits rather than a message or execution count: $5 a month free, $10 included on Hobby and $50 on Pro, spent against compute. ([source](https://trigger.dev/pricing))

### Message retention

- Temporal: Storage rather than a time window: 1 GB of active storage for open workflows and 40 GB retained for closed ones on Essentials, 2.5 GB active on Business. Temporal keeps workflow event history, so retention is bounded by bytes rather than by days — recorded without a magnitude because it is not the quantity this criterion ranks. ([source](https://temporal.io/pricing))
- Trigger.dev: Log retention of 1 day on the free plan, 7 days on Hobby and 30 days on Pro, with the query period matching. ([source](https://trigger.dev/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Temporal if Long-running, stateful workflows where losing execution history is the failure that matters — Temporal keeps event history as first-class storage rather than logs that expire.

Pick Trigger.dev if Teams that want background jobs written as normal code with the bill expressed as compute credits rather than a per-message meter.

Consider something else: Temporal — Entry is $100 a month before any usage, and the unit is an Action, which does not map onto messages or task runs — budgeting requires modelling your workflows, not counting jobs.

Consider something else: Trigger.dev — Concurrency is the axis that forces an upgrade — 20 simultaneous runs on free, 50 on Hobby, then $10 a month per additional 50.

## Documented by only one

- Concurrency: Trigger.dev: 20 concurrent runs on the free plan, 50 on Hobby, and more on Pro at $10 a month per additional 50.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Temporal or Trigger.dev?**

Temporal: $100/month for Essentials, including 1 million Actions, 1 GB active storage and 40 GB retained storage. Business starts at $500/month with 2.5 million Actions.
Trigger.dev: $10/month for Hobby, which includes $10 of credits; Pro is $50/month including $50 of credits.

**Should I choose Temporal or Trigger.dev?**

Pick Temporal if Long-running, stateful workflows where losing execution history is the failure that matters — Temporal keeps event history as first-class storage rather than logs that expire.
Pick Trigger.dev if Teams that want background jobs written as normal code with the bill expressed as compute credits rather than a per-message meter.