Temporal vs Trigger.dev
A comparison of Temporal and Trigger.dev built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
4 sourced criteria separate them:
- 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.
- Trigger.dev: $10/month for Hobby, which includes $10 of credits; Pro is $50/month including $50 of credits.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Temporal 0
Trigger.dev 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Temporal | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Queues | ||
| 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.
- Trigger.dev
- $10/month for Hobby, which includes $10 of credits; Pro is $50/month including $50 of credits.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“Essentials Starting at $100/mo. [...] 1 M Actions 1 GB Active Storage 40 GB Retained Storage [...] Business Starting at $500/mo. [...] 2.5 M Actions 2.5 GB Act”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Trigger.dev ↗
“Hobby $10/month [...] $10 / month credits included [...] Pro $50/month [...] $50 / month credits included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“Cloud platform 99.9% SLA, 99.99% HA options [...] Essentials support with 1 business day P0 response time [...] Host It Yourself Open Source Temporal Self-Hosted [...] Temporal Service Temporal SDKs Temporal CLI Temporal UI Community Support”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Trigger.dev ↗
“$10 / month credits included [...] Then $10/month per 50 [...] Then $20/month per seat [...] Then $10/month per branch [...] Then $10/month per 1,000”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“Essentials Starting at $100/mo. [...] 1 M Actions 1 GB Active Storage 40 GB Retained Storage [...] Business [...] 2.5 M Actions 2.5 GB Active Storage”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Trigger.dev ↗
“$5 / month free credits [...] $10 / month credits included [...] $50 / month credits included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“EVENT HISTORY AND RETENTION Storage Temporal stores workflow event history as Active storage for open workflows and Retained Storage for closed workflows [...] 1 GB Active Storage 40 GB Retained Storage”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Trigger.dev ↗
“1 day log retention 1 day query period [...] 7 day log retention 7 days query period [...] 30 day log retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.