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Background Jobs & Queues · decision tool

Trigger.dev vs Temporal Cloud — for your app, not in general

Trigger.dev or Temporal Cloud? Set your usage, budget and constraints; the verdict, monthly cost and risks update live from verified pricing.

Prices verified 2026-07-17 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration

As of Jul 2026, with 100,000 job runs/month, a $50 budget for this slot, Trigger.dev ranks first for these inputs at 79% fit and a StackSays-estimated $0/month (Temporal Cloud: 40% fit, $100.00/month). Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.

Your situation

The verdict updates as you move these.

Clear pick for your inputs

Trigger.devfit 79% · est $0+/mo

Open-source background jobs billed by compute-seconds on sized machines, not run counts

vs Temporal Cloud: fit 79% against 40%, est $0+ against $100.00+ per month

Trigger.devfit 79%
$0+/mo
Temporal Cloudfit 40%
$100.00+/mo

Comparing 2 tools head-to-head. Open the full field (8 options) →

The decision, in plain words

For a solo builder at 100,000 job runs/month and a $50.00/mo budget for the jobs platform slot, Trigger.dev leads at 79% fit and $0/mo. The two rules doing the work: budget fit (Runs free at your usage — $0 vs your $50/mo budget); batteries included (Bundles durable workflows/steps, queues, concurrency controls — fewer services to glue at team size 1).

The gap to Temporal Cloud (40% fit) is wide at these inputs — you'd need to change your requirements, not your taste, to flip it.

Honest weak spot of the pick: no free tier — paying from day one.

Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.

Why Trigger.dev scores 79%

Budget fit (weight 30, our estimate) — Runs free at your usage — $0 vs your $50/mo budget+30
Batteries included (weight 12, our estimate) — Bundles durable workflows/steps, queues, concurrency controls — fewer services to glue at team size 1+12
Exit cost (weight 4, our estimate) — Self-hostable — the escape hatch if pricing or limits change+2.8
Ecosystem maturity (weight 8, our estimate) — growing — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool-1.6
Free-tier runway (weight 10, our estimate) — No free tier — paying from day one-6
Total (lines sum exactly)37.2
Possible range −64…+64 (sum of active rule weights) · fit % = (total + max) / (2 × max)(37.2 + 64) / 128 = 79%

How the $0+/mo estimate is calculated

Note — Bills compute-seconds × machine size ($0.0000169-0.00068/sec) + $0.000025/run — cost depends on your task duration, which we can't know; use their calculator$0
Monthly total (lines sum exactly)$0

What could change this verdict

Cost risk

Estimated now (StackSays estimate, not your final bill)$0/mo · Free
Free-tier statusNo free tier — paid from the first unit
Biggest unpriced/uncertain variableBills compute-seconds × machine size ($0.0000169-0.00068/sec) + $0.000025/run — cost depends on your task duration, which we can't know; use their calculator

Official prices verified 2026-07-17; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.

At a glance

ToolFree tierPaid entryVerified
Trigger.devNo free tierHobby $10/mo2026-07-17
Temporal CloudNo free tierEssentials $100/mo2026-07-17
Where did you land?anonymous, one click

Data sources

ToolSourceVerified
Trigger.devTrigger.dev pricing2026-07-17
Temporal CloudTemporal Cloud pricing2026-07-17

A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.

Keep deciding

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