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Cronitor vs Trigger.dev

Trigger.dev scores higher on the AgentReady, 60/100 against 45/100. They differ on 11 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Cronitor. Cronitor is a monitoring tool that alerts developers when their systems don't perform as expected, helping to quickly identify and address issues.

Trigger.dev. Trigger.dev is an open source background jobs framework and platform for building AI workflows in TypeScript.

Where Cronitor is ahead

Cronitor passes no mandatory sales call and free trial or free allowance, and Trigger.dev does not. That is adopt, whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop.

Where Trigger.dev is ahead

Trigger.dev passes llms.txt published, llms-full.txt / full agent docs and mcp discoverable, and Cronitor does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: authentication documented and limits / constraints documented. Cronitor misses those.

And on adopt, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, cli available and mcp integration available. Cronitor misses those.

What neither does

Both fail structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover is whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists. Trigger.dev leads 100 to 73. Cronitor misses llms.txt published, llms-full.txt / full agent docs, mcp discoverable; Trigger.dev misses nothing.

Understand. Trigger.dev leads 38 to 23. Cronitor misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Trigger.dev misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented.

Adopt. Trigger.dev leads 65 to 50. Cronitor misses agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, cli available, mcp integration available; Trigger.dev misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, free trial or free allowance.

Operate. Both sit at 35/100 here. Cronitor misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Trigger.dev misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Cronitor starts at $0/mo and has a free tier. Trigger.dev does not publish one.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Trigger.dev clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Cronitor and Trigger.dev. Alternatives to each: Cronitor, Trigger.dev.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["cronitor", "trigger"]}