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FastCron vs Trigger.dev

Trigger.dev scores higher on the AgentReady, 60/100 against 52/100. They differ on 12 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

FastCron. FastCron is a simple online cronjob service to help you schedule and run tasks automatically.

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

Where FastCron is ahead

FastCron passes structured api reference, and Trigger.dev does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.

It also holds adopt: no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow and free trial or free allowance. Trigger.dev misses those.

Where Trigger.dev is ahead

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

It also holds understand: limits / constraints documented. FastCron misses it.

And on adopt, official typescript sdk, cli available and mcp integration available. FastCron misses those.

What neither does

Both fail openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, 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 67. FastCron misses clear canonical domain, llms.txt published, llms-full.txt / full agent docs, mcp discoverable; Trigger.dev misses nothing.

Understand. FastCron leads 46 to 38. FastCron misses openapi / spec quality, 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 60. FastCron misses programmatic credential creation, official typescript sdk, 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. FastCron 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

FastCron starts at $6/month 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: FastCron and Trigger.dev. Alternatives to each: FastCron, Trigger.dev.

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