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Riverqueue vs Trigger.dev

Trigger.dev scores higher on the AgentReady, 60/100 against 45/100. They differ on 10 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Riverqueue. Fast and reliable background jobs in Go.

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

Where Riverqueue is ahead

Riverqueue 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.

It also holds operate: retry behavior documented. Trigger.dev misses it.

Where Trigger.dev is ahead

Trigger.dev passes clear product positioning and mcp discoverable, and Riverqueue 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. Riverqueue misses it.

And on adopt, self-service signup, fast time to first request and mcp integration available. Riverqueue misses those.

Finally, on operate, observable execution. Riverqueue misses it.

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, 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. Riverqueue misses clear product positioning, mcp discoverable; Trigger.dev misses nothing.

Understand. Trigger.dev leads 38 to 31. Riverqueue misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes 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 48. Riverqueue misses self-service signup, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, mcp integration available; Trigger.dev misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, free trial or free allowance.

Operate. Trigger.dev leads 35 to 29. Riverqueue misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, 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

Riverqueue does not publish a machine-readable starting price 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: Riverqueue and Trigger.dev. Alternatives to each: Riverqueue, Trigger.dev.

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