Inngest

A platform for durable functions and AI workflows: steps that retry, wait and recover, triggered by events or cron, on serverless or your own servers.

6k stars, 385 forks Go On GitHub since June 2021

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is Inngest?

Inngest replaces queues, state handling and schedulers with durable functions written in your own codebase. A function is triggered by an event, a cron schedule or a webhook, and is split into steps that retry on failure and can run for months. Flow controls such as concurrency, throttling, debouncing and prioritization are set per function. A local Dev Server mirrors production, and functions run on serverless platforms, servers or the edge, called over HTTPS by Inngest Cloud or a self-hosted server.

Good fit if

  • You build on serverless platforms and need background jobs without running a queue yourself.
  • You want per-user concurrency limits and rate limits on AI or API calls.
  • You prefer to keep workflow code inside your existing app.

Look elsewhere if

  • You need an OSI-approved license for the server: Hatchet is MIT and Trigger.dev is Apache-2.0.
  • You want visual workflows for non-developers: n8n.

Before you adopt it

The Inngest server and CLI are under the Server Side Public License, which is not open source by the OSI definition, with delayed publication under Apache 2.0. The SDKs are Apache 2.0. Most teams use Inngest Cloud; self-hosting the server is possible.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 30 October 2026. Report a correction

Inngest health: is it still maintained?

75 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    301 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 31 October 2026.
    30 / 30
  • Contributors
    17 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 19% of them.
    17 / 20
  • Releases
    14 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, v1.49.0, on 23 October 2026.
    19 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Maintainers answered 9% of recent issues, with a median first reply after 22 days.
    4 / 20
  • Security practices
    No OpenSSF Scorecard for this repository yet, so this part gets a neutral score.
    5 / 10

Read from GitHub on 1 November 2026. How the score works

Inngest license: is it open source?

Inngest uses Server Side Public License. It is source-available, not an OSI-approved open-source license: the code is public, but the license restricts how you may use it, usually commercially.

  1. June 2021First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayServer Side Public License.

How to run Inngest yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Compose file
None in the repository
Setup effort
Not rated: no compose file to judge from
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
Builds for Linux, macOS, Windows, including ARM in GitHub releases
Interface languages
English only

Install instructions: inngest.com or the README on GitHub.

Alternatives to Inngest

  • HatchetAn orchestration engine for background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows 83 health · MIT · 8.2k stars
  • Trigger.devTrigger.dev – build and deploy durable AI agents and workflows 84 health · Apache-2.0 · 16.7k stars
  • ConductorConductor is an event driven agentic workflow engine providing durable and highly resilient execution engine… 78 health · Apache-2.0 · 32.4k stars
  • TemporalTemporal service 83 health · MIT · 24.1k stars
  • ActivepiecesAI Agents & MCPs & AI Workflow Automation • (~400 MCP servers for AI agents) • AI Automation / AI Agent with… 81 health · MIT · 25.3k stars

All 33 projects in Workflow automation

Questions about Inngest

Is Inngest open source?

Not by the OSI definition. Inngest uses Server Side Public License, which makes the code public but restricts how it may be used.

Is Inngest still maintained?

Its health score is 75 of 100 (actively developed). It had 301 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 31 October 2026, and its latest release came out on 23 October 2026.

How do I run Inngest?

You can run it with Docker, as an app for Linux, macOS, Windows, including ARM. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to Inngest?

Close alternatives in the Workflow automation category include Hatchet, Trigger.dev, Conductor.