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Temporal vs Inngest
Trust Score comparison · March 2026
Signal Comparison
200k / wknpm downloads75k/wk
200 commitsCommits (90d)320
12k ★GitHub stars9.8k
800 q'sStack Overflow600
GrowingCommunityVery Active
TemporalInngest
Key Differences
| Factor | Temporal | Inngest |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Server-Side Public License |
| Language | TypeScript / Python | TypeScript |
| Hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Free tier | — | — |
| Open Source | ✓ Yes | — |
| TypeScript | ✓ | — |
Pick Temporal if…
- Long-running business processes (order fulfillment, multi-step payments) that must complete reliably
- Replacing complex retry logic, dead-letter queues, and state machines with simple code
- Workflows that span hours, days, or weeks and need human-in-the-loop steps
Pick Inngest if…
- Serverless functions that need multi-step workflows with retries
- Event-driven background jobs without managing a queue (BullMQ needs Redis)
- Long-running tasks that span multiple serverless invocations
Side-by-side Quick Start
Temporal
import { Worker, NativeConnection } from '@temporalio/worker';
import { workflowFn } from './workflows';
const worker = await Worker.create({
connection: await NativeConnection.connect({ address: 'localhost:7233' }),
namespace: 'default',
taskQueue: 'my-queue',
workflowsPath: require.resolve('./workflows'),
activities: { greet: async (name) => `Hello, ${name}!` },
});
await worker.run();Inngest
import { Inngest } from 'inngest';
const inngest = new Inngest({ id: 'my-app' });
// Define a background function
export const sendWelcomeEmail = inngest.createFunction(
{ id: 'send-welcome-email' },
{ event: 'user/signup' },
async ({ event, step }) => {
// Step 1: send email
await step.run('send-email', () =>
sendEmail(event.data.email, 'Welcome!')
);
// Step 2: wait 3 days, then send follow-up
await step.sleep('wait-3-days', '3 days');
await step.run('send-followup', () =>
sendEmail(event.data.email, 'How are you finding things?')
);
}
);Community Verdict
Based on upvoted notes🏆
Temporal wins this comparison
Trust Score 82 vs 40 · 42-point difference
Temporal leads on Trust Score with stronger signal data across downloads and community health. That said, the other tool is worth considering if your use case matches its specific strengths above.