# Apache Pulsar vs Trigger.dev

| Attribute | Apache Pulsar | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 58.9 (29% (low)) | 59.5 (74% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 69 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 316 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 15,315 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A distributed messaging system built for cloud deployments that enables applications to reliably publish and consume messages—either individually or as continuous streams—with sub-10-millisecond latency, supporting millions of independent topics and large-scale streaming workloads. | A cloud service that executes durable, serverless tasks and AI agents with built-in retry logic, observability, and automatic scaling. Code runs without timeouts on managed infrastructure, with state preserved across execution pauses and failures. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"both","ordering":"per_partition","paradigm":"pubsub","protocol":"pulsar://","message_replay":true,"persistent_log":true,"consumer_groups":true,"geo_replication":true,"kafka_compatible":true,"stream_processing":true,"delivery_guarantee":"exactly_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` | `{"hosting":"cloud","ordering":"fifo","paradigm":"job_queue","message_replay":false,"persistent_log":true,"consumer_groups":false,"geo_replication":false,"kafka_compatible":false,"managed_offering":true,"dead_letter_queue":false,"stream_processing":true,"delivery_guarantee":"at_least_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` |
| integrations.count | 35 | 5 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Cassandra"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"HBase"},{"name":"HDFS"},{"name":"InfluxDB"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Solr"},{"name":"DynamoDB"},{"name":"Kinesis"},{"name":"Azure Data Explorer"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MariaDB"},{"name":"SQLite"},{"name":"Debezium MySQL"},{"name":"Debezium PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Debezium MongoDB"},{"name":"Debezium Oracle"},{"name":"Debezium Microsoft SQL Server"},{"name":"Canal"},{"name":"Aerospike"},{"name":"Alluxio"},{"name":"NSQ"},{"name":"Netty"},{"name":"HTTP"},{"name":"File"}]` | `[{"name":"Prisma"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Resend"},{"name":"Vercel"},{"name":"GitHub"}]` |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://pulsar.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T11:10:46.807Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free","features":["Dev and Prod environments","Community support","1 day log retention"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"team_members":"5","concurrent_tasks":"20","log_retention_days":"1"}},{"free":false,"name":"Hobby","summary":"$10/month","features":["Dev, Preview and Prod environments","Community support","7 day log retention"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"team_members":"5","concurrent_tasks":"50","log_retention_days":"7"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"From $50/month","features":["Dev, Preview and Prod environments","Dedicated Slack support","30 day log retention"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":50,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"50 concurrent tasks","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":20,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"branch","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"dashboard","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"1000 events","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"branches":"20","dashboards":"5","team_members":"25","concurrent_tasks":"200","events_per_month":"1000","log_retention_days":"30"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["All Pro plan features","Custom log retention","Priority support","Role-based access control (RBAC)","SOC 2 report","Penetration test report","Single sign-on (SSO)"],"contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"HIPAA BAA (Business Associate Agreement)"}],"summary":"Free tier available. From $10/month for Hobby tier; Pro starts at $50/month with usage-based overage pricing.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://trigger.dev/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:33:58.046Z","startingPrice":{"amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.2.4","date":"2026-08-03T09:19:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.2.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.13","date":"2026-08-03T09:19:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.2.3","date":"2026-07-06T08:46:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.2.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.12","date":"2026-07-06T08:46:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v5.0.0-M1","date":"2026-06-23T14:11:26Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v5.0.0-M1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.2.2","date":"2026-06-08T18:16:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.11","date":"2026-06-08T18:16:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.2.1","date":"2026-04-27T13:04:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.10","date":"2026-04-27T13:04:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v3.0.17","date":"2026-04-27T13:03:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.2.0","date":"2026-03-31T21:12:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.1.3","date":"2026-02-19T19:48:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.9","date":"2026-02-19T19:48:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v3.0.16","date":"2026-02-16T09:24:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.1.2","date":"2025-11-17T07:58:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.8","date":"2025-11-17T07:58:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v3.0.15","date":"2025-11-17T07:57:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.15"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.1.1","date":"2025-09-27T04:40:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v4.0.7","date":"2025-09-27T04:40:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/pulsar/releases/tag/v3.3.9","date":"2025-09-27T04:39:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.3.9"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.apache.pulsar%3Apulsar-client-admin&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Message Queues)

| Capability | Apache Pulsar | Trigger.dev |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Messaging paradigm | Pub/sub | Job / task queue |
| **Correctness** |  |  |
| Delivery guarantee | Exactly-once | At-least-once |
| Ordering guarantee | Per-partition | FIFO |
| **Durability** |  |  |
| Durable replayable log | ✓ | ✓ |
| Message replay / rewind | ✓ | ✗ |
| **Interop** |  |  |
| Wire protocol | pulsar:// | - |
| Kafka-protocol compatible | ✓ | ✗ |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Partitioned horizontal scaling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Geo / cross-region replication | ✓ | ✗ |
| **Consumption** |  |  |
| Consumer groups / competing consumers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dead-letter queue | - | ✗ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Managed cloud offering exists | - | ✓ |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud only |
| **Processing** |  |  |
| Built-in stream processing | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:00:35.223Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*