Show HN: We built a developer-first open-source Zapier alternative

745 points

3 years ago

For the past few months we’ve been building Trigger.dev and can now share our beta with you: https://github.com/triggerdotdev/trigger.dev. Trigger.dev is an open source platform that makes it easy for developers to create event-driven background tasks directly in their code. You write workflows using our SDK, and can view all the runs in our web app.

Why we built this:

- We found current workflow / automation tools like Zapier and n8n are good for simple tasks, but not for more advanced use cases.

- Dropping down into code in these tools is just not a great experience. We prefer using our own IDEs, version control, and having access to GitHub Copilot etc.

- Sometimes, a workflow requires us to query a database or handle some sensitive information. It would be great if this data wasn’t sent to a third party.

Our beta version lets you:

- Trigger workflows from webhooks, custom events or schedules (CRON)

- Use API integrations with Slack, GitHub, Shopify and Resend. We’re adding more of these each week.

- Add delays of up to 1 year. Workflows will resume where they left off, even if your server has gone down.

- Support for Fetch and subscribing to generic webhooks.

- Observe every workflow run in the app (great for debugging).

- Open source MIT license so anyone can self-host the platform.

We’re still early so would love your feedback and opinions. Feel free to try us out for free – and if you want a specific API integrated, just let us know.

Main website: https://trigger.dev Github: https://github.com/triggerdotdev/trigger.dev

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