Dapr vs Inngest
Dapr
dapr.ioInngest
inngest.comSide by side
| Figure | Dapr | Inngest |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $1,199/mo | $99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 4 |
| Spec score · Process Orchestration Software | 9.2 (#1) | 9.1 (#3) |
| Deployment | Dapr applications run on Kubernetes or self-hosted on virtual or physical machines across cloud and edge environments. | Inngest functions can run wherever an app is hosted, with platform guides for Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, Render, and DigitalOcean. |
| Founded | 2019 | 2022 |
| Integrations | Official integrations include AWS, Azure, KEDA, GitHub Actions, the Dapr Kubernetes Operator, Kratix Marketplace, and Argo CD. | The documentation describes integrations for Vercel and Netlify deployment syncs, Neon database events, and Datadog and Prometheus monitoring. |
| Observability | Dapr emits metrics, logs and traces and supports W3C Trace Context and OpenTelemetry. | Inngest provides traces, run replay and production metrics for workflow inspection. |
| Purpose | Dapr is a portable runtime for building distributed applications across cloud and edge, combining event-driven architecture with workflow orchestration. | Inngest orchestrates asynchronous code as durable functions for event driven workflows, background jobs, and agents. |
| Security | Dapr uses automatically enabled mutual TLS between sidecars, App IDs, namespace isolation and policy-based access controls for services, topics, components and secrets. | Inngest states it is SOC 2 Type II compliant and offers a signed DPA to customers on paid plans. |
Plans
Dapr
- Cloud FreeFree
- Dedicated Cloud$1,199 a month
- BYOC$1,599 a month
- Enterprise ServerPriced on request
In their own words
Dapr
Dapr is an open-source runtime that provides APIs for durable workflows and distributed application services. Its workflows handle long-running stateful processes with retries, timers, human approvals, and sagas. Dapr also supports AI agents using checkpointed plans to recover after failures. Service invocation offers HTTP or gRPC communication with discovery, tracing, and error handling; additional APIs cover pub/sub, state, actors, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, distributed locks, and cryptography. Dapr runs as a sidecar process or container, keeping its runtime code out of application code. It can run on Kubernetes or self-hosted on Windows, Linux, or macOS machines, including physical and virtual machines across cloud and edge environments. Security includes mTLS encryption in transit, access policies, and automatic certificate rotation. Stable SDKs are available for.NET, Python, Java, Go, PHP, and JavaScript. Dapr is free and open source. Separate paid options include Dedicated Cloud starting at $1,199 a month and BYOC starting at $1,599 a month; both list a first 14 days free.
Inngest
Inngest runs asynchronous code as durable functions for event-driven workflows, background jobs, and agents. Its execution steps handle retries, retain state, and recover from failures; traces show activity from trigger to completion. Flow controls manage concurrency and fairness when users compete for resources. Developers can use open-source SDKs for TypeScript, Python, and Go, or the REST API. Functions can run wherever an app is hosted, with deployment guides for services including Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, Render, and DigitalOcean. Inngest also describes isolated sandboxes for testing changes and tools for scoring and comparing variants on production traffic. The Free plan includes 5 seats, 50k executions, 500k events ingested, and 24-hour trace history. Execution pauses when the free quota is reached until the account upgrades. Pro starts at $99/mo. Inngest states that it is SOC 2 Type II compliant, and that its US-based databases are encrypted at rest and application traffic uses TLS/SSL in transit.