Trigger.dev Has Free Background Jobs — Run Long Tasks Without Infrastructure

#serverless #typescript #backend #webdev

Serverless Has a 30-Second Problem

Vercel functions timeout at 30 seconds. Edge functions at 30ms CPU. Your PDF generation takes 2 minutes. Your data import takes 10 minutes. Your AI pipeline takes 5 minutes.

Trigger.dev: Long-Running Tasks for Serverless

Trigger.dev runs background jobs that can take minutes or hours — with retries, scheduling, and observability.

Free Tier

50,000 runs/month
5 concurrent runs
30 min max duration
Built-in logging and monitoring

Define a Task

import { task } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3"

export const generateReport = task({
  id: "generate-report",
  run: async (payload: { userId: string }) => {
    const data = await fetchUserData(payload.userId)
    const pdf = await generatePDF(data)
    await sendEmail(payload.userId, pdf)
    return { status: "sent" }
  }
})

Trigger From Your API

app.post("/reports", async (req, res) => {
  await generateReport.trigger({ userId: req.user.id })
  res.json({ message: "Report generation started" })
})

The API responds instantly. The report generates in the background.

Built-in Features

Retries with exponential backoff
Cron scheduling (run daily/weekly)
Webhooks (trigger on external events)
Real-time logs in dashboard
TypeScript-native (full type safety)

Trigger.dev vs BullMQ vs AWS SQS

Feature	Trigger.dev	BullMQ	AWS SQS
Setup	npm install	Redis needed	AWS account
Hosting	Managed	Self-host	AWS
Dashboard	Built-in	Bull Board	CloudWatch
TypeScript	Native	Good	SDK
Free tier	50K runs	Free (self)	1M requests