LangChain vs Trigger.dev

LangChain

Trigger.dev

LangChain · 18 features

• Agents — Tool-using agents with reasoning loops.
• Chains (LCEL) — LangChain Expression Language — pipe primitives into chains.
• Checkpointers (LangGraph) — Persist agent state to SQL, Mongo, Redis, Postgres.
• Document Loaders — 150+ loaders for PDF, HTML, Notion, Google Drive, S3, GitHub, etc.
• Human-in-the-loop — Pause agent for approval, then resume.
• LangGraph — Stateful graph-based agent runtime. Durable, replayable, human-in-the-loop.
• LangGraph Platform — Managed hosting for LangGraph agents with state persistence.
• LangGraph Studio — Desktop IDE for debugging agent graphs.
• LangServe — Deploy chains as FastAPI endpoints.
• Memory — Buffer, summary, entity, vector memory stores.
• Output Parsers — Structured JSON, Pydantic schemas, function calling.
• Prompt Templates — Templating + partial filling + output parsers.
• RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) — Standard patterns + 50+ retrievers.
• Streaming — First-class streaming at every layer.
• Subgraphs — Compose agent graphs hierarchically.
• Text Splitters — Recursive, token, semantic splitters for chunking.
• Tools — 400+ pre-built tools (web search, code, databases, APIs).
• Vector Store Integrations — 60+ vector DBs (Pinecone, Chroma, Weaviate, PGVector, Qdrant, Milvus).

Trigger.dev · 13 features

• Batch Trigger — Trigger many runs at once with limits.
• Environment Variables — Manage secrets in dashboard.
• Idempotency Keys — Prevent duplicate runs.
• Machine Sizing — Pick CPU/RAM per task.
• Queues + Concurrency — Named queues for controlled throughput.
• Realtime + React Hooks — Subscribe to run progress from client.
• Retries — Exponential + custom strategies.
• Schedules — Cron-triggered runs.
• Self-Hosting — Run locally or on your infra.
• Subtasks + triggerAndWait — Compose tasks by triggering children.
• Task Metadata — Attach arbitrary metadata to runs.
• Tasks — Define long-running TS tasks.
• wait.for / wait.until — Durable waits — minutes, hours, days.