# Rivet

> Updated 2026-10-04 · type: tool · category: ai-infrastructure · status: active · rev 1

Rivet is an open-source actor runtime for stateful AI-agent and realtime workloads, self-hostable as an alternative to Cloudflare Durable Objects.

- Open source: yes (Apache-2.0)
- Self-hostable: yes
- Pricing model: freemium
- Best for: A team building AI agents, realtime or collaborative apps, or durable workflows that wants the stateful-actor primitive on infrastructure it owns, and that wants an open, self-hostable alternative to Cloudflare Durable Objects without the per-actor memory and storage caps or a proprietary runtime.
- Not for: A team already happy inside Cloudflare's managed Durable Objects and unwilling to run its own control plane, or one that needs a long-stable managed service rather than operating an open-source runtime (a paid managed cloud exists if you prefer not to self-host).
- Last verified: 2026-10-04

- **Canonical:** https://gtmstacker.com/registry/tool/rivet/
- **Source:** [Nathan Flurry (rivet-dev) · X / GitHub](https://github.com/rivet-dev/rivet)
- **Tags:** ai-infrastructure, mcp-agents, actors, durable-execution, realtime, self-hostable
- **Repository:** https://github.com/rivet-dev/rivet

## Is Rivet open source?

Yes, Rivet is open source under the Apache-2.0 license.

## How much does Rivet cost?

Rivet has a free tier plus paid plans. The open-source version can be self-hosted with no license cost; you pay only for your own infrastructure.

## Can I self-host Rivet?

Yes, Rivet can be self-hosted (the source is available under the Apache-2.0 license).


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Rivet is an open-source actor runtime for stateful workloads: AI agents, collaborative apps, and durable execution. Its pitch is the stateful-actor primitive (state, storage, and compute co-located per actor) running on infrastructure you own, positioned as a self-hostable alternative to Cloudflare Durable Objects. Open source: yes (Apache-2.0); self-hostable; free OSS core with an optional paid managed cloud. It has ~6.2k stars, dates back to 2023, and is actively maintained (pushed 2026-10-04).

## What it does

Rivet gives you "actors" as the unit of stateful work: each actor holds its own state and storage and runs close to it, which suits agent sessions, realtime collaboration, and durable, resumable workflows. You run the same open-source control plane yourself, as a Rust binary or a container, on your own infrastructure, or use Bring Your Own Cloud where the control plane runs inside your VPC. The project positions itself explicitly against Cloudflare Durable Objects: it states no 128 MB per-actor memory cap, no 10 GB SQLite limit, no random eviction of actors, and that it runs on vanilla Node.js or Bun rather than a custom runtime. Open source: yes (Apache-2.0); self-hostable.

## Provenance

- Apache-2.0 per repo (license read from GitHub metadata, not guessed); ~6,235 stars; created 2023-06; active (pushed 2026-10-04) (github.com/rivet-dev/rivet, verified 2026-10-04).
- rivet.dev: "Rivet is fully self-hostable" (open-source control plane as a Rust binary or container on your own infrastructure; optional BYOC in your own VPC); "often used as an open-source alternative to Cloudflare Durable Objects that is easy to self-host and scales," citing no 128 MB memory cap, no 10 GB SQLite limit, no random eviction, and vanilla Node.js/Bun.
- Maker-stated performance (vendor-claim): 12 ms p50 and 27.7 ms p99 cold starts, ~72 KB memory per actor; "billions of actors on one control plane."
- Surfaced in the GTM Stacker X/Twitter signal report (2026-10-04 pass) via a co-founder's post (Nathan Flurry); license and facts independently re-verified against the repo and site 2026-10-04.

## Why it matters for a GTM stack

As GTM teams start building their own agents (prospecting, enrichment, support, research), those agents need somewhere to hold state between steps and survive restarts. That stateful backbone is usually rented from a managed platform, and Cloudflare Durable Objects is a common default that locks the workload to one vendor's runtime and its caps. Rivet's bet is that the same actor primitive can run on infrastructure you own, under a permissive licence, so the stateful layer of your agent stack is not a per-vendor dependency. The honest read: the headline latency and memory figures are the maker's own and are not benchmarked here, operating your own control plane is real work that a managed Durable Objects user is choosing to avoid, and the free path is the self-hosted one (the managed Rivet Cloud is paid). For a team that already prefers to own its runtime, it is a credible open alternative worth a trial.