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Comparison · DevOps

Directus vs Rivet

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Directus and Rivet — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Directus vs Rivet: at a glance

FeatureDirectusRivet
SectorDevOpsDevOps
Velocity score6.37.5
Sparks · 30d02
Top themesheadless-cms, content-versioning, major-release, ai-endpointsactors, serverless, storage engine, s3
Last editorial update4mo ago3d ago
WebsiteVisit →—

What is Directus?

Directus is staging a 12.0 major built on a reworked versioning model and tighter operational defaults

Directus is running its stable 11.17.x line while cutting release candidates for a 12.0 major. The 11.17 releases are a steady stream of editor UX, asset-caching, and AI-endpoint improvements; the 12.0 RCs carry the breaking changes that define the next major.

Read the full Directus trajectory →

What is Rivet?

Rivet 3.0 Preview runs as one stateless binary on WarpDrive, with S3 as its only dependency.

Rivet has spent two months building infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC in customer clouds, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs, Pi agent runtimes and agentOS Hosted VMs. On October 5 it said 3.0 would replace NATS with S3. The October 26 3.0 Preview delivers that: a new storage engine, WarpDrive, promises bottomless storage on S3 at SSD speed, and Rivet becomes a single stateless binary.

Read the full Rivet trajectory →

Directus vs Rivet: editorial side-by-side

D
Directus
DEVOPS
6.3

Directus is staging a 12.0 major built on a reworked versioning model and tighter operational defaults

◆ Current state

Directus is running its stable 11.17.x line while cutting release candidates for a 12.0 major. The 11.17 releases are a steady stream of editor UX, asset-caching, and AI-endpoint improvements; the 12.0 RCs carry the breaking changes that define the next major.

◆ Where it's heading

Two clear threads: incremental product polish in 11.17 (token-field confirmation, ETag/asset revalidation, structured-object AI endpoint, image-editor and list-view UX) and a 12.0 reset of core models — content versioning renamed from main to published, collection status replaced by an archived boolean, and operational defaults like authenticated, cached, multi-instance-shared health checks.

◆ Prediction

Expect more 12.0 release candidates consolidating the versioning and collection-settings changes with backward-compat shims before a stable 12.0, while AI endpoints (structured-object generation) keep expanding in parallel.

R
Rivet
DEVOPS
7.5

Rivet 3.0 Preview runs as one stateless binary on WarpDrive, with S3 as its only dependency.

◆ Current state

Rivet has spent two months building infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC in customer clouds, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs, Pi agent runtimes and agentOS Hosted VMs. On October 5 it said 3.0 would replace NATS with S3. The October 26 3.0 Preview delivers that: a new storage engine, WarpDrive, promises bottomless storage on S3 at SSD speed, and Rivet becomes a single stateless binary.

◆ Where it's heading

Each release removes operational burden: BYOC moved the control plane into the customer's cloud, and 3.0 reduces the self-hosted footprint to one binary plus an S3 bucket. The agent work (Pi, agentOS) sits on top as the main workload Rivet is courting.

◆ Prediction

Expect benchmarks and migration guidance for 2.x users during the preview, followed by a 3.0 GA. The entry gives no performance numbers, so the SSD-speed claim is unverified.

Alternatives to Directus and Rivet

Other DevOps products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Directus or Rivet.

See all Directus alternatives → · See all Rivet alternatives →

Recent activity from Directus and Rivet

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 3d agoRivetIntroducing Rivet 3.0 Preview ⚡
  2. 17d agoRivetIntroducing agentOS 0.4 & Hosted VMs
  3. 22d agoRivetIntroducing Pi Durable for Rivet
  4. 24d agoRivetReplacing Our Message Broker with... S3? ⚡
  5. 28d agoRivetIntroducing Pi 1.0 for Rivet
  6. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing JWT Authentication for Rivet Actors
  7. 4mo agoDirectus12.0-rc.2: authenticated, multi-instance health checks
  8. 5mo agoDirectus12.0-rc.1: versioning model and archived-boolean rework ⚡
  9. 6mo agoDirectus11.17.4: token-confirm, asset ETags, force schema apply
  10. 6mo agoDirectus11.17.3: user status tabs and /ai/object endpoint
  11. 6mo agoDirectus11.17.2: timezone display and field-comparison modal
  12. 7mo agoDirectus11.17.1: native Tabs interface and bulk folder delete

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Directus and Rivet?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Directus better than Rivet?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other DevOps products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Directus?

Top Directus alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Directus alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/directus for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Rivet?

Top Rivet alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Rivet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rivet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.