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Comparison · DevOps

Slurm vs Rivet

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

Slurm vs Rivet: at a glance

FeatureSlurmRivet
SectorDevOpsDevOps
Velocity score5.07.5
Sparks · 30d03
Top themeshpc, job-scheduling, containers, maintenanceactors, ai agents, sqlite, forking
Last editorial update2d ago2d ago
WebsiteVisit →—

What is Slurm?

Slurm patches crashes and heterogeneous-job hangs on two branches while 26.11 is in RC.

Slurm runs three branches. On November 10, 26.05.6 and 25.11.9 shipped fixes for a slurmstepd crash with stepmgr in array tasks, PMIx hangs in heterogeneous job steps, a slurmd memory leak and a heap corruption on failed RPC forwarding. The first 26.11 release candidate, out on November 6, turns on the slurmctld threadpool by default and moves OCI containers into a runtime plugin.

Read the full Slurm trajectory →

What is Rivet?

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

Read the full Rivet trajectory →

Slurm vs Rivet: editorial side-by-side

S
Slurm
DEVOPS
5.0

Slurm patches crashes and heterogeneous-job hangs on two branches while 26.11 is in RC.

◆ Current state

Slurm runs three branches. On November 10, 26.05.6 and 25.11.9 shipped fixes for a slurmstepd crash with stepmgr in array tasks, PMIx hangs in heterogeneous job steps, a slurmd memory leak and a heap corruption on failed RPC forwarding. The first 26.11 release candidate, out on November 6, turns on the slurmctld threadpool by default and moves OCI containers into a runtime plugin.

◆ Where it's heading

Maintenance branches get regular crash and correctness fixes while 26.11 heads to release with new defaults. The 26.11 RC's container and threadpool changes are where behaviour will shift for sites; heterogeneous jobs and stepmgr remain areas with frequent fixes.

◆ Prediction

A second 26.11 release candidate or 26.11.0 is the next likely release, followed by more point releases on 26.05 and 25.11.

R
Rivet
DEVOPS
7.5

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

◆ Current state

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

◆ Where it's heading

Rivet keeps turning its S3-backed storage engine into features for agent workloads. Copy-on-write forking follows from the 3.0 storage design and gives agents a cheap way to branch a session, try something and discard it. The SDK and auth work of the past two months points to Rivet positioning actors as the runtime for agent backends.

◆ Prediction

Forking is likely to show up next in agentOS and the Pi integrations as a way to branch agent runs; the entries do not say when 3.0 leaves preview.

Alternatives to Slurm 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 Slurm or Rivet.

See all Slurm alternatives → · See all Rivet alternatives →

Recent activity from Slurm and Rivet

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

  1. 2d agoRivetIntroducing OpenOrange: Run Cloudflare Workers Anywhere ⚡
  2. 3d agoRivetIntroducing Actor Forking for SQLite ⚡
  3. 3d agoSlurmv26.05.6: fixes heterogeneous-job hangs and a stepmgr crash
  4. 3d agoSlurmv25.11.9: heap corruption and slurmrestd read fixes
  5. 8d agoSlurmSlurm 26.11 RC1: threadpool on by default, OCI runtime plugin
  6. 8d agoRivetRust SDK for Rivet Actors Is Now Generally Available
  7. 10d agoSlurmwickberg-test: Testsuite - Cover a --stepmgr step cancel in test_101_18
  8. 19d agoRivetIntroducing Rivet 3.0 Preview ⚡
  9. 1mo agoSlurmv26.05.5
  10. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing agentOS 0.4 & Hosted VMs
  11. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing Pi Durable for Rivet
  12. 2mo agoSlurmSlurm 26.05.4 fixes 7 CVEs, including privilege escalation

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Slurm and Rivet?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 5.0), with 3 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 Slurm 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 5.0), with 3 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 Slurm?

Top Slurm alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Slurm alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/slurm 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.