--- title: "Mergify vs Trunk" description: "Compare Mergify and Trunk for merge queue automation. Both handle parallel testing and batching. See where the differences matter: CI insights, governance, rule engine, and pricing." url: https://mergify.com/compare/trunk --- # Mergify vs Trunk Both do merge queues. Trunk focuses on parallel testing and flaky test detection. Mergify gives you that plus CI observability, merge governance, a rule engine that handles your actual workflow, and monitoring integrations. [Start a free 14-day trial](https://dashboard.mergify.com/)[See pricing](https://mergify.com/pricing) ## Feature comparison | Feature | Trunk | Mergify | | --- | --- | --- | | Speculative checks | ✓ | ✓ | | CI batching with bisect-on-failure | ✓ | ✓ | | Bisection runs the tests that broke the batch first and stops early (Fail First) | – | ✓ | | Merge when a later batch proves an earlier failure was flaky | ✓ | ✓ | | Two-step CI | ✓ | ✓ | | Dynamic scopes from your build graph (Bazel, Nx, Turborepo, Pants) | ✓ | ✓ | | Direct merge when a PR's scopes are unaffected (no queue CI run) | ✓ | ✓ | | PR priorities | ✓ | Multiple levels | | Queue pause | ✓ | ✓ | | Queue freeze (scheduled) | – | ✓ | | Auto-retry on CI failure | Anti-flake only | Configurable rules | | Custom merge conditions (rule engine) | Status checks only | Full YAML rule engine | | Queue stats dashboard | ✓ | ✓ | | Slack notifications (CI + queue activity) | ✓ | ✓ | | Full event log | Per-PR only | Queue-wide | | Monitoring integrations (Datadog) | ✓ | ✓ | | CI Insights (job health, auto-retry) | – | Full product | | Flaky test detection + quarantine | Separate product | Full product (Test Engine) | | Scheduled freezes and PR dependencies | – | Included | | Billing by active contributors only | Per committer | Active contributors | | Fast-forward merge | – | ✓ | | On-premise deployment | Private preview (BYOC on AWS, Trunk-run control plane) | Mergify Enterprise Server (GHES or GitHub.com) | [Get started](https://dashboard.mergify.com/) ## What Trunk's comparison page gets wrong Trunk publishes its own Mergify comparison. Six of its claims do not match what Mergify does today, so here they are with the documentation. Checked 29 September 2026. Trunk says: “Flaky test protection: not in the queue.” Test Engine quarantines a flaky test so its failure no longer blocks the merge, on any branch, the queue included. The queue can also retry failed checks a set number of times before it gives up on a pull request. [Quarantine documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/test-engine/quarantine) Trunk says: “Optimistic merging: not offered.” With skip\_intermediate\_results, a pull request whose own batch failed still merges when a later batch containing its changes passes. A real bug would fail that larger batch too, so the earlier failure was noise. [Batches documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/merge-queue/batches) Trunk says: “Direct merge to main: not offered.” Mergify merges a queued pull request with no queue CI run when it is already up to date, or when main only moved in scopes it does not touch. Both cases are on by default. [Direct merge documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/merge-queue/direct-merge) Trunk says: “Dynamic parallel merge queues: manual, config required.” You switch on parallel mode once. From then on, batches that share a scope are chained, batches that share none are tested at the same time, and a failure in one lane does not hold up the others. Nobody draws the lanes by hand. [Queue modes documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/merge-queue/queue-modes) Trunk says: “Bazel integration: manual scopes only.” Your CI runs bazel-diff on every pull request and sends Mergify the impacted packages as scopes. Nx, Turborepo and Pants work the same way. Apex Fintech runs this on a Bazel monorepo with hundreds of engineers. [Bazel scopes documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/merge-queue/scopes/bazel) Trunk says: “GitHub outage resilience: webhook-driven, no recovery mechanism.” Webhooks are not the only input. Mergify re-evaluates every queued batch on a fixed schedule, so a batch whose GitHub events were lost recovers on its own, and checks\_timeout decides what happens when a CI provider goes quiet. [Queue lifecycle documentation](https://docs.mergify.com/merge-queue/lifecycle) You do not have to take our word for it. Base Power evaluated both of us while designing their own monorepo merge strategy, and wrote up what they found:[“we evaluated trunk.io and Mergify, which both offer parallel merge queues with dynamically configured lanes”](https://inside.basepowercompany.com/p/merge-dont-queue). Used by the platform teams that ship fast and keep CI green "Two-step CI completely transformed how we handle long hardware tests. Instead of burning hours on repeated runs, we validate once and merge with confidence." Rushin Shah, Sr. Manager DevInfra · Cerebras "The merge queue is a huge value from Mergify: it keeps our main stable and allows us to merge quickly with confidence." Minh Tran, Platform Engineer · Apex Fintech Solutions "You get the benefits of Mergify immediately. There is no competitor doing stuff like this." Florian Berchtold, Software Engineer · Luminar "The merge queue is a time-saver! Contributors no longer have to carry the mental load of monitoring their PRs!" Johan Lorenzo, Staff Release Engineer · Mozilla "We transitioned from manual chaos to over 20 safe deploys per day. Mergify is becoming a critical part of our delivery function." Chris Irving, Engineering Manager · Jane "Our merge queue is like a safety net. Every PR that lands has been tested, approved, and verified under the exact same conditions." Fabien Marty, Senior Staff Software Engineer · Botify "With dozens of engineers and long-running CI jobs, Mergify turned what used to be a daily bottleneck into a background process. Our teams focus on hardware, not merge logistics." Ben Holtzman, Senior Design Enablement Engineer · AheadComputing "Before Mergify, we spent too much time manually coordinating merges. Now everything flows automatically." Nicolas Beaussart-Hatchuel, Senior Staff Software Engineer · PayFit "Mergify was the best fit. It saved a couple of hours per engineer per month and resolved our bottleneck with the merge queue." Tomas Nekolny, Engineering Manager · Productboard "The support on Slack is really good, reactive and transparent. We have other partners where problems feel less transparent. With Mergify, it's fluid." Clément Danjou, VP Blockchain · Zama ## More than a merge queue Trunk sells a merge queue and a flaky test tool as separate products. Mergify includes merge queue, CI observability, test intelligence, and merge governance in every plan. ✓ Three products in one plan: Merge Queue, CI Insights, and Test Engine. Trunk sells merge queue and flaky tests separately. ✓ Full YAML rule engine for merge conditions based on labels, files, authors, time windows, and custom logic ✓ Scheduled freeze windows for releases, holidays, deploy cycles, and maintenance periods ✓ CI Insights gives you job health, failure rates, auto-retry with custom rules, and Slack alerts. Test Engine adds flaky detection, quarantine, and test-level metrics. ✓ Full queue-wide event log for auditing and debugging what happened and when ✓ Running since 2018 with 8 years of production hardening across thousands of repos ## Evaluating merge queue tools? We'll walk you through how Mergify compares for your specific setup. No pitch, just answers. [Book a discovery call](https://mergify.com/discovery) > Early on, as the team, tests, and CI complexity grew, it was quite clear that we needed an automated tool to resolve bottlenecks. Our team loves the way Mergify solved our growing pains. Tomasz Biernacki Quality Assurance Engineer at Pitch ## What Trunk doesn't cover Trunk is strong on merge queues and flaky tests. These are the gaps teams notice when they need more from their CI tooling. ### No scheduled freeze windows Trunk can pause the queue, but has no scheduled freeze windows for releases, holidays, deploy cycles, or recurring maintenance. ### No scheduled freezes or PR dependencies No equivalent to Mergify's scheduled freezes, time-based merge windows, or Depends-On for coordinating pull requests across repositories. ### No CI Insights Trunk has a flaky test product, but no CI-wide observability. No job health scores, no failure rate trends, no auto-retry with custom rules. Mergify covers both with CI Insights and Test Engine. ### No configurable retry rules Trunk retries implicitly through anti-flake detection. You can't set custom rules like 'retry this job up to 3 times if it matches this pattern.' ### No event log or audit trail No full event log for queue activity. When something goes wrong, there's no trace to investigate. ### No fast-forward merge Trunk doesn't support fast-forward merge. If you need to preserve commit SHAs and linear history without recreating commits, Mergify can do this. > Mergify is a no-brainer. If you want to have your main branch always working then you have to introduce some merge queue functionality. Paco Sevilla DevOps Engineer at DeepDrive ## The pricing question Trunk charges per committer for their merge queue. They sell flaky test detection as a separate product with its own pricing. Mergify charges $21/user/month and includes merge queue, CI Insights (job health, auto-retry), and Test Engine (flaky detection, quarantine) in a single plan. Both offer free tiers. Mergify is free for up to 5 users on private repos. Trunk is free for up to 5 committers. [See Mergify pricing](https://mergify.com/pricing)[Book a discovery call](https://mergify.com/discovery) ## Teams that merge more and break main less. [ ### 2x merge throughput with 3‑hour CI runs Read story → Cerebras 350 engineers · AI Infrastructure ](https://mergify.com/customers/cerebras) [ ### Cut CI time and kept main green Read story → Apex Fintech Solutions 350 engineers · Financial Technology ](https://mergify.com/customers/apex) [ ### 2x faster merges across a massive monorepo Read story → Back Market 300 engineers · E-commerce ](https://mergify.com/customers/back-market) [ ### 100% green main, faster shipping Read story → PayFit 150 engineers · HR Tech ](https://mergify.com/customers/payfit) ## FAQ ### Does Mergify replace Trunk or work alongside it? It replaces Trunk's merge queue. Only one queue can own merging into a given branch, so you pick Mergify or Trunk per repo. You can run Mergify on some repos while you evaluate. ### What does Mergify include that Trunk sells as a separate product? Trunk sells its merge queue and its flaky test tool as two products with separate pricing. Mergify includes the merge queue, CI Insights for job health and auto-retry, and Test Engine for flaky detection and quarantine in every plan. ### Can Mergify schedule merge freezes for releases or holidays? Yes. Trunk can pause the queue on demand, but it has no scheduled freeze windows for release cycles, holidays, or recurring maintenance. Mergify schedules freezes ahead of time and keeps an exception path for hotfixes. See [how to run a merge queue during a code freeze](https://mergify.com/guides/merge-queue-code-freeze). ### Does Mergify support fast-forward merge? Yes. If you need to preserve commit SHAs and keep a linear history without recreating commits, Mergify can fast-forward merge. Trunk does not offer this. ### How long does it take to migrate from Trunk to Mergify? Most teams switch a single repo in under a day. Install the GitHub App, then commit a `.mergify.yml` with your queue rules. Larger setups with parallel queues take longer to design but stay day-one work. ### How does pricing compare? Trunk charges per committer for the merge queue and prices flaky test detection separately. Mergify is $21 per user per month with the merge queue, CI Insights, and Test Engine in one plan. Both are free for up to 5 users. [See pricing](https://mergify.com/pricing). Last updated: September 29, 2026 ## Try the complete CI platform Merge queue, CI Insights, and Test Engine. All included, up to 5 users free. [Get started](https://dashboard.mergify.com/)[See how Merge Queue works](https://mergify.com/product/merge-queue)