Smart contract automation is software that calls a contract for you when a condition is met: a time passes, an onchain event fires, an API returns a value, or a health factor crosses a threshold. Contracts cannot wake themselves up, so every liquidation, rebalance, price update and recurring payout needs an offchain process that watches, decides and submits a transaction. In 2026 that market reshuffled. Gelato Web3 Functions reached its end date on March 31, 2026, per migration notices from Mimic and KeeperHub, and OpenZeppelin set July 1, 2026 as the final shutdown of its hosted Defender platform, per its own announcement.
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This page maps the smart contract automation tools teams are moving to, compares their trigger types, languages and execution models, and covers what a migration involves. Sources were fetched on October 21, 2026.
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Smart contract automation is the offchain layer that triggers onchain functions without a human signing each transaction. A tool watches for a trigger, runs logic to decide whether action is needed, then signs and submits the transaction. The tools differ mainly in who runs that logic: one operator, a decentralized network, or a hardware enclave.
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The pattern has three parts. A trigger starts the job, usually a cron schedule, an onchain log event or an HTTP call. A check step reads state and decides. An execution step writes onchain. Chainlink's older Automation product split this into a checkUpkeep() function simulated offchain and a performUpkeep() function executed onchain, per its CRE migration guide. Newer platforms fold the check step into general code that can also call APIs, read several chains and keep state between runs.
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The active tools split by execution model. Chainlink CRE runs workflows across a decentralized oracle network with consensus on every step. Goldsky Compose and KeeperHub are hosted runtimes with retries and managed wallets. Mimic pairs offchain functions with onchain policies. Oasis ROFL runs app code inside a TEE managed by a blockchain.

Two hosted automation services ended in 2026. Gelato Web3 Functions ended March 31, 2026, per third-party migration notices. OpenZeppelin Defender's final shutdown was set for July 1, 2026, by OpenZeppelin. Chainlink now publishes guides for moving Automation upkeeps and Gelato functions onto CRE workflows.
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Mimic's February 9, 2026 post states that Web3 Functions would be deprecated on March 31, 2026, and shows a notice from Gelato's app. KeeperHub's migration guide gives the same date and lists three affected components: TypeScript Functions, Solidity Functions and Automated Transactions. A primary announcement from Gelato itself was not found during research, so the date here rests on those two sources. KeeperHub flags one constraint that applies to any destination: contracts that whitelist Gelato's dedicated msg.sender addresses need their permissions updated.
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OpenZeppelin disabled new Defender sign-ups on June 30, 2025 and scheduled the platform's retirement for July 1, 2026, per its announcement. It replaced the hosted product with open source Relayer and Monitor, which teams run themselves, and offers a managed service for teams that want hosted instances.
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Chainlink's Automation migration guide, published May 25, 2026, describes CRE as functionally a superset of Automation and says CRE supports every chain Automation runs on. Time-based upkeeps map to a cron trigger, log trigger upkeeps map to an EVM log trigger, and a template contract called AutomationReceiver forwards signed reports to existing upkeep contracts. The last step is cancelling the old upkeep and withdrawing its LINK balance. A separate Gelato to CRE guide notes CRE has no direct per-block trigger.
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Each tool takes the same trigger, check and execute loop and places it somewhere different. CRE distributes it across oracle nodes. Compose and KeeperHub run it on hosted infrastructure with managed signing. Mimic constrains it with onchain policies. ROFL isolates it inside attested hardware. The choice decides who you trust to run the logic.
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CRE workflows are written in Go or TypeScript, and a decentralized oracle network "executes each step and reaches consensus on every result," per the CRE docs. HTTP calls run on every node and the results are aggregated. Confidential HTTP and confidential workflows move sensitive logic into a TEE hidden from node operators. Chainlink's October 19, 2026 changelog added Solana reads and Solana log triggers, which require CRE CLI v1.33.0 or later. The cron trigger's minimum interval is 30 seconds, per the migration guide.
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Compose runs TypeScript tasks wired to a cron schedule, an onchain event or an HTTP call, and handles wallets, gas, retries, state and execution traces, per Goldsky's launch post. If a task fails mid-run, it resumes from a checkpoint and checks onchain status before resubmitting. Goldsky says Polymarket runs short-duration market resolution on Compose. The same post lists what Compose does not handle: no smart contract framework, no sub-millisecond latency, and no native modules or unrestricted network egress.
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Mimic Functions are TypeScript, can carry several triggers, and can be chained into multi-step, cross-chain workflows, per Mimic's migration post. Its site describes policy-defined execution: strategy logic stays offchain while permissions and execution limits are enforced onchain. Mimic's docs describe the platform as serverless functions combined with intent-based execution.
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KeeperHub builds workflows as a graph of trigger, condition and onchain action, assembled in a visual editor or by an AI agent over its MCP server, per its site. It simulates transactions before signing, retries with exponential backoff and signs from Turnkey wallets whose keys sit in secure enclaves. Callers can pay per execution via x402 or MPP. The product is labeled beta.
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ROFL, short for Runtime Off-Chain Logic, runs apps inside a TEE on Oasis nodes, managed through the Oasis Sapphire chain, per the ROFL docs. Sapphire contracts can verify that a transaction came from a specific ROFL app, which suits keepers and price oracles that need provable origin. For background on enclaves, see What Is a TEE? and TEE vs ZK.
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Start from the trust model, then the trigger. Teams that need independent verification of each step look at a consensus network like CRE. Teams that want managed retries and wallets look at hosted runtimes. Teams that need hardware attestation look at TEE options. Then check chain coverage, language and how writes reach your contract.
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Three checks narrow the list quickly. First, the write path: CRE delivers signed reports through a KeystoneForwarder to a receiver contract, per the Gelato to CRE guide, so existing contracts may need a receiver or new permissions. Second, the runtime: CRE compiles TypeScript to WASM via QuickJS, and some npm packages that rely on Node.js APIs will not work, while Compose runs a sandboxed TypeScript runtime without native modules. Third, triggers: per-block jobs from Gelato have no direct CRE equivalent and need a short cron or a log trigger instead.
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Automation tools decide when to act; some jobs also need conditional logic at the moment of execution, against state that may have changed since the check. Eco's Programmable Transactions cover that onchain execution step: programs written in SauceScript, a TypeScript subset, compile to bytecode and run atomically against live state in one transaction on Sauce, Eco's runtime for the EVM and Solana, and a program can be the destination of a cross-chain Eco intent. Sauce does not schedule or trigger anything, so it sits after an automation tool, not in place of one. Sauce v1 is closed access.
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Every tool here moves risk rather than removing it. Hosted runtimes concentrate trust in one operator. Consensus networks add latency and constrain the runtime. TEEs depend on hardware vendor attestation. Migrating also carries real cost: permissions, receivers and executor addresses must change in contracts already deployed.

This comparison uses only vendor documentation, vendor blogs and migration guides fetched with Firecrawl on October 21, 2026. Tool rows describe documented capabilities, not tested performance. No benchmarks were run. Dates of shutdowns come from the vendor announcement where one exists; the Gelato date is attributed to third-party notices.

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