Temporal vs n8n

Durable execution platform for mission-critical workflows
vs. Source-available workflow automation — fair-code, self-host or cloud

Temporal website ↗n8n website ↗

Pricing tiers

Temporal

Self-Hosted (OSS)

Free forever. MIT license. Run the Temporal cluster yourself on K8s/Docker.

$0 base (usage-based)

Cloud (usage-based)

Temporal Cloud. Pay per action ($25 per 1M actions base). Active user + storage also billed.

$0 base (usage-based)

Business Plan

Starts ~$100/mo commit. Multi-region, SSO, priority support.

Custom

Enterprise

Custom. HIPAA, PCI, dedicated clusters, enterprise SLA.

Custom

Temporal website ↗

n8n

Community (self-host)

Source-available (fair-code). Free forever. Full feature set self-hosted.

$0 base (usage-based)

Cloud Starter

€20/mo annual (~$22). 2,500 workflow executions. 5 concurrent. 1 shared project. Unlimited users.

$22/mo

Cloud Pro

€50/mo annual (~$55). Custom execution volume. 20 concurrent. 3 shared projects. 7-day insights.

$55/mo

Cloud Business

€667/mo annual (~$735). 40,000 executions. 30 concurrent. 6 projects. Self-host option. SSO, SAML, LDAP. Git version control.

$735/mo

Enterprise

Custom. 200+ concurrent. Unlimited projects. SLA. 365-day retention.

Custom

n8n website ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing oss on Temporal vs starter on n8n.

Metric	Temporal	n8n
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Temporal · 16 features

Activities — Retryable units of work.
Activity Retries — Declarative retry policies.
Child Workflows — Nested workflow composition.
Continue-As-New — Close + restart workflow to prune history.
Nexus (cross-namespace) — Call workflows across namespaces/teams.
Queries — Synchronous read of workflow state.
Saga / Compensations — Rollback pattern via compensating activities.
Schedules — Cron-like recurring workflows.
Self-Host — Deploy cluster on your infra.
Signals — Async messages into a running workflow.
Timers — Durable sleeps — hours, days, months.
Update — Synchronous RPC into workflow with validation.
Visibility + Search Attrs — Query workflow state via Elasticsearch/native store.
Web UI — Inspect workflow history, events, stack.
Workflows — Durable, replayable, long-running functions.
Workflow Versioning — Patch workflow code without breaking in-flight runs.

n8n · 19 features

500+ Integration Nodes — Apps, SaaS, DBs, cloud services, AI models.
AI / LangChain Nodes — AI Agent, Chain, Memory, Vector Store nodes out of box.
Audit Logs — Enterprise compliance logging.
Code Nodes (JS + Python) — Drop-in custom code nodes with full data access.
Credentials Vault — Encrypted credentials per service.
Environments — dev/staging/prod environments.
Error Workflows — Global + per-workflow error handlers.
Execution History — Full run log with inputs/outputs per node.
Expression Editor — JavaScript expressions for data mapping.
External Secrets — HashiCorp Vault + AWS Secrets + Azure Key Vault integrations.
Git Version Control — Version workflows in Git (Business+).
HTTP Request Node — Full-featured HTTP client node (any REST API).
Queue Mode — Redis-backed execution queue for scaling.
Schedule Triggers — Cron-based triggers down to the minute.
SSO + SAML + LDAP — Business+ authentication.
Sub-Workflows — Reusable child workflows.
Variables — Global variables + per-workflow variables.
Visual Editor — Drag-and-drop flow builder. Node-based canvas.
Webhooks — Webhook triggers + responses.

Developer interfaces

Kind	Temporal	n8n
CLI	temporal CLI	n8n CLI
SDK	Temporal Go SDK, temporalio (Python), @temporalio (TypeScript), Temporal Java SDK, Temporal .NET SDK, Temporal PHP SDK	—
REST	—	n8n REST API
MCP	—	n8n MCP
OTHER	Temporal gRPC API, Temporal Web UI	n8n Editor UI, Webhook Triggers

Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Temporal and n8n are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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