workflow-automation
Temporal pricing & features
Durable execution platform for mission-critical workflows
OSS durable-execution engine (MIT). Workflows + activities with replayable state. Used by Netflix, Stripe, Snap, HashiCorp. Cloud or self-host. Go/Java/TS/Python/.NET/PHP.
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026
Pricing
| Tier | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Hosted (OSS) | Free | Free forever. MIT license. Run the Temporal cluster yourself on K8s/Docker. |
| Cloud (usage-based) | Free | Temporal Cloud. Pay per action ($25 per 1M actions base). Active user + storage also billed. |
| Business Plan | Custom | Starts ~$100/mo commit. Multi-region, SSO, priority support. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom. HIPAA, PCI, dedicated clusters, enterprise SLA. |
Limits
| Tier | Metric | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | billing unit cloud | Action = state transition (Activity, Timer, Signal, Child Workflow, etc.) | Cloud billing |
| — | languages | Go, Java, TypeScript, Python, .NET, PHP, Ruby (community) | SDKs |
| — | license | MIT (core server + SDKs) | License |
| — | notable users | Netflix, Stripe, Snap, HashiCorp, Coinbase, Datadog, Box | Users |
| — | primitives | Workflow, Activity, Signal, Query, Timer, Child Workflow, Continue-As-New | Core primitives |
| — | replay semantics | Workflow code must be deterministic — Temporal replays history on restart | Determinism |
| — | runtime model | You run Worker processes that poll Temporal Server; server coordinates state | Worker pattern |
| — | vs airflow | Temporal for transactional long-running workflows; Airflow for data pipelines | Airflow comparison |
| — | vs inngest | More powerful + low-level. Requires worker fleet + more ops overhead. | Inngest comparison |
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.
- Workflow Versioning — Patch workflow code without breaking in-flight runs.
- Workflows — Durable, replayable, long-running functions.
Developer interfaces
| Slug | Name | Kind | Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| sdk-ts | @temporalio (TypeScript) | sdk | 1.x |
| sdk-dotnet | Temporal .NET SDK | sdk | 1.x |
| sdk-go | Temporal Go SDK | sdk | 1.x |
| sdk-java | Temporal Java SDK | sdk | 1.x |
| sdk-php | Temporal PHP SDK | sdk | 2.x |
| webui | Temporal Web UI | other | — |
| grpc-api | Temporal gRPC API | other | v1 |
| cli | temporal CLI | cli | 1.x |
| sdk-python | temporalio (Python) | sdk | 1.x |
Related workflow-automation platforms
workflow-automation
Inngest
Durable functions + event-driven workflows for modern apps
workflow-automation
Make
Visual workflow automation (formerly Integromat) — deeper than Zapier
workflow-automation
Trigger.dev
Open-source background jobs with no timeouts and full observability
workflow-automation
Zapier
The OG automation platform — 8,000+ app integrations + Zapier Copilot AI
workflow-automation
n8n
Source-available workflow automation — fair-code, self-host or cloud
Compare Temporal with
workflow-automation
Temporal vs Inngest
Side-by-side breakdown.
workflow-automation
Temporal vs Make
Side-by-side breakdown.
workflow-automation
Temporal vs Trigger.dev
Side-by-side breakdown.
workflow-automation
Temporal vs Zapier
Side-by-side breakdown.
workflow-automation
Temporal vs n8n
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs Anthropic API
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs AssemblyAI
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs Deepgram
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs ElevenLabs
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs Google Gemini API
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs Groq
Side-by-side breakdown.
ai-api
Temporal vs OpenAI API
Side-by-side breakdown.
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. The link to Temporal above may be an affiliate link — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified at publication time — reconfirm on the vendor site before buying.