# Prefect vs Temporal

| Attribute | Prefect | Temporal |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 70 (76% (high)) | 71.5 (76% (high)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 98 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 767 | 30 |
| adoption.github_stars | 23,966 | 23,468 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 2,710,819 | 8,455,032 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A workflow orchestration platform where you define workflows as plain Python functions, and Prefect handles scheduling, retries, caching, and recovery automatically. You can run workflows on Prefect's managed cloud infrastructure or deploy workers to your own infrastructure. It is indexed under Data Engineering Tools.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","question":"What is Prefect?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Prefect is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. A commercial or hosted edition starts at $100 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","question":"Is Prefect free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Prefect supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","question":"What platforms does Prefect support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Prefect can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","question":"Can Prefect be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 12 integrations for Prefect, including Pydantic AI, OpenAI, AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, dbt, Slack, Snowflake and Redis, plus 4 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","question":"What does Prefect integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR for Prefect. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Prefect not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.prefect.io/security","question":"What security certifications does Prefect have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Prefect is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect","question":"Is Prefect open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"Temporal is a durable execution platform that automatically captures and persists application state, allowing workflows to recover from failures and resume exactly where they left off. It eliminates manual reconciliation code and enables building AI agents, orchestrations, and complex business processes across multiple programming languages. It is indexed under Message Queues.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"What is Temporal?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Temporal offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $100 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"Is Temporal free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Temporal supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"What platforms does Temporal support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Temporal can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"Can Temporal be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 5 integrations for Temporal, including Google ADK, OpenAI Agents SDK, AWS Lambda, AWS RDS and GCP Cloud SQL. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"What does Temporal integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR for Temporal. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Temporal not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://temporal.io/security","question":"What security certifications does Temporal have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Temporal is published under the MIT licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal","question":"Is Temporal open source?","confidence":0.99},{"answer":"Temporal is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-cloud-pricing-update","question":"Where is Temporal available?","confidence":0.75}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A Python-native workflow automation platform that handles scheduling, retries, caching, and recovery for data pipelines and AI agent workflows, with both cloud-managed and self-hosted execution options. | A durable execution platform that simplifies building resilient distributed systems by automatically managing workflow state, retries, and recovery. It eliminates the need for custom failure handling, reconciliation logic, and infrastructure like message queues or schedulers. |
| features.capabilities | `{"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"batch","dbt_native":true,"python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"Not specified","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true,"distributed_executor":true}` | `{"hosting":"both","paradigm":"durable_exec","protocol":"gRPC","message_replay":true,"persistent_log":true,"geo_replication":true,"managed_offering":true,"delivery_guarantee":"at_least_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` |
| integrations.count | 6 | 3 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Pydantic AI"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"AWS Secrets Manager"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"dbt"},{"name":"Slack","native":true,"category":"chat"},{"name":"Snowflake","native":true},{"name":"Redis","native":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","native":true},{"name":"Amazon ECS","native":true},{"name":"Docker","native":true},{"name":"Google Cloud Run","native":true},{"name":"GitHub","native":true},{"name":"AWS","native":true}]` | `[{"name":"Google ADK"},{"name":"OpenAI Agents SDK"},{"name":"AWS Lambda","native":true,"category":"compute"},{"name":"AWS RDS","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"GCP Cloud SQL","native":true,"category":"database"},{"name":"Vercel's AI SDK","native":true,"category":"ai"},{"name":"Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)","native":true,"category":"ai"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Hobby","features":["Workflow scheduling","Up to 5 deployments","500 minutes of Prefect Serverless","Workflow observability","Logging & alerting","7 days run retention"],"minSeats":2,"description":"Deploy workflows instantly. Scale when ready.","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Starter","features":["All Hobby features","Up to 20 deployments","75 hours of Prefect Serverless","Bring your own compute","Webhooks","1,250 API requests/min"],"minSeats":3,"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Team","features":["All Starter features","Up to 100 deployments","225 hours of Prefect Serverless","Service accounts","24 hour audit log"],"minSeats":4,"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","features":["All Team features","SSO (SAML/OIDC)","RBAC + ACLs","Multiple workspaces","Directory Sync (SCIM)","IP allowlisting & PrivateLink","Unlimited deployments"],"minSeats":5,"contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free Hobby tier. Starter from $100/month. Team per-user monthly pricing. Enterprise custom quote.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-10-05T11:05:17.530Z","startingPrice":{"amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Paygo with Developer Support","summary":"$0/mo minimum, $0.000025 per action","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"action"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.000025,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Pay-as-you-go consumption-based pricing with developer support included","contactSales":false}],"summary":"From $0.000025 per action with $0/mo minimum. Free trial available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://temporal.io/blog/introducing-pay-as-you-go-pricing-for-temporal-cloud-on-the-aws-marketplace","retrievedAt":"2026-10-05T10:05:08.415Z","freeTrialDays":90,"startingPrice":{"unit":"action","amount":0.000025,"currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | high | low |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":100,"currency":"USD"}` | `{"amount":0.000025,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 1 | 3 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.8.dev3","date":"2026-10-02T08:19:49Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.8.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.8.dev2","date":"2026-10-01T08:21:27Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.8.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.8.dev1","date":"2026-09-30T08:20:43Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.8.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7","date":"2026-09-26T23:41:44Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev7","date":"2026-09-26T08:18:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev7"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev6","date":"2026-09-23T08:19:42Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev6"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev5","date":"2026-09-22T08:19:45Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev5"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev4","date":"2026-09-19T08:16:49Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev4"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev3","date":"2026-09-18T08:18:58Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev2","date":"2026-09-16T08:19:54Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.7.dev1","date":"2026-09-15T08:20:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.7.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6","date":"2026-09-14T14:18:53Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6.dev5","date":"2026-09-12T08:16:39Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.6.dev5"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6.dev4","date":"2026-09-11T08:19:03Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.6.dev4"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6.dev3","date":"2026-09-10T08:19:23Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.6.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6.dev2","date":"2026-09-09T08:19:24Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.6.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.6.dev1","date":"2026-09-05T08:16:23Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.6.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.5","date":"2026-09-03T21:25:46Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.5.dev6","date":"2026-09-03T08:19:56Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.5.dev6"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/2.20.26","date":"2026-09-02T18:17:41Z","type":"stable","version":"2.20.26"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.7","date":"2026-09-18T00:08:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.31.3","date":"2026-09-18T20:31:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.31.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.32.0","date":"2026-09-11T16:10:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.32.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.31.2","date":"2026-07-08T17:10:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.31.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.6","date":"2026-07-08T17:10:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.5","date":"2026-06-15T20:06:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.29.7","date":"2026-06-12T16:51:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.29.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.31.1","date":"2026-06-10T16:46:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.31.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.4.1","date":"2026-05-01T22:37:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.31.0","date":"2026-04-29T21:09:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.31.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.29.6.1","date":"2026-05-06T20:41:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.29.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.4","date":"2026-04-10T21:06:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.29.6","date":"2026-04-10T21:07:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.29.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.28.4","date":"2026-04-10T21:07:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.28.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.3","date":"2026-04-01T17:55:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.29.5","date":"2026-04-01T17:55:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.29.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.28.3.1","date":"2026-03-26T20:05:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.28.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.29.4.1","date":"2026-03-25T17:07:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.29.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.30.2","date":"2026-03-24T22:40:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.30.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/releases/tag/v1.28.3","date":"2026-03-18T17:30:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.28.3"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.9 | 99.9 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.certifications | `[{"name":"SOC 2 Type II","status":"active"}]` | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | yes | yes |
| security.scorecard | 6.9 | 5.7 |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |
| security.trust_center | https://www.prefect.io/security | https://temporal.io/blog/trusting-ai-agents-a-reinsurance-case-study |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":8,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=prefect&per_page=100","last_12m":6,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` | `{"count":6,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=go.temporal.io%2Fserver&per_page=100","last_12m":4,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-20T14:23:12.604Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*