Prefect
Durable orchestration for data, ML, and agents
- Also known as
- prefect
What is Prefect?
Workflow orchestration platform that replaces brittle cron jobs with resilient pipelines. Supports data pipelines, ML workloads, and agent execution with Python-native authoring.
Prefect pricing
Plans, per-tier features and add-ons, dated and linked to live pricing. Pricing changes often; always verify at source before you rely on it.
Free Hobby tier. Starter at $100/mo. Team at $100/user/mo. Pro and Enterprise custom.
Hobby
FreeDeploy workflows instantly. Scale when ready.
- workspaces
- 1
- deployments
- 5
- api_rate_limit
- 625/min
- serverless_credits
- 500 min/mo
- Workflow scheduling
- Workflow observability
- Logging & alerting
- 7 days run retention
Starter
Bring your own compute. Full infrastructure control.
- deployments
- 20
- api_rate_limit
- 1,250/min
- serverless_credits
- 75 hours/mo
- All Hobby features
- Bring your own compute
- Webhooks
- 1,250 API requests/min
Team
Team collaboration with service accounts and audit logs.
- workspaces
- 1-2
- automations
- 50
- deployments
- 100
- api_rate_limit
- 2,500/min
- serverless_credits
- 225 hours/mo
- audit_log_retention
- 24 hours
- All Starter features
- Service accounts
- 24 hour audit log
- 50 automations
Pro
Contact salesProduction security with SSO, RBAC, and workspaces.
- workspaces
- 1-2
- deployments
- 1,000
- api_rate_limit
- 5,000/min
- serverless_credits
- 250 hours/mo
- All Team features
- Multiple workspaces
- SSO (SAML/OIDC)
- Basic RBAC
Enterprise
Contact salesBest-in-class governance, scale, and support.
- workspaces
- 2+
- deployments
- Unlimited
- api_rate_limit
- Custom
- serverless_credits
- Custom
- audit_log_retention
- Custom
- All Pro features
- RBAC + ACLs
- Directory Sync (SCIM)
- IP allowlisting & PrivateLink
- 99.9% uptime SLA
What Prefect does
The capabilities that matter for data engineering tools, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Tool role
- Orchestrator
- Processing paradigm
- Batch
- Connector count
- -
- CDC / log-based replication
- -
- In-warehouse transformation (push-down)
- -
- dbt-native orchestration
- -
- Self-hosted / open-source available
- ✓
- Managed cloud available
- ✓
- Data lineage / asset catalog
- -
- Python-first authoring
- ✓
- Incremental / partition-aware runs
- -
- Built-in data quality / tests
- -
- Horizontal scale (distributed executor)
- -
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Web
- Cloud / SaaS
- Hybrid
- Self-hosted
Prefect alternatives
Other data engineering tools we track, ranked by the same independent score.
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Prefect, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Package Downloads | 84 | 26.00 | 2181.8 | ✓ |
| Pricing Transparency | 100 | 16.00 | 1600.0 | ✓ |
| Reliability | 95 | 14.00 | 1330.0 | ✓ |
| Github Activity | 63 | 18.00 | 1135.8 | ✓ |
| Release Cadence | 99 | 10.00 | 994.4 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 58 | 16.00 | 925.0 | ✓ |
| Security Posture | 55 | 14.00 | 770.0 | ✓ |
| Github Stars | 83 | 5.00 | 412.3 | ✓ |
| Price Level | 25 | 10.00 | 250.0 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 0 | 30.00 | 0.0 | - |
| Stackoverflow Activity | 0 | 12.00 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 100 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 65% |
Adoption
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"role":"orchestrator","paradigm":"batch","python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"self_hosted_oss":true} | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Python | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 98% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 99% |
Pricing
Release
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cadence days | 1 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 70% |