Temporal vs Conductor

Temporal9.0Visit Conductor8.6Visit

Higher score Temporal #2 in Process Orchestration Software 9.0/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 4 features Visit Temporal

vs

Conductor #6 in Process Orchestration Software 8.6/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 4 features Visit Conductor

• Temporal fits best

  Developers building durable code-defined workflows

• Conductor fits best

  Open-source durable workflows with polyglot workers

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Side by side

Feature	Temporal 9.0/10 Visit ↗	Conductor 8.6/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.0	8.6
Ranking	#2 in Process Orchestration Software	#6 in Process Orchestration Software
Best for	Developers building durable code-defined workflows	Open-source durable workflows with polyglot workers
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Free
Starting price	$500/mo	Free plan
Free plan	✓	✓
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud, Self-hosted	Self-hosted, Cloud
Platforms	Web	Web
Support	Community, Docs · 24/7	Community, Docs
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Temporal 0/4 · Conductor 0/4
Human tasks & approvals	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Long-running workflows	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Workflow versioning	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Audit logs	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Deployment model	Hybrid	Not checked yet
Concurrent runs	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Durable execution with persisted history, replay, retries, and backoff Supports timers, schedules, signals, queries, updates, and approvals Self-hosted or managed deployment with workflow visibility	Persists task progress for recovery after failures or restarts Supports workers and SDKs across seven listed programming languages Combines event triggers, retries, approvals, observability, and sub-workflows
Cons	Paid usage starts at $50 per million actions No visual workflow builder Verified integrations are absent	Self-hosted deployment requires Docker- or JVM-based infrastructure The OSS distribution does not include the visual workflow editor Its broad orchestration model may exceed simpler automation needs
Our verdict	Temporal is an open-source platform for building and running durable workflows. Developers define workflows and activities in code using supported SDKs, while Temporal persists execution state, records event history, handles failures, and… Read the review →	Conductor is an open-source orchestration platform for microservices, AI agents, and durable workflow graphs. It defines versioned workflows as task graphs, runs them across services and workers, and persists task progress for recovery… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Temporal — where it wins

  • Durable execution with persisted history, replay, retries, and backoff
  • Supports timers, schedules, signals, queries, updates, and approvals
  • Self-hosted or managed deployment with workflow visibility

  Where it doesn't

  • Paid usage starts at $50 per million actions
  • No visual workflow builder
  • Verified integrations are absent

• Conductor — where it wins

  • Persists task progress for recovery after failures or restarts
  • Supports workers and SDKs across seven listed programming languages
  • Combines event triggers, retries, approvals, observability, and sub-workflows

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires Docker- or JVM-based infrastructure
  • The OSS distribution does not include the visual workflow editor
  • Its broad orchestration model may exceed simpler automation needs

• Temporal9.0/10 · Free plan

  A code-first orchestrator for workflows that need durable execution and recovery.

  Visit TemporalFull verdict →
• Conductor8.6/10 · Free plan

  A flexible self-hosted orchestrator for durable, event-driven service workflows.

  Visit ConductorFull verdict →