Our take
Pick Prefect if data / ML teams who will self-host OSS at $0, or stay on Cloud Hobby at $0 (2 users, 5 deployments, 500 min Serverless, 7-day retention) until they need Starter at $100/month or Team at $100/user/month for more deployments, service accounts, and a 24-hour audit log. Pick Temporal if backend teams who will burn the $150 / 90-day Cloud credits (no base fee) while they reset a first getAddressFromIP
durable-execution desk
Best for
Prefect Runs you start at $0
Temporal A workflow you start on $150 credits
Free plan
Prefect $0 · apache 2.0. Schema.org Offer on the open-source page: price 0 USD. Run a Prefect server on your infra (self-host)
Temporal $0 · $150 for 90 days. No base monthly fee. Start for free
Lowest paid
Prefect Starter (Cloud) $100/mo
Temporal Pay-As-You-Go $50
Next step up
Prefect
Temporal Business support add-on $500/mo
Runs where
Prefect Local; you host it
Temporal
Watch out
Prefect Hobby is 5 deployments, 2 users, and 7-day run retention
Temporal $50 / million actions is the starting Cloud meter
Last checked
Prefect 2026-10-22 · prefect.io/pricing
Temporal 2026-10-22 · temporal.io/pricing
data / ML teams who will self-host OSS at $0, or stay on Cloud Hobby at $0 (2 users, 5 deployments, 500 min Serverless, 7-day retention) until they need Starter at $100/month or Team at $100/user/month for more deployments, service accounts, and a 24-hour audit log.
Read the Prefect pagebackend teams who will burn the $150 / 90-day Cloud credits (no base fee) while they reset a first getAddressFromIP run, then land on Pay-As-You-Go from $50 per million actions — or self-host OSS at $0 when they will run the server.
Read the Temporal page