Dagster vs Prefect
Dagster
dagster.ioPrefect
prefect.ioSide by side
| Figure | Dagster | Prefect |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10/mo | $100/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 4 |
| Spec score · Workflow Orchestration Software | 8.3 (#13) | 7.9 (#22) |
| Spec score · Workload Automation Software | 8.3 (#10) | 8.0 (#12) |
| Spec score · DataOps Platforms | 8.3 (#8) | 7.9 (#10) |
| Integrations | The official integration directory lists tools including Airbyte, Anthropic, Apache Airflow, AWS services, and Azure Data Lake Storage. | The integrations directory lists AWS, Azure, Bitbucket, Dask, Databricks, dbt, Docker, GCP, GitHub, Kubernetes, Slack, Snowflake, and other integrations. |
| Support | The plan comparison lists community and Support Center and Ask AI support, while Pro includes personalized onboarding support and a private Slack channel. | The pricing comparison lists Community as Hobby's support channel, and the homepage says every enterprise plan has a 30-minute response SLA. |
Plans
Dagster
- Solo$10 a month
- Starter$100 a month
- ProPriced on request
- Solo Plan$10 a month
- Starter Plan$100 a month
- Pro PlanPriced on request
In their own words
Dagster
Dagster is a data-aware orchestrator for building, running and monitoring data pipelines and assets. It models assets and dependencies to show lineage across a data platform, while supporting partitions, incremental runs, declarative workflows and fault-tolerant orchestration. An integrated catalog combines data discovery, lineage, workflows and operational metadata. Quality features include code-embedded validation, automated testing, freshness checks and observability tools. The integration directory lists Airbyte, Anthropic, Apache Airflow, AWS services and Azure Data Lake Storage. Dagster+ hybrid deployment keeps compute in a customer’s infrastructure while Dagster manages the control plane. The core framework is open source on GitHub. Platforms listed are API, Linux, self-hosted and web; deployment is hybrid. A 30-day trial is listed. Solo costs $10 a month plus usage charges, and Starter costs $100 a month plus usage charges. Dagster’s website says it is now part of Prefect.
Prefect
Prefect is a workflow orchestration platform for data, machine learning and agent workflows written in Python. Its open-source framework lets users add decorators to existing Python code to create workflows, without a rigid DAG structure or custom DSL. Execution features include state tracking, automatic retries, caching and recovery from failures. For observability, Prefect provides run timelines, logs and alerts for failures, missed SLAs and late runs. Workflows can run on cron or event-driven schedules, support backfills, and be triggered by webhooks, cloud events or state changes. Deployment choices include managed serverless execution, hybrid execution in a customer’s infrastructure, and self-hosted orchestration. In hybrid mode, workers connect through outbound-only connections while code and data stay in the customer’s infrastructure; Prefect Cloud hosts the control plane and metadata. The free Hobby plan is limited to two users, five deployments, 500 minutes of monthly serverless credits and seven days of run retention. Paid plans start at $100/mo.