Forest Admin vs Windmill
Forest Admin
forest.appWindmill
windmill.devSide by side
| Figure | Forest Admin | Windmill |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $499/mo | $120/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 4 |
| Spec score · Internal Tools Software | 8.3 (#15) | 8.6 (#10) |
| Integrations | The integrations page lists Adyen as an integration for triggering refunds, holds, reversals, and dispute responses from Forest workflows. | Windmill Hub lists more than 200 resource types, including Google services, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Microsoft Teams, AWS, S3, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Datadog and Discord. |
| Product | Forest describes itself as an operational backend connecting operations teams and AI agents to databases, compliance suppliers, and workflows. | Windmill is an open-source workflow engine and developer platform for building endpoints, workflows and user interfaces. |
| Support | The Starter plan includes a standard support SLA, while Professional lists a dedicated customer success manager and private Slack channel. | The free self-hosted plan includes community support on Discord, while Enterprise lists 24/7 priority support with a 3-hour response time. |
| Trial | The pricing FAQ says customers can start with a free 30-day trial or evaluate with Sandbox, which has up to 2 users, 2 datasources, and 500 audit events per month. | Windmill's pricing page offers an Enterprise trial for a month. |
Plans
Forest Admin
- Starter$499 a month
- Professional$2,199 a month
- Enterprise$5,999 a month
- SandboxFree
Windmill
- Free and Open-sourceFree
- Free and Open-sourceFree
- Enterprise$120 a month
- Enterprise example configuration$170 a month
In their own words
Forest Admin
Forest Admin is an operational backend that connects operations teams and AI agents with databases, compliance suppliers, and workflows. It presents use cases including KYC onboarding, KYB/UBO, requests for information, transaction monitoring, and dispute handling. Forest says it reads and writes directly to databases and APIs without an ETL or copy layer, with the backend deployed in the customer's infrastructure. Workflow tools include case inboxes, dispatch rules, SLAs, multi-step workflows, approvals, escalations, and human review gates. Human users and AI agents share role-based permissions; record-level audit logs can include agent reasoning traces. Listed connectors include PostgreSQL, MongoDB, BigQuery, Snowflake, REST APIs, and GraphQL APIs. The integrations page names Adyen for triggering refunds, holds, reversals, and dispute responses. Forest lists SOC 2, HIPAA, PSD3, GDPR, and the EU AI Act in its compliance section. Pricing includes a free Sandbox, Starter at $499 a month, Professional at $2,199 a month, and Enterprise from $5,999 a month with an annual upfront payment discount. A free 30-day trial is also available.
Windmill
Windmill is an open-source workflow engine and developer platform for building endpoints, workflows and user interfaces. It is aimed at teams making internal software across engineering, data, sales, support and marketing. Scripts can be written in TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP, Bash, C#, SQL, Rust, Ruby and R, among other languages. Windmill combines a script editor, low-code flow builder, and low-code, React or Svelte app builders. Scripts and flows can be triggered by webhooks, schedules, HTTP routes, queues or an open API. Its Hub lists more than 200 resource types, including GitHub, Slack, AWS, BigQuery and PostgreSQL; users can also define custom resource types with schemas. Local development through the CLI and Git sync support version control and deployment workflows. Self-hosting is supported. The free and open-source plan is free and includes three workspaces, 50 users, 10 GiB of workspace object storage and 100 guest app users per 30 days. Enterprise is $120 a month and includes a month-long trial. Enterprise features include granular permissions, RBAC, secret management, OAuth, SSO and audit logs.