Google Cloud Workflows vs Orkes Conductor
Google Cloud Workflows
cloud.google.com
Orkes Conductor
orkes.ioSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Workflows | Orkes Conductor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.01/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 2 |
| Spec score · IT Orchestration Software | 8.8 (#2) | 7.5 (#18) |
| Spec score · Process Orchestration Software | 8.8 (#6) | 7.5 (#25) |
| Integrations | Connectors integrate workflows with Google Cloud APIs and handle request formatting, retries, and long-running operations; examples include Pub/Sub, Firestore, and Secret Manager. | The pricing page identifies integrations spanning AI/LLM, message brokers, SDKs, relational databases, and vector databases. |
| Security | Workflows runs in a sandboxed environment without code or library dependencies that require security patches, and it can use Secret Manager to store and retrieve secrets. | Orkes states that Orkes Cloud is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and that data is encrypted at rest and in transit. |
| Support | Google Cloud customers, including free trial customers, receive Basic Support with documentation, community forums, billing assistance, and Active Assist. | Enterprise support includes SLA-backed response times, multiple channels including email, support portal, Slack, and Teams, and a dedicated technical account manager. |
Plans
Google Cloud Workflows
- Always FreeFree
- Always Free external stepsFree
- Always Free internal stepsFree
- Internal steps$0.01 a month
- Pay as you go$0.01 a month
- External steps$0.03 a month
In their own words
Google Cloud Workflows
Google Cloud Workflows is a managed orchestration platform for running Google Cloud services, custom services, and HTTP APIs in a chosen sequence. Workflow definitions use YAML or JSON and can combine ordered steps with conditions, loops, parallel work, and reusable subworkflows. Start an execution manually, through client libraries or REST, or on a schedule with Cloud Scheduler. Connectors link workflows to Google Cloud APIs such as Pub/Sub, Firestore, and Secret Manager, while workflow steps can also call custom or private HTTP and HTTPS endpoints. Reliability features include retries, polling, error handling, callbacks, and waits of up to one year. A single execution can run up to 100,000 steps and last no more than one year. IAM controls access; Secret Manager can store and retrieve secrets. Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring surface execution logs, volume, errors, and duration. Pricing is based on executed steps, including failed and retried steps, while idle workflows incur no charges. The free plan includes 5,000 internal and 2,000 external steps; paid usage starts at $0.01 per month, with rates that vary by step type and volume.
Orkes Conductor
Orkes Conductor combines AI agents with deterministic workflows for building and running business processes. Its durable execution preserves workflow and agent state through failures, restarts, outages and long-running interactions. Workflows can pause for approvals, reviews or escalations, then resume after a decision. Scheduling, webhooks and API triggers support event-driven automation. Monitoring includes real-time execution views, analytics, role-based access control, audit logs and input/output guardrails. Developers can use the Conductor SDK or bring LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Google ADK, CrewAI or custom agents. Orkes Cloud can be hosted by Orkes or deployed in a customer cloud footprint, including Azure, AWS, GCP or private cloud. Orkes says its cloud service is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and encrypts data at rest and in transit. Cloud options include dedicated instances and private connectivity, and availability SLAs reach up to 99.99%. The free Developer Edition offers an individual sandbox and community support, but has no SLA and is not recommended for production. Enterprise pricing is custom and includes custom deployment options and Orkes Support.