Google Cloud Workflows vs Windmill
Google Cloud Workflows
cloud.google.com
Windmill
windmill.devSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Workflows | Windmill |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.01/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 |
| Plans published | 6 | 4 |
| Spec score · IT Orchestration Software | 8.8 (#2) | 8.6 (#4) |
| Spec score · Workflow Orchestration Software | 8.8 (#7) | 8.6 (#11) |
| Company profile | LinkedIn lists Google as a public software-development company headquartered in Mountain View, California, with 10,001+ employees. | LinkedIn lists Windmill as privately held, founded in 2022, headquartered in Dover and employing 11–50 people. |
| Documentation depth | The documentation set includes quickstarts, tutorials, syntax and standard-library references, REST APIs, connectors, quotas, release notes, training, and code samples. | Documentation covers scripts, flows, apps, local development, CLI, SDKs, integrations, deployment, authentication, security and operations. |
| 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. | Windmill Hub lists more than 200 resource types, including Google services, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Microsoft Teams, AWS, S3, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Datadog and Discord. |
| Licence | The managed Workflows service is proprietary; Google's public Workflows samples repository is marked Apache-2.0. | Windmill states that its open-source edition is licensed under AGPLv3; enterprise features use a commercial licence. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.4 out of 5 from 6 reviews. | 5.0 out of 5 from 2 reviews |
| 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. | Windmill lists granular permissions, RBAC, secret management, OAuth, SSO and audit logs among its enterprise features. |
| Support | Google Cloud customers, including free trial customers, receive Basic Support with documentation, community forums, billing assistance, and Active Assist. | The free self-hosted plan includes community support on Discord, while Enterprise lists 24/7 priority support with a 3-hour response time. |
| Triggers | Workflows supports event-driven Eventarc triggers, scheduled executions, and programmatic execution. | Supported triggers include schedules, webhooks, Kafka, Postgres CDC, WebSockets, MQTT, NATS, SQS, GCP and Azure Event Grid. |
| What it does | Google Cloud Workflows orchestrates Google Cloud services, custom Cloud Run services or functions, and HTTP APIs into serverless applications and pipelines without infrastructure management. | Windmill is an open-source workflow engine and developer platform that turns scripts into APIs, workflows and UIs for internal software. |
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
Windmill
- Free and Open-sourceFree
- Free and Open-sourceFree
- Enterprise$120 a month
- Enterprise example configuration$170 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.
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.