Kestra vs Orkes Conductor
Kestra
kestra.ioOrkes Conductor
orkes.ioSide by side
| Figure | Kestra | Orkes Conductor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 2 |
| Spec score · Ai Automation | 8.7 (#3) | 7.6 (#20) |
| Spec score · IT Orchestration Software | 8.5 (#7) | 7.5 (#18) |
| Deployment | Kestra can be self-hosted with Docker or Kubernetes, and Enterprise Edition also supports cloud, on-premises and air-gapped environments. | Orkes Cloud can be hosted by Orkes or in a customer cloud footprint, including Azure, AWS, GCP, or private cloud. |
| Integrations | The plugin catalog covers databases, warehouses, queues, cloud services, CI/CD and security tools, with more than 2,200 plugins advertised on the features page. | The pricing page identifies integrations spanning AI/LLM, message brokers, SDKs, relational databases, and vector databases. |
| Security | Kestra Cloud advertises SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 and GDPR status through its linked Trust Center. | Orkes states that Orkes Cloud is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and that data is encrypted at rest and in transit. |
| Support | Enterprise Edition includes a customer success program and enterprise support with an SLA. | Enterprise support includes SLA-backed response times, multiple channels including email, support portal, Slack, and Teams, and a dedicated technical account manager. |
Plans
Kestra
- Open SourceFree
- Enterprise EditionPriced on request
- Kestra CloudPriced on request
- Kestra CloudPriced on request
In their own words
Kestra
Kestra is a declarative orchestration platform for building, running, and governing workflows across an organization. Workflows, called flows, are defined in YAML and can combine tasks, dependencies, conditions, triggers, and runtime parameters. Execution controls include retries, failure policies, timeouts, concurrency limits, worker assignment, and log capture. Kestra advertises more than 2,000 plugins for connecting to external tools, with examples including Airbyte, AWS, Azure, BigQuery, dbt, Docker, GitHub, Kafka, Kubernetes, Slack, Snowflake, and Terraform. A flow can orchestrate SQL, Python, shell, APIs, Terraform, dbt, Spark, and custom tools. The platform includes an MCP server for AI agents and supports exposing flows as callable tools. Teams can self-host with Docker or Kubernetes; Enterprise Edition also supports cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped environments. Setup instructions cover macOS, Windows, and Linux, alongside web and API platforms. Kestra Cloud advertises up to two months free during team setup. The Open Source and Enterprise Edition plans have no price listed.
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.