Conductor (Netflix) vs Temporal
| Tagline | Microservice workflow orchestration engine open-sourced by Netflix | Durable execution engine for resilient long-running business workflows |
| Category | Automation & iPaaS | Automation & iPaaS |
| Replaces | Zapier, Workato | Zapier, Workato |
| GitHub stars | 32k | 22k |
| Language | Java | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual | Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 3 days ago | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Conductor (Netflix)
- Workflow logic defined in JSON/YAML; no drag-and-drop canvas for non-technical users
- Requires Elasticsearch and a relational DB for production — non-trivial infrastructure
- Community edition lacks built-in RBAC available in the commercial Orkes Cloud offering
Temporal
- No visual no-code editor; all workflows must be written by developers in a supported SDK language
- Production deployment requires Cassandra or PostgreSQL plus Elasticsearch — significant infrastructure
- Self-hosted Web UI has limited analytics compared to Temporal Cloud
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Conductor (Netflix) for the larger community and ecosystem. Temporal has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Conductor (Netflix)
Microservice workflow orchestration engine open-sourced by Netflix