A Kestra alternative priced on a page, not behind a sales call.
Kestra's pricing page lists no dollar figures for anything beyond the free tier. Enterprise is an annual subscription; contact sales to find out what it costs. Cloud is pay-as-you-go, but the rate isn't published either; you have to request access to even see it. There's no self-serve paid plan in between; every upgrade routes through a conversation with sales.
Unmeshed publishes three plans with real numbers on the page, and the Premium tier starts at $20 a month with no call required.
Trusted by teams at leading organisations
Overview
Two different approaches to orchestration.
About Unmeshed
Unmeshed is a workflow orchestration platform built by the team behind Netflix Conductor. You define workflows in JSON or YAML, with code-based workers in Java, Go, TypeScript, or Python. Retries, waits, and durable state come built in, and every plan, including the paid one, shows its price on the page.
About Kestra
Kestra is a declarative, YAML-based orchestration platform aimed at data pipelines, infrastructure automation, and AI agent workflows under one governance model. The open source edition is free, self-hosted, and genuinely unrestricted, with unlimited flows and executions, with all 2,000+ plugins included. Kestra Cloud and Kestra Enterprise sit above it, both priced only through a sales conversation or an access request.
Comparison
Unmeshed vs Kestra, feature by feature.
| Unmeshed | Kestra | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | ||
| Built for | Code-first orchestration for developers and technical teams | Declarative orchestration spanning data, infrastructure, and AI workflows |
| Workflow definitions | JSON, YAML, or code | YAML only, with a guided form editor that stays in sync |
| Native integrations | 100+ | 2,000+ plugins |
| Visual designer | Included | Included |
| Resiliency and operations | ||
| Retry a single failed step without restarting the run | Included | Included |
| Hold, skip, rollback, restart as direct commands | Included | |
| Unlimited executions on the free tier | Included | Included |
| Self-hosted deployment | Included | Included |
| Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | Flat, predictable plans, published on the page | No published price above the free tier |
| Self-serve paid plan available | Included | Not included |
| Sales call required to see pricing | Not included | Included |
| Upgrade without a sales call | Included | Not included |
| Security, compliance, and governance | ||
| Role-based access control | Included | Not included |
| SSO / SAML | Not included | |
| Audit logs | Included | Not included |
| Self-hosted / on-premises deployment | Included | Included |
See the price before you talk to anyone.
Start building workflows on plans with real numbers on the page; on a free tier, you sign up for yourself.
Pricing
One page shows a price. The other shows a form.
Kestra publishes no rate for Cloud and no price for Enterprise; both require contacting the company directly before you learn what anything costs. Unmeshed lists every plan with its price on the same page you sign up from.
Free forever
For solo builders exploring workflow orchestration.
$0/month
No credit card required
Get Started Free- 2,000 workflow executions a month
- Unlimited steps per workflow
- Community support
Premium
For individuals and small teams ready to orchestrate at scale.
$20/month
Billed monthly. Annual billing available, saves 2 months
Get Started- 10,000 workflow executions a month
- Batch job scheduling
- Email support
Enterprise
For organizations with scale, compliance, and infrastructure requirements.
Custom pricing
Tailored to your scale and compliance requirements
Contact Sales- Unlimited executions, workflows, and seats
- SSO/SAML and role-based access control
- Dedicated support with SLAs
Kestra pricing, for reference
See Kestra's pricing pageOpen Source, free
Self-hosted, unlimited flows and executions, all 2,000+ plugins included, no upgrade needed for basic use
Cloud, unpublished rate
Described as “pay only for what you use,” access is by request, no rate shown publicly
Enterprise, custom
Annual subscription, per instance, unlimited flows/executions, contact sales for a number
Pricing details change often, treat this as a quick reference and confirm current terms on Kestra's site before publishing.
Agentic AI
Real agent tooling, no visibility into what it costs to run.
Kestra
Kestra's open source edition ships AI Copilot, autonomous AI agents, and an MCP server for exposing flows as tools, all free, which is more agentic capability out of the box than most orchestration platforms offer. But Kestra doesn't meter or display what any individual AI step costs, since models are brought in through your own provider and billed separately from Kestra itself.
Unmeshed
Unmeshed keeps code steps free of charge and prices only the AI steps individually, showing the cost of each one live as the workflow runs, so AI spend stays visible inside the platform rather than living entirely on a separate bill.
Cost and infrastructure
The free tier is real. Everything past it needs a conversation.
Kestra
Kestra's open source edition self-hosts with no artificial caps, unlimited flows, unlimited executions, every plugin included, and that's worth crediting directly. But the moment you need RBAC, SSO, audit logs, or a secrets manager, there's no self-serve upgrade path, only Enterprise, priced through sales, or Cloud, gated behind a request for access.
Unmeshed
Unmeshed's free tier is smaller by design, but the paid tier that adds governance is $20 a month, visible on the page, no request or call required.
Feature comparison
Kestra makes you plan for this. Unmeshed already did.
The stuff you won't have to build yourself.
Pricing transparency
A price you can read, not one you have to ask for.
Unmeshed
Every plan, including the paid one, lists its price on the pricing page itself.
Kestra
Cloud pricing is “pay as you use” with no published rate, and Enterprise pricing is available only by contacting sales.
Self-hosting
Generous, and worth saying so.
Unmeshed
Self-host on your own VM or Kubernetes cluster, or use Unmeshed Cloud, control plane included. On-premises deployment is included on the Enterprise plan.
Kestra
The open source edition is genuinely unrestricted, unlimited flows and executions self-hosted for free, credit where it’s due.
Governance
A baseline capability, not a sales conversation.
Unmeshed
Role-based access control is available as a baseline platform capability, not gated behind a custom deal.
Kestra
RBAC, SSO, SCIM, and audit logs are all reserved for Enterprise, with no self-serve tier that includes any of them.
Workflow definitions
Define it your way, not just in YAML.
Unmeshed
Workflows are defined in JSON, YAML, or code, whichever fits the team building it.
Kestra
Workflows are defined in YAML only, with a form editor layered on top that stays in sync with the underlying file.
Developer experience
Just functions. No form to fill out to see a number.
Workers are plain functions. Register them, start a process, and the platform takes care of the durable execution machinery, with pricing you could read before you ever got this far.
from unmeshed.sdk.configs.client_config import ClientConfig
from unmeshed.sdk.unmeshed_client import UnmeshedClient
from unmeshed.sdk.decorators.worker_function import worker_function
client_config = ClientConfig()
client_config.set_client_id("your-client-id")
client_config.set_auth_token("your-auth-token")
client = UnmeshedClient(client_config)
@worker_function(name="charge-order", namespace="default", max_in_progress=100)
def charge_order(input: OrderInput) -> ChargeResult:
# your business logic — the engine handles
# state, retries, and observability
return charge_card(input)
client.start()Frequently asked questions
Still have questions? Talk to us.