A Prefect alternative priced by what you run, not who's logged in.
Prefect prices by seats and deployments, not usage. The free Hobby plan caps out at two users and five deployments with no option to bring your own compute, and Starter jumps to $100 a month flat before you can self-host at all. Team pricing then scales to $100 per user per month, and governance features stay locked behind a custom Enterprise deal.
Unmeshed counts one flat number per workflow execution, no matter how many people log in or how many workflows you deploy.
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 a single workflow execution costs the same flat number no matter how many people on your team are using it.
About Prefect
Prefect is a Python native workflow orchestration platform, with an open-source core and a managed Prefect Cloud on top. Workflows are plain Python functions decorated with @flow and @task, and Prefect Cloud prices access by seats and deployment count rather than by how much you actually run. Prefect recently acquired Dagster Labs, though the two products continue to operate and price separately for now.
Comparison
Unmeshed vs Prefect, feature by feature.
| Unmeshed | Prefect | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | ||
| Built for | Code-first orchestration for developers and technical teams | Python-native orchestration for data, ML, and agent workflows |
| Workflow definitions | JSON, YAML, or code | Python only, defined with @flow and @task decorators |
| Deployment options | Self-hosted, cloud, or hybrid | Prefect Serverless or self-managed workers, both reporting to Prefect Cloud's control plane |
| Visual designer | Included | Not included |
| Resiliency and operations | ||
| Retry a single failed step without restarting the run | Included | Included |
| Hold, skip, rollback, restart as direct commands | Included | |
| Self-hosted deployment | Included | Included |
| Self-host the full platform without losing governance features | Included | Not included |
| Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | Flat, predictable plans | Priced by seats and deployment count, not usage |
| Free tier allows bringing your own compute | Included | Not included |
| Free tier usable in production | Included | |
| Upgrade without a sales call | Included | |
| Security, compliance, and governance | ||
| Role-based access control | Included | Not included |
| SSO / SAML | ||
| Audit logs | Included | |
| Self-hosted / on-premises deployment | Included | Included |
One flat number, no per-seat math.
Start building workflows that cost the same flat number whether it's one person running them or ten; on a free tier, you sign up for yourself.
Pricing
They price the team. We price the work.
Prefect Cloud charges by seats and deployments, so the bill grows with headcount and environments rather than actual workflow volume. Unmeshed counts one flat number: a workflow execution, no matter how many people are logged in or how many workflows are deployed.
Free forever
$0/month
No credit card required
Get Started Free- 2,000 workflow executions / month
- Unlimited steps per workflow
- Community support
Premium
$20/month
Billed monthly. Annual billing available, saves 2 months
Get Started- 10,000 workflow executions / month
- Batch job scheduling
- Email support
Enterprise
Custom pricing
Contact Sales- Unlimited executions, workflows & seats
- SSO / SAML and role-based access control
- Dedicated support with SLAs
Prefect pricing, for reference
See Prefect's pricing pageHobby, free forever
Capped at 2 users, 1 workspace, up to 5 deployments, and 500 minutes of Prefect Serverless a month, with no option to bring your own compute
Starter, $100/mo
3 users and up to 20 deployments. The first tier that allows self-hosted compute
Team, $100/user/mo
For 4 to 8 users, adding service accounts and a 24-hour audit log
Enterprise
Custom pricing, contact sales. The only tier with SSO, RBAC, and SCIM
Pricing details change often; treat this as a quick reference and confirm current numbers on Prefect's site before publishing.
Agentic AI
No per-step price tag, AI or otherwise.
Prefect
Prefect's plans price seats and deployments, not individual runs or steps, so there's no built-in way to see what any single step costs, whether it calls a model or just moves data.
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 on its own rather than disappearing into a flat monthly seat count.
Cost and infrastructure
Self-managed still means giving something up.
Prefect
Running open source Prefect Server on your own infrastructure is free and genuinely self-hosted, but it drops SSO, RBAC, audit logs, and priority support entirely; those live only in Prefect Cloud's hosted control plane. Choosing Prefect Cloud instead gets the governance back, but scheduling, visibility, and orchestration then run through Prefect's servers, not yours, even when your workers execute inside your own VPC.
Unmeshed
Unmeshed self-hosts the whole platform, control plane included, without asking you to trade away governance to get there.
Feature comparison
Prefect makes you plan for this. Unmeshed already did.
The stuff you won't have to build yourself.
Pricing predictability
One number, not a per-seat bill.
Unmeshed
Workflow executions are counted flat, no matter how many people log in or how many workflows you deploy.
Prefect
Team pricing runs $100 per user per month, and Starter's flat $100 a month is required before you can even self-host compute.
Self-hosting
The full platform, not just the compute.
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.
Prefect
Self-hosted Prefect Server is free, but drops SSO, RBAC, audit logs, and priority support; those features exist only in the hosted Prefect Cloud.
Governance
Access control isn't an add-on here.
Unmeshed
Role-based access control is available as a baseline platform capability, not gated behind a custom deal.
Prefect
RBAC and ACLs are reserved for the custom Enterprise plan, with nothing offered on Hobby, Starter, or Team.
Workflow definitions
Define it your way, not just in Python.
Unmeshed
Workflows are defined in JSON, YAML, or code, whichever fits the team building it.
Prefect
Flows and tasks are Python functions with decorators, with no JSON or YAML definition path.
Code sample
Just functions. No seat count to check.
Workers are plain functions. Register them, start a process, and the platform takes care of the durable execution machinery, no per-seat math to run before you can scale up.
Retries, state, and scheduling come built in, so there's no extra worker choreography to hand roll.
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.