# Big Arrow vs Restate (slim)

> Restate scores 73.3 (BB) to Big Arrow's 70.7 (BB) for hitl ask. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-restate.md (~2,150 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-restate.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-restate
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-15
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Restate scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Big Arrow's 70.7 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Big Arrow leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do hitl ask.

- Big Arrow: BB 70.7, rank #151 of 1094 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bigarrow.min.md
- Restate: BB 73.3, rank #94 of 1094 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/restate.min.md
- Big Arrow, good for An agent on a person's Mac that reaches a step only the person may do, such as a permission prompt, 2FA code or payment, and needs to show where. Ahead on Security & auth, 67 against 61; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40; Transparency & trust, 59 against 50. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.
- Restate, good for A team that already writes agent steps as durable handlers and wants a long, cheap wait for a human answer in TypeScript, Python, Java, Go or Rust, with the option to self-host. Ahead on Reliability, 91 against 75; Schema & documentation, 85 against 78; Maintenance & community, 92 against 70.

| Category | Big Arrow | Restate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 75 | 91 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 78 | 85 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 77 | 81 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 67 | 61 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 70 | 92 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 50 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Big Arrow | Restate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | Platform |
| Vendor | Franz Enzenhofer | Restate GmbH |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MIT | BSL 1.1 converting to Apache-2.0 four years after release (server), MIT (SDKs) |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-12 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 747 stars | 4.5k stars, 329k npm/wk, 76k PyPI/wk |