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Head to head · Human approval · October 2026 research run

Hatchet vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks

Hatchet scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Orkes Conductor Human tasks's 54 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orkes Conductor Human tasks leads on security & auth. Both do human approval.

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HatchetHatchet Technologies, Inc. · Model platform B68.3/100#225 of 950 Orkes Conductor Human tasksOrkes · Model platform C54/100#696 of 950

Which one, for what

Hatchet B

Good for It suits a team already running background jobs or agent loops on Hatchet that wants an approval pause inside the same durable task, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 66 against 32
  • Schema & documentation, 85 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 82 against 69
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 90 against 81
  • Transparency & trust, 71 against 44

Watch for

No approver inbox, Slack or email channel, routing or reminder. The owner builds the request and the way the answer is pushed

Orkes Conductor Human tasks C

Good for Teams that already orchestrate agents as Conductor workflows and need formal routing, per-assignee deadlines and escalation without writing them.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 71 against 62

Watch for

No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHatchetOrkes Conductor Human tasksEdge
Reliability16%206632Hatchet +34
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28565Hatchet +20
Agent ergonomics13%16.28269Hatchet +13
Security & auth14%17.56271Orkes Conductor Human tasks +9
Payments & pricing10%12.54020Hatchet +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89081Hatchet +9
Transparency & trust7%8.87144Hatchet +27
Negative events≤15-20
Total68.3 · B54 · C

Facts side by side

FactHatchetOrkes Conductor Human tasks
KindModel platformModel platform
VendorHatchet Technologies, Inc.Orkes
Hosted endpointhttps://cloud.hatchet.runhttps://developer.orkescloud.com/api
TransportsHTTP, stdioHTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicenceMITApache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor)
Tools exposed719
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.conductor-oss/conductor-mcp
Last release2026-10-082026-09-10
Terms last updated2025-07-17no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-182022-02-23
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Hatchet

A durable task waits for a keyed event without holding a worker slot, and resumes from its event log after a restart, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby. Hatchet supplies only the pause and resume. It has no approver inbox, notification channel or record of who answered, and its MCP server cannot push the event.

Orkes Conductor Human tasks

Escalation chains with a time limit per assignee and a choice of leaving the task open or failing the workflow. No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow.

Before you call either

Hatchet

  1. Put the approval wait in a durable task, and keep API calls, database reads and random values in child tasks, because the code between checkpoints is replayed
  2. Add a sleep condition in the same or group as the event condition to set a deadline, and treat the sleep firing first as a timeout
  3. Give the event a scope and the wait a lookback window when the answer can arrive before the wait starts. Both must be set together
  4. Filter with a CEL expression such as input.user_id == '1234' so one approval key cannot resume another request's task
  5. Push the answer with the SDK's event push or POST /api/v1/tenants/{tenant}/events. The MCP server has no tool for it
  6. Grant the MCP server one profile with hatchet mcp auth --grant <profile>. It refuses profiles that were not granted

Orkes Conductor Human tasks

  1. Give every assignment you want to escalate from a non-zero slaMinutes, since 0 never expires and nothing can follow it
  2. Pick TERMINATE for risky actions so an unanswered approval fails the workflow instead of staying open to anyone
  3. Start approval workflows with an idempotencyKey and RETURN_EXISTING, so a retried start doesn't ask twice
  4. Refresh the JWT from /api/token with a set expiry instead of requesting one that never expires
  5. Fetch single doc pages, not llms.txt, which is the whole documentation in 2.57 MB

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Hatchet or Orkes Conductor Human tasks?

Hatchet scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Orkes Conductor Human tasks's 54 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orkes Conductor Human tasks leads on security & auth.

Are Hatchet and Orkes Conductor Human tasks open source?

Yes. Hatchet is open source (MIT). Orkes Conductor Human tasks is open source (Apache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor)).

Other comparisons with Hatchet or Orkes Conductor Human tasks

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