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Head to head · Human approval · October 2026 research run

Hatchet vs Restate

Restate scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Hatchet leads on transparency & trust. Both do human approval.

Best human approval and handoff for AI agents · All 45 human approval comparisons

HatchetHatchet Technologies, Inc. · Model platform B68.3/100#225 of 950 RestateRestate GmbH · Model platform BB73.3/100#90 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

  • Transparency & trust, 71 against 50

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

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

Restate BB

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 66

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No reviewer inbox, Slack app or email. The approval request and the reply endpoint are the builder's code

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHatchetRestateEdge
Reliability16%206691Restate +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28585even
Agent ergonomics13%16.28281Hatchet +1
Security & auth14%17.56261Hatchet +1
Payments & pricing10%12.54040even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89092Restate +2
Transparency & trust7%8.87150Hatchet +21
Negative events≤15-20
Total68.3 · B73.3 · BB

Facts side by side

FactHatchetRestate
KindModel platformModel platform
VendorHatchet Technologies, Inc.Restate GmbH
Hosted endpointhttps://cloud.hatchet.runno (local only)
TransportsHTTP, stdioHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITBSL 1.1 converting to Apache-2.0 four years after release (server), MIT (SDKs)
Tools exposed7none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-01
Terms last updated2025-07-17couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-18no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularitynone4.5k stars, 329k npm/wk, 76k PyPI/wk

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.

Restate

An awakeable pauses a handler at no compute cost and resumes it from one HTTP request, with a durable timeout, on a free plan of 100,000 actions a month. Restate sends nothing to the approver, so the Slack message, email or inbox is the builder's code, and the published terms and privacy statement predate the paid plans.

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

Restate

  1. Create the awakeable, send its ID inside ctx.run, then await the promise, so a retry doesn't send a second approval request
  2. Resolve with POST /restate/awakeables/<id>/resolve and a JSON body, or /reject with a text reason, which throws a terminal error in the handler
  3. On Restate Cloud send Authorization: Bearer key_... to https://<env_id>.env.<region>.restate.cloud:8080. On a self-hosted server put an authenticating proxy in front of port 8080
  4. Wrap the wait in orTimeout and decide what a timeout means. Without it the handler waits with no limit
  5. Retry ingress errors only on 408, 425, 429 or 5xx, and only when x-restate-error-source isn't invocation

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Hatchet or Restate?

Restate scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Hatchet leads on transparency & trust.

Are Hatchet and Restate open source?

Hatchet is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Restate.

Other comparisons with Hatchet or Restate

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