# Kestra vs Node-RED (slim)

> Kestra scores 63.6 (B) to Node-RED's 61 (C) for workflow automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-node-red.md (~2,350 tokens) · this version ~580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-node-red.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-node-red
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Kestra scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Node-RED's 61 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Node-RED leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do workflow automation.

- Kestra: B 63.6, rank #387 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kestra.min.md
- Node-RED: C 61, rank #486 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/node-red.min.md
- Kestra, good for Engineering and data teams that want declarative YAML flows with scripts in any language, run on their own infrastructure. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 82 against 41; Agent ergonomics, 73 against 44; Maintenance & community, 93 against 81.
- Node-RED, good for Owners who want event-driven flows on their own machine or device, with a large library of community nodes, and an agent that deploys or edits flows as JSON. Ahead on Security & auth, 51 against 41; Payments & pricing, 60 against 50. Also No incidents deducted, where Kestra loses 7 points for them.

| Category | Kestra | Node-RED |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 89 | 90 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 82 | 41 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 44 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 41 | 51 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 93 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 69 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Kestra | Node-RED |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Kestra Technologies | OpenJS Foundation |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (open-source server and SDK repository). Enterprise Edition and Kestra Cloud are commercial | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-08 |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 244 npm/wk, 170 PyPI/wk | 24k stars, 55k npm/wk |