# Kestra vs Microsoft Power Automate

> Kestra scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Microsoft Power Automate's 62 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Power Automate leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do automation workflows. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-power-automate
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-power-automate.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Kestra scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Microsoft Power Automate's 62 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Power Automate leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do automation workflows.

- Kestra: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #351 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kestra.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kestra.json
- Microsoft Power Automate: grade B, 62/100, rank #405 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/power-automate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/power-automate.json

## Which one, for what

### Kestra (B)

Good for: Engineering and data teams that want declarative YAML flows with scripts in any language, run on their own infrastructure.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 89 against 63
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 68
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 93 against 76

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: The open-source edition has one basic-auth username and password. API tokens, service accounts, RBAC and audit logs need Enterprise or Cloud

### Microsoft Power Automate (B)

Good for: Organisations already on Microsoft 365 and Dataverse that want an agent to inventory, deploy or adjust flows inside existing roles and solutions.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 61 against 41
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 69

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Kestra loses 7 points for them

Watch for: Flows under My flows can't be managed in code, and Microsoft calls the `api.flow.microsoft.com` API unsupported


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Kestra | Microsoft Power Automate | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 89 | 63 | Kestra +26 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 68 | Kestra +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 69 | Kestra +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 41 | 61 | Microsoft Power Automate +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 25 | Kestra +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 93 | 76 | Kestra +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 76 | Microsoft Power Automate +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.6 · B** | **62 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Kestra | Microsoft Power Automate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Kestra Technologies | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (open-source server and SDK repository). Enterprise Edition and Kestra Cloud are commercial | Proprietary service under the Microsoft Product Terms for Microsoft Power Platform |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 244 npm/wk, 170 PyPI/wk | 11k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Kestra.** Kestra's open-source edition has a 216-operation OpenAPI spec, Markdown docs for agents and weekly patch releases on two long-term support lines. Its only credential is one basic-auth username and password with full access, and five critical advisories were published between March and September 2026, all fixed.

**Microsoft Power Automate.** Cloud flows in a solution are rows an agent can read and write through the Dataverse Web API under Entra ID OAuth and security roles, with published limits and a 99.9 per cent SLA. Flows under My flows can't be managed in code, a flow's body is one hand-built JSON string, and setup needs a tenant administrator.

## Before you call either

### Kestra

1. Run 2.0.5 or 1.3.42 or later. Earlier builds carry unauthenticated remote code execution advisories fixed in 1.3.38 and 2.0.3
2. Set `kestra.server.basic-auth` in the config file before first start. Without it the setup page is open to anyone who reaches the port
3. Put the tenant in the path. Open-source instances use `main`, as in `/api/v1/main/executions/{namespace}/{id}`
4. Send flow inputs as multipart form fields, and add `wait=true` to get the finished execution in the same call
5. Keep port 8081 off any shared network. The management endpoints there skip the API's basic auth

### Microsoft Power Automate

1. Filter `workflows` on `category eq 5` for cloud flows, and add `$select`, because `clientdata` holds the whole definition
2. Flows created through the API start with `statecode` 0 (off). The docs say to turn the flow on before use
3. Put the flow in a solution first. Flows that sit only under My flows are outside the supported API
4. On 429 wait the `Retry-After` seconds. Reads of `flowruns` count against the daily Power Platform request allowance
5. Treat an HTTP trigger URL with `sig=` as a secret, and prefer the tenant or named-user trigger modes with a bearer token for `https://service.flow.microsoft.com/`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Kestra or Microsoft Power Automate?

Kestra scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Microsoft Power Automate's 62 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Power Automate leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Do Kestra and Microsoft Power Automate need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Kestra and Microsoft Power Automate without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Kestra. No hosted endpoint is listed for Microsoft Power Automate.

### Are Kestra and Microsoft Power Automate open source?

Kestra is open source (Apache-2.0 (open-source server and SDK repository). Enterprise Edition and Kestra Cloud are commercial). No open-source release is listed for Microsoft Power Automate.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-power-automate.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-power-automate.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "kestra", "b": "power-automate"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare kestra power-automate`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kestra.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/power-automate.json

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