# Kestra vs Prismatic

> Kestra scores 63.6 (B) to Prismatic's 59.1 (C) for workflow automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-prismatic
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-prismatic.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-prismatic.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kestra-vs-prismatic.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 Prismatic's 59.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Prismatic leads on security & auth. Both do workflow automation.

- Kestra: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #387 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kestra.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kestra.json
- Prismatic: grade C, 59.1/100, rank #561 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prismatic.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prismatic.json
- Best workflow automation platforms with APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/workflow-automation/index.md
- All 108 workflows comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/workflow-automation/index.md

## 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 67
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 75
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 63
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 93 against 83

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

### Prismatic (C)

Good for: A B2B software company that wants to build integrations once, deploy them per customer and let an in-app agent call them as MCP tools.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 59 against 41

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Kestra loses 7 points for them

Watch for: No prices on the pricing page. All three plans end in a demo request


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Kestra | Prismatic | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 89 | 67 | Kestra +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 75 | Kestra +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 63 | Kestra +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 41 | 59 | Prismatic +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 0 | Kestra +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 93 | 83 | Kestra +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 65 | Kestra +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.6 · B** | **59.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Kestra | Prismatic |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Kestra Technologies | Prismatic Software Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.prismatic.io/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (open-source server and SDK repository). Enterprise Edition and Kestra Cloud are commercial | Proprietary service. The Prism CLI, the Spectral and embedded SDKs, the Prism MCP dev server and the Claude Code skills on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.prismatic-io/prism-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2024-06-26 |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 244 npm/wk, 170 PyPI/wk | 29 stars, 8.4k npm/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.

**Prismatic.** The GraphQL API covers 120 queries and 124 mutations with typed inputs, cursor pagination and Markdown documentation, and tokens follow seven user roles. No price is published, paid use runs under an agreement that is not public, and no API rate limit or idempotency key was found in the reviewed documentation.

## 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

### Prismatic

1. Have a person run `prism login` once, then store the output of `prism me:token --type refresh` as `PRISM_REFRESH_TOKEN`. Access tokens last 7 days
2. Read the `errors` array on every mutation. A failed mutation still returns HTTP 200
3. Pass `sortBy` with `CREATED_AT` when paging. Without a sort order pages can repeat or skip records
4. Use the regional host for the tenant, such as `app.eu-west-1.prismatic.io` and `mcp.eu-west-1.prismatic.io`
5. Create a guest user for a read-only agent, because tokens have no scopes of their own

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Kestra or Prismatic?

Kestra scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Prismatic's 59.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Prismatic leads on security & auth.

### Do Kestra and Prismatic need an API key?

Kestra takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Prismatic uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Kestra and Prismatic without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Kestra. Prismatic has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.prismatic.io/mcp.

### Are Kestra and Prismatic 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 Prismatic.


## For agents

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

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