# Restate vs Temporal

> Temporal scores 77.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Restate's 73.3 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Restate leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do hitl approve. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-temporal
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-temporal.md (~1,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-temporal.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-temporal.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: 2026-10-08

Temporal scores 77.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Restate's 73.3 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Restate leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do hitl approve.

- Restate: grade BB, 73.3/100, rank #74 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/restate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/restate.json
- Temporal: grade BB, 77.2/100, rank #20 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/temporal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/temporal.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 85
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20

Also in its favour:
- 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

### Temporal (BB)

Good for: A team that already runs, or wants to run, agents as durable workflows with strict guarantees and an audit trail per run.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 85
- Security & auth, 86 against 61
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 50

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No reviewer inbox, notifications or routing, so the human side is all your code


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Restate | Temporal | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 91 | 85 | Restate +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 91 | Temporal +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 85 | Temporal +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 86 | Temporal +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Restate +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 92 | 90 | Restate +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 70 | Temporal +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73.3 · BB** | **77.2 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Restate | Temporal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Restate GmbH | Temporal Technologies |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | BSL 1.1 converting to Apache-2.0 four years after release (server), MIT (SDKs) | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-15 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-04-22 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 4.5k stars, 329k npm/wk, 76k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.6/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Temporal.** Waits of any length with a timeout survive worker restarts and deploys. No reviewer inbox, notifications or routing, so the human side is all your code.

## Before you call either

### 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`

### Temporal

1. Put the decision in a typed Signal payload (approver, decision, comments, timestamp) instead of a bare boolean
2. Always wait with a timeout and treat the timeout path as a rejection or an escalation on purpose
3. Use the workflow ID as the approval ID, so the reviewer's tool only needs one value to send the Signal
4. Use an Update instead of a Signal when the approver's tool needs an acknowledgement back
5. Expect `ResourceExhausted` under load and let the SDK retry it, since signals are throttled last

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Restate or Temporal?

Temporal scores 77.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Restate's 73.3 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Restate leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Are Restate and Temporal open source?

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


## For agents

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

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- [gotoHuman vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-temporal.md)
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- [Permit MCP Gateway vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-restate.md)
- [Permit MCP Gateway vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-temporal.md)
- [Pushary vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-restate.md)
- [Pushary vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-temporal.md)
- [Restate vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Temporal vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-trigger-dev.md)