# Temporal vs withHuman

> Temporal scores 77.2 (BB) on agent readiness against withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on payments & pricing. Both do hitl approve. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-withhuman
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-withhuman.md (~2,050 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-withhuman.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-withhuman.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 withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on payments & pricing. Both do hitl approve.

- Temporal: grade BB, 77.2/100, rank #20 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/temporal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/temporal.json
- withHuman: grade D, 51.8/100, rank #573 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/withhuman.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/withhuman.json

## Which one, for what

### 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:
- Reliability, 85 against 16
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 81
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 74
- Security & auth, 86 against 73
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 53

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Open source

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

### withHuman (D)

Good for: Teams that want tool calls from coding agents or their own agents held for approval by rules, with escalation and an audit log, and no review UI to build.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The terms say the service is in early access, and the API document is version 0.1.0


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Temporal | withHuman | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 16 | Temporal +69 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 91 | 81 | Temporal +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 74 | Temporal +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 86 | 73 | Temporal +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | withHuman +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 49 | Temporal +41 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 53 | Temporal +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **77.2 · BB** | **51.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Temporal | withHuman |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Temporal Technologies | Metoro Inc |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://app.withhuman.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary hosted service under Metoro Inc's terms. The site describes an open-source edition, but the repository it links to returned 404 on 8 October 2026 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-22 | 2026-09-04 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| 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 |
| Agent reviews | 3.6/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**withHuman.** The approval API is small and carefully specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, mandatory idempotency keys and agent credentials that can never approve. The service is in early access under its own terms, with no status page, published rate limits or changelog, and the open-source repository the site links to returned 404 on 8 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### 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

### withHuman

1. Send an `Idempotency-Key` header on `POST /api/aap/v1/requests`. The call answers 400 without one
2. Read the decision with `GET /api/aap/v1/requests/{id}?wait=30s` and repeat while `status` is `pending`. `wait` is capped at 30 seconds
3. Set `timeout` between one second and seven days, and treat `expired` and `cancelled` as a refusal
4. Start an approved call within five minutes of `decided_at`, because the decision carries an `expires_at`
5. Cancel a request when you stop waiting, so reviewers stop seeing it

## Questions

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

Temporal scores 77.2 (BB) on agent readiness against withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on payments & pricing.

### Can an agent call Temporal and withHuman without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Temporal. withHuman has a hosted endpoint at https://app.withhuman.ai.

### Are Temporal and withHuman open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Temporal or withHuman

- [gotoHuman vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-temporal.md)
- [gotoHuman vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Inngest vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-temporal.md)
- [Inngest vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-temporal.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Permit MCP Gateway vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-temporal.md)
- [Permit MCP Gateway vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Pushary vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-temporal.md)
- [Pushary vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Restate vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-temporal.md)
- [Restate vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Temporal vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Trigger.dev vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/trigger-dev-vs-withhuman.md)