Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Temporal
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Google Cloud Pub/Sub and Temporal built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose Google Cloud Pub/Sub if…
Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Temporal if…
Long-running, stateful workflows where losing execution history is the failure that matters — Temporal keeps event history as first-class storage rather than logs that expire.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Throughput counts bytes both in and out, so a message read once is billed twice, and retention is a storage charge rather than an included window — the headline $40 per TiB is not the whole bill.
- Temporal: Entry is $100 a month before any usage, and the unit is an Action, which does not map onto messages or task runs — budgeting requires modelling your workflows, not counting jobs.
6 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Google Cloud Pub/Sub 0
Temporal 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Google Cloud Pub/Sub | Temporal |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage. | Per Action, with storage billed separately and split between open and closed workflows. Plans buy SLA tier and support response rather than volume — Essentials is 99.9% with one business day P0 response, Business adds scale. An open-source self-hosted edition runs the same service on your own infrastructure. |
| Queues | ||
| Included per month | 10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source. | 1,000,000 Actions a month on Essentials and 2.5 million on Business. An Action is Temporal's own unit — a workflow operation — and is not comparable to a message, an operation or an execution elsewhere in this category. |
| Maximum message size | Pub/Sub bills on bytes rather than message count; the pricing page states no per-message size ceiling and prices throughput and storage instead. | 2 MB maximum payload per request (each Workflow/Activity argument or return value); 4 MB per Event History transaction, non-configurable. |
| Message retention | Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days. | Storage rather than a time window: 1 GB of active storage for open workflows and 40 GB retained for closed ones on Essentials, 2.5 GB active on Business. Temporal keeps workflow event history, so retention is bounded by bytes rather than by days — recorded without a magnitude because it is not the quantity this criterion ranks. |
| Compliance | ||
| SOC 2 | Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally. | SOC 2 Type II certified; trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA badges. |
| HIPAA | Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. | Temporal Cloud is stated to be compliant with HIPAA regulations; HIPAA listed among trust-center certifications. |
Where they differ.
Pricing model
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage.
- Temporal
- Per Action, with storage billed separately and split between open and closed workflows. Plans buy SLA tier and support response rather than volume — Essentials is 99.9% with one business day P0 response, Business adds scale. An open-source self-hosted edition runs the same service on your own infrastructure.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Throughput costs for message publishing and delivery [...] Data transfer costs associated with throughput that crosses a Google Cloud zone or region boundary [...] Storage costs associated with retaining messages [...] Pub/Sub Lite throughput and storage charges, by contrast, are based on reserved capacity.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“Cloud platform 99.9% SLA, 99.99% HA options [...] Essentials support with 1 business day P0 response time [...] Host It Yourself Open Source Temporal Self-Hosted [...] Temporal Service Temporal SDKs Temporal CLI Temporal UI Community Support”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Included per month
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- 10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source.
- Temporal
- 1,000,000 Actions a month on Essentials and 2.5 million on Business. An Action is Temporal's own unit — a workflow operation — and is not comparable to a message, an operation or an execution elsewhere in this category.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“the first 10 GiB of throughput [...] is free. After that, the price is $40 per TiB in all Google Cloud regions. [...] BigQuery subscriptions cost $50 per TiB [...] Import topics (for Cloud Storage, Azure Event Hubs, AWS MSK, or Confluent Cloud) cost $80 per TiB”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“Essentials Starting at $100/mo. [...] 1 M Actions 1 GB Active Storage 40 GB Retained Storage [...] Business [...] 2.5 M Actions 2.5 GB Active Storage”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum message size
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- Pub/Sub bills on bytes rather than message count; the pricing page states no per-message size ceiling and prices throughput and storage instead.
- Temporal
- 2 MB maximum payload per request (each Workflow/Activity argument or return value); 4 MB per Event History transaction, non-configurable.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Throughput is the total number of bytes written (publish throughput) to a Pub/Sub topic or read (subscribe throughput) from a subscription to a topic over an interval of time.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- Limits - Temporal Cloud | Temporal Documentation ↗
“The max payload for a single request is 2 MB. The max size limit for any given Event History transaction is 4 MB. This limit is non-configurable for Temporal Cloud.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Message retention
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days.
- Temporal
- Storage rather than a time window: 1 GB of active storage for open workflows and 40 GB retained for closed ones on Essentials, 2.5 GB active on Business. Temporal keeps workflow event history, so retention is bounded by bytes rather than by days — recorded without a magnitude because it is not the quantity this criterion ranks.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Storage costs of $0.27 per GiB-month are charged for the following: A topic is configured to retain messages [...] an attached subscription with message retention duration set to the default of 7 days”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Temporal ↗
“EVENT HISTORY AND RETENTION Storage Temporal stores workflow event history as Active storage for open workflows and Retained Storage for closed workflows [...] 1 GB Active Storage 40 GB Retained Storage”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
SOC 2
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally.
- Temporal
- SOC 2 Type II certified; trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA badges.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- SOC 2: compliance — Google Cloud ↗
“Google Cloud regularly undergoes third-party audits for our products, systems, and infrastructure related to this standard. [...] The core Google Cloud and Google Workspace SOC 2 Type II reports are issued quarterly.”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
- Security | Temporal ↗
“Compliance Temporal Cloud is SOC 2 Type II certified, and compliant with GDPR and HIPAA regulations.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
HIPAA
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub
- Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement.
- Temporal
- Temporal Cloud is stated to be compliant with HIPAA regulations; HIPAA listed among trust-center certifications.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- HIPAA Compliance on Google Cloud ↗
“Covered Products [...] The Google Cloud BAA covers Google Cloud's entire infrastructure [...] and the following products: [...] Pub/Sub [...]”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
- Security | Temporal ↗
“Temporal Cloud is SOC 2 Type II certified, and compliant with GDPR and HIPAA regulations.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Should I choose Google Cloud Pub/Sub or Temporal?
Pick Google Cloud Pub/Sub if Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.
Pick Temporal if Long-running, stateful workflows where losing execution history is the failure that matters — Temporal keeps event history as first-class storage rather than logs that expire.