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Hatchet vs Temporal

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Hatchet and Temporal built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 27 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Hatchet if…

Task workloads that want a countable unit and no plan fee: 1M task runs and 1M events free each month with a card on file, then $30 per million runs, with 10,000 concurrent worker slots before any contract.

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…

  • Hatchet: You want a published uptime percentage or long run history: SLAs come only on the quoted Custom plan, and history is kept 7 days with a card on file (1 day without) unless you move to Custom.
  • Temporal: You want to budget by counting jobs: pay-as-you-go bills from $50 per million Actions, a unit that does not map onto messages or task runs, plus storage and 10% of usage for support; the $150 starting credit lasts 90 days.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Hatchet alternatives · Temporal alternatives

18 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Hatchet documentationVisit Temporal documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionHatchetTemporal
Pricing
Free tier
Yes
No
Kind of free offerFree tierFree credit
Credit card to start
No
Yes — Card required to sign up for Temporal Cloud; not charged in the first 90 days while credits remain.
Entry paid planNo plan fee: Pay-as-you-go is $0 a month and bills only usage past the free million runs and events ($30 per million runs). Custom, for 100M+ runs a month or enterprise features, is priced by conversation.No plan fee or minimum: pay-as-you-go has no base monthly fee and bills usage from $50 per million Actions, plus storage and Developer support at 10% of usage. New accounts start with $150 in credits valid for 90 days. The Business support add-on starts at $500/month.
Pricing modelUsage-based with no plan fees: 1M task runs and 1M events free every month, then $30 per million runs and $5 per million events, with volume pricing at 100M+ runs a month on Custom. Users past 50 are $10 each.Pay-as-you-go per Action with no base monthly fee: from $50 per million Actions, falling with volume to $25 self-serve. Storage is billed separately per GB-hour ($0.042 active, $0.00105 retained), and Developer support costs 10% of usage. The Business support add-on is the greater of $500/month or 10% of usage.
Infrastructure
Regions
3 live AWS regions (Oregon, N. Virginia, Ireland) plus Sydney in private beta; control plane in aws-us-west-2.
20 regions for Temporal Cloud Namespaces: 14 AWS regions and 6 Google Cloud regions, each with a PrivateLink or Private Service Connect endpoint.
Uptime SLA
Latency guarantees and SLAs on the Custom plan, sold by contract (talk to an engineer). No percentage is published on the pricing page.
99.9% on the pay-as-you-go Temporal Cloud plan (no base fee), with 99.99% High Availability options.
Queues
Included per month1M task runs and 1M events a month on Pay-as-you-go with a card on file, then $30 per million runs and $5 per million events. Without a card: 2,000 task runs and 2,000 events a day.No monthly Actions allocation on pay-as-you-go, which bills every Action used. Business includes 2.5 million Actions a month, and Enterprise and Mission Critical include 10 million. An Action is Temporal's own unit (a workflow operation) and is not comparable to a message, operation or execution elsewhere in this category.
Maximum message size
4 MB default maximum payload size for a task's input or output between worker and Hatchet engine.
2 MB maximum payload per request (each Workflow/Activity argument or return value); 4 MB per Event History transaction, non-configurable.
Message retentionRun history, logs and traces stay queryable for 1 day on Pay-as-you-go without a card, 7 days with a card on file, and 90+ days on Custom. This is dashboard and API history, not how long an undelivered task waits in the queue, so no magnitude is recorded.Closed workflow Event History is kept for a Retention Period set per Namespace, up to 90 days on Temporal Cloud; longer needs the Export feature. Business includes 2.5 GB Active and 100 GB Retained Storage. Recorded without a magnitude: this is workflow-history retention, not how long an undelivered message survives.
Concurrency2,000 worker slots (tasks running at once, totalled across all workers) on Pay-as-you-go without a card, 10,000 with a card on file; Custom gets dedicated capacity. No requests-per-second ceiling is published.500 Actions per second per Namespace by default, auto-scaling above that with On-Demand Capacity; 20,000 Activity and 20,000 Workflow Task pollers per Namespace.
Compliance
SOC 2SOC 2 Type II compliant; reports available through the Hatchet Trust Center.SOC 2 Type II certified; trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA badges.
HIPAAHIPAA compliant per the security docs; the Scale plan ($1,000/mo) lists audit logs and HIPAA.Temporal Cloud is stated to be compliant with HIPAA regulations; HIPAA listed among trust-center certifications.
GDPR / data residencyGDPR compliant per the security docs; EU data plane available in aws-eu-west-1 (Ireland).GDPR compliant with a DPA reflecting GDPR; Namespaces do not share data processing or storage across regional boundaries.
Encryption at restData stored in Hatchet Cloud is encrypted at rest; API and worker traffic encrypted with TLS in transit.Persistence layer and Elasticsearch index encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; TLS 1.3 in transit.
Customer-managed keysDocumented SDK middleware pattern encrypts task inputs and outputs before they reach the Hatchet server; the encryption key stays in the worker environment.Client-side Data Converter encrypts payloads with your keys on your Workers before they reach Temporal Cloud, which cannot decrypt them; no server-side KMS option stated.
Role-based access controlHierarchical tenant roles OWNER, ADMIN, MEMBER, VIEWER plus organization roles; payload visibility can be restricted per member.Predefined account-level roles (Account Owner, Global Admin, Developer, Finance Admin, Read-Only) plus Namespace-level permissions (Admin, Write, Read-Only), with optional Custom Roles for granular access.
Dedicated infrastructure
Dedicated capacity, multi-region, and self-hosted or bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) deployment on the Custom plan (talk to an engineer).
Temporal Cloud is a multi-tenant service; Namespaces are logically segregated and do not share data processing or data storage across regional boundaries. No single-tenant or dedicated-cell option is offered anywhere in the Cloud docs or the plan matrix.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Free tier

Hatchet
Yes
Temporal
No
Sources (2) →

Kind of free offer

Hatchet
Free tier
Temporal
Free credit
Sources (2) →

Credit card to start

Hatchet
No
Temporal
Yes — Card required to sign up for Temporal Cloud; not charged in the first 90 days while credits remain.
Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

Hatchet
No plan fee: Pay-as-you-go is $0 a month and bills only usage past the free million runs and events ($30 per million runs). Custom, for 100M+ runs a month or enterprise features, is priced by conversation.
Temporal
No plan fee or minimum: pay-as-you-go has no base monthly fee and bills usage from $50 per million Actions, plus storage and Developer support at 10% of usage. New accounts start with $150 in credits valid for 90 days. The Business support add-on starts at $500/month.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “Pay-as-you-go $0 to start [...] No surprise bills. No plan fees. You pay $30 per million runs, only after your free million, with volume pricing at 100M+ runs a month.”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Temporal Platform Pricing Options | Temporal ↗

    “No commitment. No minimums. [...] Pay-As-You-Go Starting at $50 per million actions Get started for free Free $150 credits for 90 days No base monthly fee $0.042/GBhr Active Storage $0.00105/GBhr Retained Storage Developer support for 10% of usage [...] Business Starting at $500/month”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

Pricing model

Hatchet
Usage-based with no plan fees: 1M task runs and 1M events free every month, then $30 per million runs and $5 per million events, with volume pricing at 100M+ runs a month on Custom. Users past 50 are $10 each.
Temporal
Pay-as-you-go per Action with no base monthly fee: from $50 per million Actions, falling with volume to $25 self-serve. Storage is billed separately per GB-hour ($0.042 active, $0.00105 retained), and Developer support costs 10% of usage. The Business support add-on is the greater of $500/month or 10% of usage.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “1M runs and 1M events free, every month Then $30 per million runs, $5 per million events [...] No surprise bills. No plan fees. You pay $30 per million runs, only after your free million, with volume pricing at 100M+ runs a month. [...] Users 50 included, then $10/user”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Temporal Platform Pricing Options | Temporal ↗

    “Pay-As-You-Go Starting at $50 per million actions [...] No base monthly fee $0.042/GBhr Active Storage $0.00105/GBhr Retained Storage Developer support for 10% of usage 99.9% SLA and 99.99% HA Options SSO via SAML Volume Discounts Self service down to $25 per million actions [...] Price: Greater of $500/mo or 10% of usage”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Hatchet

3 live AWS regions (Oregon, N. Virginia, Ireland) plus Sydney in private beta; control plane in aws-us-west-2.

Temporal

20 regions for Temporal Cloud Namespaces: 14 AWS regions and 6 Google Cloud regions, each with a PrivateLink or Private Service Connect endpoint.

Sources (2) →

Uptime SLA

Hatchet
Latency guarantees and SLAs on the Custom plan, sold by contract (talk to an engineer). No percentage is published on the pricing page.
Temporal
99.9% on the pay-as-you-go Temporal Cloud plan (no base fee), with 99.99% High Availability options.
Sources (2) →

Included per month

Hatchet
1M task runs and 1M events a month on Pay-as-you-go with a card on file, then $30 per million runs and $5 per million events. Without a card: 2,000 task runs and 2,000 events a day.
Temporal
No monthly Actions allocation on pay-as-you-go, which bills every Action used. Business includes 2.5 million Actions a month, and Enterprise and Mission Critical include 10 million. An Action is Temporal's own unit (a workflow operation) and is not comparable to a message, operation or execution elsewhere in this category.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “1M runs and 1M events free, every month Then $30 per million runs, $5 per million events [...] 2,000/day 1M/mo included then $30/M [...] 2,000/day 1M/mo included then $5/M”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Temporal Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Some plans include a monthly Actions allocation (2.5M on Business, 10M on Enterprise/Mission Critical). [...] On the Temporal Cloud pay-as-you-go model, you are only billed for what you use (actions, storage, support).”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

Maximum message size

Hatchet

4 MB default maximum payload size for a task's input or output between worker and Hatchet engine.

Temporal

2 MB maximum payload per request (each Workflow/Activity argument or return value); 4 MB per Event History transaction, non-configurable.

Sources (2) →

Message retention

Hatchet
Run history, logs and traces stay queryable for 1 day on Pay-as-you-go without a card, 7 days with a card on file, and 90+ days on Custom. This is dashboard and API history, not how long an undelivered task waits in the queue, so no magnitude is recorded.
Temporal
Closed workflow Event History is kept for a Retention Period set per Namespace, up to 90 days on Temporal Cloud; longer needs the Export feature. Business includes 2.5 GB Active and 100 GB Retained Storage. Recorded without a magnitude: this is workflow-history retention, not how long an undelivered message survives.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “Retention How long run history, logs, and traces stay queryable in the dashboard and API. 1 day 7 days 90+ days”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Temporal Cloud pricing | Temporal Documentation ↗

    “Temporal Cloud stores Event History for a defined Retention Period [...] When closed Workflow Histories need to be retained for more than the 90-day maximum period on Temporal Cloud, we recommend using our Export feature. [...] 2.5M Actions - 2.5 GB Active Storage - 100 GB Retained Storage”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official docs · Report a correction

Concurrency

Hatchet
2,000 worker slots (tasks running at once, totalled across all workers) on Pay-as-you-go without a card, 10,000 with a card on file; Custom gets dedicated capacity. No requests-per-second ceiling is published.
Temporal
500 Actions per second per Namespace by default, auto-scaling above that with On-Demand Capacity; 20,000 Activity and 20,000 Workflow Task pollers per Namespace.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “Worker slots Each slot runs one task at a time. A worker with 100 slots can run 100 tasks concurrently. The limit is the total across all workers. 2,000 10,000 Dedicated capacity”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Limits - Temporal Cloud | Temporal Documentation ↗

    “Actions per second ​ Scope: Namespace Default limit: 500 actions per second (APS). [...] Temporal Cloud limits each Namespace to 20,000 Activity pollers and 20,000 Workflow Task pollers concurrently.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

SOC 2

Hatchet
SOC 2 Type II compliant; reports available through the Hatchet Trust Center.
Temporal
SOC 2 Type II certified; trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA badges.
Sources (2) →

HIPAA

Hatchet
HIPAA compliant per the security docs; the Scale plan ($1,000/mo) lists audit logs and HIPAA.
Temporal
Temporal Cloud is stated to be compliant with HIPAA regulations; HIPAA listed among trust-center certifications.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Hatchet
GDPR compliant per the security docs; EU data plane available in aws-eu-west-1 (Ireland).
Temporal
GDPR compliant with a DPA reflecting GDPR; Namespaces do not share data processing or storage across regional boundaries.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Hatchet
Data stored in Hatchet Cloud is encrypted at rest; API and worker traffic encrypted with TLS in transit.
Temporal
Persistence layer and Elasticsearch index encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; TLS 1.3 in transit.
Sources (2) →

Customer-managed keys

Hatchet
Documented SDK middleware pattern encrypts task inputs and outputs before they reach the Hatchet server; the encryption key stays in the worker environment.
Temporal
Client-side Data Converter encrypts payloads with your keys on your Workers before they reach Temporal Cloud, which cannot decrypt them; no server-side KMS option stated.
Sources (2) →
  • Middleware - Hatchet Documentation ↗

    “Encrypt sensitive input fields before they reach the Hatchet server, and decrypt the output on the way back. This ensures plaintext data never leaves your worker process. [...] The encryption key never leaves the worker environment.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

  • Security model | Temporal Documentation ↗

    “The optional Data Converter encrypts data before it's sent to Temporal Cloud and decrypts it on the way back. [...] Temporal Cloud cannot see or decrypt your data. Data stored in Temporal Cloud stays encrypted even if the service itself is compromised.”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official docs · Report a correction

Role-based access control

Hatchet
Hierarchical tenant roles OWNER, ADMIN, MEMBER, VIEWER plus organization roles; payload visibility can be restricted per member.
Temporal
Predefined account-level roles (Account Owner, Global Admin, Developer, Finance Admin, Read-Only) plus Namespace-level permissions (Admin, Write, Read-Only), with optional Custom Roles for granular access.
Sources (2) →
  • User Roles - Hatchet Documentation ↗

    “Every user in a tenant has a role that controls what they can do in the dashboard and REST API. Roles are hierarchical: each role can do everything the roles below it can.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

  • Roles and permissions | Temporal Documentation ↗

    “Some account-level roles, such as Account Owner and Global Admin, automatically have Namespace Admin permissions on all Namespaces in the account. [...] For more granular access control, you can also use Custom Roles to define specific permissions for specific Temporal Cloud resources and assign them to any principal. [...] You can grant Namespace Admin, Write, or Read-Only permissions to principals with the account-level roles of Developer, Finance Admin, or Read-Only.”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official docs · Report a correction

Dedicated infrastructure

Hatchet
Dedicated capacity, multi-region, and self-hosted or bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) deployment on the Custom plan (talk to an engineer).
Temporal
Temporal Cloud is a multi-tenant service; Namespaces are logically segregated and do not share data processing or data storage across regional boundaries. No single-tenant or dedicated-cell option is offered anywhere in the Cloud docs or the plan matrix.
Sources (2) →
  • Hatchet Pricing ↗

    “For 100M+ runs a month, dedicated capacity, or enterprise features. [...] Dedicated capacity and multi-region [...] Self-hosted and BYOC support”

    Read 2026-09-27 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Security model - Temporal Cloud ↗

    “Temporal Cloud is a multi-tenant service. Namespaces in the same environment are logically segregated. Namespaces do not share data processing or data storage across regional boundaries.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

What the free plan includesHatchet: Two levels on the free Pay-as-you-go plan. No card: 2,000 task runs and 2,000 events a day. Card on file: 1M task runs and 1M events a month included, then $30 and $5 per million.
Startup credit programTemporal: Temporal Cloud startup credits: $6,000, for funded startups that have raised $30M or less.
Maximum delayTemporal: Timers (durable sleeps) may run up to 100 years in Temporal Cloud.
Dead letter queueHatchet: Not supported — No built-in DLQ; failed task instances persist in the dashboard for manual analysis and retry.
Support on entry paid planTemporal: Developer support comes with pay-as-you-go and is billed at 10% of usage. The Business support add-on, the greater of $500/month or 10% of usage, adds advanced technical support with a 2-hour P0 SLA in business hours.
Response time commitmentTemporal: P0 response: 1 business day on Developer (the pay-as-you-go support level), 2 business hours on Business, 30 minutes on Enterprise and 15 minutes on Mission Critical. No comparable number, because a business day is not a fixed span.
ISO 27001Temporal: ISMS is informed by the NIST Cybersecurity Framework; the DPA's certification/assurance measure names only third-party SOC 2 Type II audits. Adjacent evidence: the DPA claims no ISO 27001 certificate, but no Temporal page explicitly denies one.
PCI DSSTemporal: Terms of Service bar customers from submitting payment card information to the Hosted Services; only contact name, title and email address are permitted. Clause 1.6 Personal Data; a contractual data restriction, not a statement about PCI DSS certification.
Private networking / VPCTemporal: AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect to Namespaces, alongside the default public endpoints.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Hatchet or Temporal?

Hatchet: No plan fee: Pay-as-you-go is $0 a month and bills only usage past the free million runs and events ($30 per million runs). Custom, for 100M+ runs a month or enterprise features, is priced by conversation.

Temporal: No plan fee or minimum: pay-as-you-go has no base monthly fee and bills usage from $50 per million Actions, plus storage and Developer support at 10% of usage. New accounts start with $150 in credits valid for 90 days. The Business support add-on starts at $500/month.

Free tier: Hatchet or Temporal?

Hatchet: Yes

Temporal: No

Should I choose Hatchet or Temporal?

Pick Hatchet if Task workloads that want a countable unit and no plan fee: 1M task runs and 1M events free each month with a card on file, then $30 per million runs, with 10,000 concurrent worker slots before any contract.

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.

Provider pages

HatchetDurable task queue billed per task run, with a free tier, published throughput limits and a self-hosted option.TemporalDurable execution platform metered in Actions, with storage split between open and closed workflows, and a self-hosted open-source edition.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.