#1 in Orchestration & SchedulingUpdated 2026-08

Prefect

by Prefect · Python-decorator workflow orchestration for data, ML and agents

80.8 — BenchRank score out of 100

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Overview

Prefect is a workflow orchestration platform for data, ML and agents. You add @flow and @task decorators to Python functions, and the engine handles scheduling, retries, caching and crash recovery. Flows run either on Prefect Serverless managed compute or on lightweight workers inside your own Kubernetes, ECS or VPC, with the Cloud control plane handling scheduling and observability.

Best for: Python data and ML teams that want scheduled, self-retrying pipelines without hosting a scheduler
Pricing: Free Hobby tier, then $100/month for Starter and $100 per user/month for Team; Pro and Enterprise are quoted by sales.
Runs on: WebSelf-hosted

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

Open-source Apache 2.0 core, same engine as Prefect Cloud
Plain Python functions; retries and state via two decorators
Hybrid model runs flows in your own Kubernetes, ECS or VPC
Free tier includes scheduling, observability and alerting

Trade-offs

No uptime SLA below Enterprise, which gets 99.9%
Tight caps per tier: 5 deployments on Hobby, 20 on Starter
SSO, object-level RBAC and audit logs need Pro or Enterprise
Pro and Enterprise are billed annually and quoted by sales

Pricing

Published plans from Prefect’s own pricing page, in USD. Usage charges and add-ons may apply on top.

Prefect pricing tiers, monthly rates in USD
Plan	Monthly	Includes
Hobby	—	Free forever, 2 users, 1 workspace Up to 5 deployments, 5 automations 500 minutes of Prefect Serverless per month 7 days run retention, community support
Starter	$100per month	3 users, up to 20 deployments 75 hours of Prefect Serverless per month Bring your own compute, 1 custom work pool Webhooks, 1,250 API requests/min
Team	$100per user	4-8 users, up to 100 deployments 225 hours of Prefect Serverless per month Service accounts, 50 automations 24-hour audit log, email support
Pro	Contact sales	5-20 users, up to 1,000 deployments Multiple workspaces (1-2), 500 automations SSO (SAML/OIDC) and basic RBAC 30-day run retention, email support with SLAs
Enterprise	Contact sales	5+ users, unlimited deployments, custom Serverless RBAC with object-level ACLs and SCIM directory sync IP allowlisting, PrivateLink, sandbox environment 99.9% uptime SLA, 30-minute support response SLA

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 85 out of 100
API quality: 60 out of 100
Documentation: 100 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 100 out of 100
Pricing transparency: 100 out of 100
Changelog: 40 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 85 out of 100
Operational trust: 60 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 85 out of 100
Maintenance: 100 out of 100

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