Hatchet vs Prefect (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Hatchet if

• Fits if you're replacing a queue like Celery with durable workflows
• Works for engineers who want to start free and self-host later

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you don't write code, as tasks are defined in an SDK
• Tight if you won't add a card, because the free tier is 2,000 runs a day with 1-day retention
• Watch out: on the free tier, new tasks are dropped past the limit
• Watch out: failed runs count as runs, and SSO and audit logs need Custom

Pick Prefect if

• Fits if you write Python and want scheduling, retries and run history
• Makes sense if you want an open-source core you can self-host

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you don't write code, as workflows are Python functions
• Tight if you grow past Hobby: 2 users, 5 deployments and 7 days of run history
• Pricey if you need Team: it starts at 4 users at $100 each, so $400 a month
• Watch out: SSO, SCIM, RBAC and an uptime SLA are Enterprise only
• Watch out: there is no free trial of paid plans, the Hobby plan stands in for it

Hatchet

• Without a card on file the free tier is limited to 2,000 task runs and 2,000 events a day, with 1-day retention.
• If a limit is passed on the free tier, new tasks are dropped and creation errors appear.
• Retries are not billed, but failed runs count as runs.
• SSO, RBAC, audit logs and HIPAA BAA are listed only on the Custom plan.

Prefect

• The Hobby plan stops at 2 users, 5 deployments and 7 days of run retention.
• Team starts at 4 users at $100 per user per month, so the cheapest Team bill is $400 a month.
• SSO, SCIM, object-level RBAC and an uptime SLA are Enterprise-only; Starter and Team have no SLA.
• The pricing page says it offers no free trial of paid plans; the Hobby plan serves that purpose.

Hatchet

Durable execution

Workflows and agents are checkpointed so work resumes after a failure. A failed task can be retried automatically or replayed by hand.

Background tasks and cron

Runs background jobs at scale and creates dynamic cron schedules for recurring workflows.

Webhooks and events

Events and webhooks can trigger workflows, and events can satisfy wait conditions inside a running workflow.

Observability

Traces, logs, metrics and alerts are available for each run, with 7 days of retention on the paid-card pay-as-you-go tier.

Self-hosting

The pricing page says Hatchet is 100% open source under the MIT license, and the Custom plan covers self-hosted and hybrid setups.

Prefect

Flows from plain Python

Adding a decorator to a Python function makes it a flow with retries, state tracking and artifacts, without a separate DAG definition language.

Scheduling and deployments

Flows are packaged as deployments that can be scheduled, triggered by webhooks or events, and run remotely on work pools you configure.

Prefect Serverless

Managed compute run by Prefect, so flows can run without hosting your own infrastructure. Each paid plan includes a monthly allowance of it.

Observability and automations

Run logs, alerting and event-driven automations that send notifications or trigger runs when something in a workflow changes state.

Open-source core

The orchestration framework is open source and can be self-hosted; Prefect Cloud is the hosted version with more governance and scale features.

Security and compliance

Prefect states SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR alignment, with hybrid and VPC deployment options on higher plans.

Hatchet

• Pay-as-you-go$0

  to start, then usage-based

  1M runs and 1M events free each month, then $30 per million runs, $5 per million events and $0.10 per GB of durable streams.

• CustomCustom

  For 100M+ runs a month: dedicated capacity, SSO, RBAC, audit logs, HIPAA, SLAs, and self-hosted or BYOC support.

Prefect

• Hobby$0

  2 users, 5 deployments, 500 min/mo of Prefect Serverless, logging and alerting, 7-day run retention.

• Starter$100

  per month for up to 3 users, billed monthly

  20 deployments, 75 hours/mo of Prefect Serverless, bring your own compute, webhooks and 1,250 API requests/min.

• Team$100

  per user / month, for 4 to 8 users, billed monthly

  100 deployments, 225 hours/mo of Prefect Serverless, service accounts, 24-hour audit log, email support.

• EnterpriseCustom

  SSO (SAML/OIDC), RBAC and ACLs, SCIM, multiple workspaces, unlimited deployments and a 99.9% uptime SLA. Annual billing; sold through sales.

Hatchet

No public discounts listed.

Prefect

• Startups

  Prefect Startup Program

  The pricing page says eligible startups get credits toward the Team plan through the Prefect Startup Program; qualification is by application.