Orkes Conductor vs Tray.ai (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Orkes Conductor and Tray.ai share a 2.2 GPA, and only Orkes Conductor has a free plan.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on all five counts.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Orkes Conductor
Workflow orchestration for AI agents and services, built on Conductor
Tray.ai
Integration, automation and agent platform for enterprises
Which one is for you
Pick Orkes Conductor if
- Fits if you are a developer who wants to try a workflow engine in a free sandbox
- Works for engineering teams ready to buy Enterprise for agent and service orchestration
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a price, as Enterprise is quoted through a demo
- Skip it if you need production use on the free plan, since it is not recommended for that
- Tight if you are a team: multiple users and detailed access control need Enterprise
- Watch out: free support is community-only
- Too light for no-code users, as the work is workflows and SDK code
Pick Tray.ai if
- Fits if you join many business systems and want agents on them
- Makes sense if you want a card-free trial to measure your own usage
Look elsewhere if
- Pricey if usage grows, as past the plan it is $1.00 per compute unit at list
- Not for you if you want iPaaS prices, because a quote is built from expected Task usage
- Watch out: the agent builder and MCP gateway are add-ons, not in the base plans
- Watch out: on Team, HIPAA, SSO and regional hosting are add-ons
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAOrkes ConductorFair | 2.2GPATray.aiFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CNo price is published, only a free sandbox and a quoted Enterprise plan. Nothing to compare against the category's $24 middle. | CBuilder is $50 a workspace a month with usage at $1.00 per compute unit. The iPaaS plans are quoted, and the agent tools are extra. |
| Free plan and trial | CA free managed Developer Edition with most Enterprise features, but only for individual developers, not for teams or production, with community-only support. | CA 30-day trial with 1 million Tasks, no card and no sales call. There is no free plan. |
| Features | CWorkflows, agents, a visual editor, SDKs, prompt studio and security controls. Multiple user accounts and detailed access control need Enterprise. | CIntegration, automation, governance and observability across 6,000+ apps. The listing's gap: Merlin Agent Builder and the MCP gateway are add-ons, not in the base plans. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. You model workflows in an editor or code with SDKs, which takes a learning curve. | CNo store rating on record, and workflows and connectors have to be built. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb console, SDKs and an API, with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini and GitHub listed. No desktop or phone app. | BWeb, with Salesforce, Slack, NetSuite, HubSpot, Jira, Snowflake, Teams and OpenAI listed. |
| Best for | workflow engine for agents and services | enterprise teams that join systems and add agents on top |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Orkes Conductor and Tray.ai. How we grade
Where they differ
- Orkes Conductor is open source, according to its own site.
At a glance
| Orkes Conductor | Tray.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | Not published | $50 per workspace / month (Tray Helix Builder Edition) |
| Free plan | Developer Edition: free managed sandbox with the open-source features and most Enterprise features, for individual developers and not for production use. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day free trial with 1 million Tasks on Tray iPaaS, with every capability and the full connector library, no card and no sales call. |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Orkes | Tray.ai |
| Price read from | orkes.io | tray.ai |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Orkes Conductor
- No prices are published: the Developer Edition is free and Enterprise is quoted through a demo.
- The free Developer Edition is for individual developers and is not recommended for production or for teams.
- Multiple user accounts and detailed access control need the Enterprise plan.
- Support on the free edition is community-only.
Tray.ai
- The iPaaS plans have no published prices; a quote is built from expected Task usage, and usage above the plan is settled at a true-up.
- Merlin Agent Builder and Agent Gateway for MCP are add-ons, not included in the base plans.
- On Team, HIPAA, SSO, regional hosting and on-premise connectivity are add-ons; Enterprise includes them.
- Helix usage beyond the plan is billed at $1.00 per HCU at list.
Key features
Orkes Conductor
- Agents and workflows together
- Orchestrates agent decisions, service calls and human approvals in one execution that keeps its state at every step.
- Visual editor and SDKs
- Workflows can be built visually or defined in code, with open-source SDKs for Java, TypeScript, Python, Go, C# and more.
- LLM tasks and prompt studio
- The platform capability list includes LLM tasks and an AI Prompt Studio alongside human tasks, event handlers, webhooks and a scheduler.
- Hosting choices
- Fully hosted by Orkes, or hosted in the customer's cloud account or on-premises, with dedicated clusters and VPC options on Enterprise.
- Security controls
- Lists SOC 2 Type II, role-based access, single sign-on, audit logs, secrets and end-to-end data encryption.
Tray.ai
- Merlin Agent Builder
- A no-code builder for agents with guardrails, audit logs, knowledge ingestion, an agent hub and Slack and Teams deployment. It is a paid add-on.
- Agent Gateway for MCP
- Publishes apps, databases and APIs as governed MCP tools with access control and observability. It is a paid add-on.
- Automation and integration
- Process automation, data integration and API management, built on a drag-and-drop builder or in code, across 6,000+ apps, databases and APIs.
- Tray Helix
- Takes apps and integrations built with Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to production on a managed runtime with credentials and an owner recorded for each app.
- Governance and observability
- Audit trails, insights and log retention are part of the platform, with longer retention on higher plans.
- Usage-based pricing
- The iPaaS charges per Task (one operation on a piece of data), with no per-user or per-connection fees.
Plans
Orkes Conductor
Developer Edition$0
Free managed sandbox for prototyping, with community support. Meant for one developer, not production.
EnterpriseCustom
Hosted by Orkes or in your own cloud account, SSO, audit logs, support with SLA-backed response times, up to a 99.99% availability SLA.
Tray.ai
Helix Builder Edition$50
per workspace / month
Unlimited builders, end users and apps. Usage is billed at $1.00 per Helix Compute Unit (HCU), or at committed rates.
iPaaS ProCustom
For specific use cases: 3 workspaces, 7-day insights and log retention, 6,000+ apps and services. Quoted from expected usage.
iPaaS TeamCustom
For a department: 20 workspaces, 30-day insights, log retention management and Guardian Log Masking, with all add-ons available.
iPaaS EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited workspaces, 180-day insights, advanced on-premise, SSO, HIPAA, regional hosting, log streaming and data engineering.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Orkes Conductor or Tray.ai?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Orkes Conductor publishes no starting price, and Tray.ai starts at $50 per workspace / month (Tray Helix Builder Edition).
Which has a free plan, Orkes Conductor or Tray.ai?
As of Nov 13, 2026, only Orkes Conductor has a free plan. Tray.ai does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.