When it comes to choosing the right workflow orchestration engine, factors like scalability, fault tolerance, developer productivity, and cost efficiency are all important aspects to consider. While many solutions simplify creating fault-tolerant business logic, understanding their costs, especially at scale, can be tricky. That’s where NetApp Instaclustr for Cadence® comes in, offering a clear pricing model that can save you over 80% when compared to Temporal Cloud.
Cadence vs. Temporal
Cadence Workflow® is an open source workflow orchestration platform that enables scalable and fault tolerant business logic to be developed and executed. Uber leads the development of Cadence and uses it to deliver its platform services. Temporal Cloud is built on a commercialized fork of Cadence (Temporal) that has diverged from the original core project over time, delivering similar functionality to Cadence on a PaaS model.
Pricing models differences
NetApp Instaclustr for Cadence uses a subscription-based pricing model that leverages the cost of underlying compute resources. This model provides predictability and fine-grained control over expenses, making it easier to budget and manage costs effectively. It also supports the “Run In Your Own Account” (RIYOA) model, enabling managed clusters to operate in your cloud provider account, maximizing potential discounts using savings plans and annual commitment.
In contrast, Temporal Cloud adopts a usage-based pricing model, where charges are determined by specific operations known as “actions.” Actions consist of many common workflow execution tasks, like starting or resetting workflows, and sending specific signals within workflows. While this model offers flexibility, it can introduce large fluctuations in cost, especially when running at scale, which we explore in greater detail within our companion white paper to this blog.
Related content: Download the Cadence vs Temporal white paper to learn more
Cost comparison
Using a practical example, we’ll walk through the different pricing models between NetApp and Temporal Cloud. A simple calculation for 100M actions a month would be an average of ~38 actions per second, but an example workload that is more aligned with real-world use cases would be to assume 50% of actions will occur within an 8-hour peak period each day—leading to ~57 actions per second peak load. Based on the publicly available pricing data from Temporal, the total cost of ownership for a Temporal Cloud plan supporting the same workload with a comparable level of support would be a total of $6,769.95 per month or an average cost per 1M actions of $67.69.
With Instaclustr, using the largest configuration on our Light Production Workloads platform, the cost of ownership would be $1,436.04 per month, representing a saving of 78% over Temporal Cloud. This price factors in ample “active” storage and 1TB of Amazon S3 costs for “passive” storage, which can be utilized by the Cadence Archival feature. This price also includes 24×7 production support and access to our world-class Cadence engineers and developers.
Final thoughts
Both Cadence and Temporal Cloud are powerful tools for workflow orchestration. However, NetApp Instaclustr for Cadence stands out for its budget-friendliness, stability, and robust support model. Explore our detailed white paper to gain deeper insights into the cost implications of Temporal Cloud pricing versus Cadence. Transitioning to Cadence could unlock major savings and operational efficiency for your business.
Take the next step by reading the white paper or contacting our sales team for tailored solutions that fit your operational needs!
