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Technology · head to head

Asana vs Restate

Asana logo

Asana

Technology

Manage your team's work, projects, & tasks online

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

Durable execution engine in Rust with a free tier and low-latency workflows

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Asana the free Personal tier is capped at 2 users, so it does not cover a small team; Restate the runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • They diverge on capability: Asana covers Multiple project views, Restate covers Durable execution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Asana and Restate actually diverge.

Attributes where Asana and Restate differ
AttributeAsanaRestate
Pricing modelUnknownPer month by durable action count
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidLinux, macOS, Web
CategoryTechnologyDeveloper Tools
Founded2008Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Asana

  • Multiple project views
  • Task dependencies
  • Milestones
  • Portfolios
  • Goals & OKRs
  • Workflow automation
  • Resource management
  • Reporting dashboards

Only in Restate

  • Durable execution
  • Virtual objects
  • Single binary runtime
  • Multi-language SDKs
  • Workflows and sagas
  • Restate Cloud

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Asana

  • Project planning & trackingnot Restate
  • Campaign managementnot Restate
  • Product launchesnot Restate
  • Event planningnot Restate
  • Agile & Scrum managementnot Restate

Restate

  • Payment or order flows where a crash between two external API calls must not double-charge or lose the ordernot Asana
  • AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot Asana
  • Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot Asana
  • A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot Asana

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Asana

  • The free Personal tier is capped at 2 users, so it does not cover a small team
  • Timeline and Gantt views, reporting dashboards and time tracking all require Starter at $10.99 per user per month
  • Portfolios, goals, workload management and approvals need Advanced at $24.99 per user per month
  • Salesforce, Tableau and Power BI integrations are Advanced or above
  • Monthly billing costs more, at $13.49 and $30.49 against the annual rates

Restate

  • The runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • Restate Cloud jumps from a free fifty thousand actions straight to 300 US dollars a month for twenty million, so a workload sitting at a few hundred thousand actions pays enterprise-shaped money for hobby-shaped volume.
  • It is a young project against Temporal’s established base, so hiring engineers who already know it is unrealistic and the answer to most questions is in the docs rather than on Stack Overflow.
  • The programming model requires structuring code around durable handlers and virtual objects, which is a genuine rewrite for existing services rather than a library you add.
  • The single-binary simplicity that makes small deployments cheap also means fewer operational knobs at very large scale than a system designed as separable components.

Pricing, plan by plan

Asana

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Asana review.

Restate

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Fifty thousand durable actions per month
    • No credit card required
    • Community support
  • Starter$300/month
    • Twenty million actions per month
    • Two hundred actions per second, bursting to one thousand
    • Twenty GB storage
  • Pro$1000/month
    • Fifty million actions per month
    • Five hundred actions per second, bursting to two thousand
    • Fifty GB storage
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated volume
    • Twenty-four seven P0 support
    • 99.99 per cent SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Asana if

  • You need multiple project views.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want task dependencies.
Asana review

Choose Restate if

  • You need durable execution.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Web.
  • You also want virtual objects.
Restate review

Questions people ask

Is Asana or Restate better?
Neither clearly leads. Asana starts at Free and Restate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Asana or Restate?
Asana starts at Free and Restate at Free.
Does Asana or Restate run on more platforms?
Asana runs on Web, iOS, Android. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
Can I use Asana for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Asana best used for?
Asana is most often used for project planning & tracking, campaign management, product launches, event planning. Of those, project planning & tracking and campaign management are not what Restate is typically brought in for.
What can Asana do that Restate cannot?
Asana covers Multiple project views, Task dependencies, Milestones, Portfolios. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Asana: Does Asana have a free tier?

Yes. Asana offers a free Personal plan for up to 2 users, plus free trial access to paid plans.

Source
Restate: Is Restate open source?

The SDKs are MIT. The runtime is under a Business Source Licence, which permits self-hosting but not offering it as a competing service.

Asana: What is the starting price for Asana paid plans?

Asana Starter plan begins at $10.99 per user per month when billed annually, or $13.49 per user when billed monthly.

Source
Restate: How does it compare with Temporal?

Same problem, different shape: one Rust binary with embedded storage instead of a server plus database plus workers, and lower per-step latency.

Asana: Does Asana integrate with other work tools?

Yes. Asana offers 200+ integrations including Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Jira, and Zoom.

Source
Restate: Is there a free tier?

Yes, fifty thousand durable actions a month on Restate Cloud with no card required.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python and Rust.

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