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Automation Integration · head to head

Cyclr vs Orkes

Cyclr logo

Cyclr

Automation Integration

Embedded integration platform that SaaS vendors ship inside their own product

From
$1595/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Orkes logo

Orkes

Automation Integration

Commercial Conductor, now the maintainer of the workflow engine Netflix archived

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Orkes has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Cyclr entry pricing of 1,595 US dollars a month for one connector and 100,000 API calls means small vendors will find building two or three integrations in-house genuinely cheaper, and Cyclr only pays off past a certain integration count.; Orkes netflix archived the Conductor repository in December 2023 and Orkes took over maintenance, so the large-company backing that justified many original adoptions no longer exists.
  • They diverge on capability: Cyclr covers White-label integration UI, Orkes covers JSON workflow definitions.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cyclr and Orkes actually diverge.

Attributes where Cyclr and Orkes differ
AttributeCyclrOrkes
Starting price$1595/monthFree
Pricing modelPer month by API call volumequote
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, APILinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Automation Integration).

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 Cyclr

  • White-label integration UI
  • Connector library
  • Workflow builder
  • Custom connectors
  • Regional hosting
  • MCP server offering
  • Usage metering
  • Templates

Only in Orkes

  • JSON workflow definitions
  • Polyglot workers
  • Visual workflow builder
  • AI and LLM tasks
  • Human tasks
  • Event handlers
  • RBAC and secrets
  • Hosted or self-hosted

What people use each for

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

Cyclr

  • A mid-market SaaS vendor losing deals because prospects ask for a CRM integration it has not builtnot Orkes
  • A product team that would rather ship an integration marketplace this quarter than hire two engineers to maintain connectorsnot Orkes
  • A European software company that needs its customers' integration data processed inside the EU for procurement reasonsnot Orkes
  • A vendor whose customers each want a slightly different variation of the same integration and cannot be served by one hard-coded connectornot Orkes

Orkes

  • A microservices estate that needs orchestration across services written in different languages without a shared SDKnot Cyclr
  • A team already running Conductor OSS that wants a supported distribution now that Netflix has stopped maintaining itnot Cyclr
  • An AI platform composing agent steps, model calls and vector lookups as versioned workflow definitionsnot Cyclr
  • A business process needing human approval steps interleaved with automated service callsnot Cyclr

Where each one falls short

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

Cyclr

  • Entry pricing of 1,595 US dollars a month for one connector and 100,000 API calls means small vendors will find building two or three integrations in-house genuinely cheaper, and Cyclr only pays off past a certain integration count.
  • Connectors and API calls are metered separately, so a successful integration marketplace pushes you up tiers as your customers adopt it, meaning the cost rises with usage rather than with the revenue that usage generates.
  • Custom connectors to APIs outside the library are your work to build and maintain, so the promise of not building integrations only holds for applications Cyclr already covers.
  • Debugging is harder when the integration runs in a third-party runtime, because your support team sees a failed workflow rather than an HTTP response and has to escalate to Cyclr for anything non-obvious.
  • Deep embedding creates real switching cost: your customers' live integrations run on Cyclr, so migrating later means recreating every customer workflow, which in practice means you rarely leave.

Orkes

  • Netflix archived the Conductor repository in December 2023 and Orkes took over maintenance, so the large-company backing that justified many original adoptions no longer exists.
  • Enterprise pricing is entirely unpublished, and the only free option is explicitly a prototyping sandbox whose limits can change at any time, so there is no supported low-cost entry point.
  • Self-hosting Conductor OSS in production means operating the engine plus its persistence and indexing dependencies, typically Postgres or Cassandra with Elasticsearch, which is a substantial platform commitment.
  • JSON workflow definitions are language agnostic but verbose and awkward to test, and teams accustomed to defining workflows in code find them a step backwards in developer experience.
  • Orkes is a small company whose commercial future is tied to a single open source project it also maintains, which concentrates both vendor and project risk in the same place.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cyclr

$1595/month
  • PAYG$1595/month
    • 100,000 API calls included
    • 1 connector included
    • Unlimited integrations and users
  • Growth$2595/month
    • 1,000,000 API calls included
    • 10 connectors included
    • Everything in PAYG
  • Scale$7195/month
    • 5,000,000 API calls included
    • Unlimited connectors
    • Everything in Growth
  • Private Cloud$undefined/month
    • Dedicated hosting in US, UK or EU
    • Configurable processing and runtime
    • Quoted pricing

Orkes

Free
  • Developer EditionFree
    • All Conductor OSS features plus enterprise capabilities
    • Sandbox for prototyping only
    • Rate limits and resources may change without notice
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Availability SLA up to 99.99%
    • Orkes-hosted or customer-hosted deployment
    • Dedicated technical account manager

Which should you pick?

Choose Cyclr if

  • You need white-label integration ui.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want connector library.
Cyclr review

Choose Orkes if

  • You need json workflow definitions.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want polyglot workers.
Orkes review

Questions people ask

Is Cyclr or Orkes better?
Neither clearly leads. Cyclr starts at $1595/month and Orkes at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cyclr or Orkes?
Orkes has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $1595/month for Cyclr and Free for Orkes.
Does Cyclr or Orkes run on more platforms?
Cyclr runs on Web, API. Orkes runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Orkes for free?
Yes. Orkes has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Cyclr starts at $1595/month.
What is Cyclr best used for?
Cyclr is most often used for a mid-market saas vendor losing deals because prospects ask for a crm integration it has not built, a product team that would rather ship an integration marketplace this quarter than hire two engineers to maintain connectors, a european software company that needs its customers' integration data processed inside the eu for procurement reasons, a vendor whose customers each want a slightly different variation of the same integration and cannot be served by one hard-coded connector. Of those, a mid-market saas vendor losing deals because prospects ask for a crm integration it has not built and a product team that would rather ship an integration marketplace this quarter than hire two engineers to maintain connectors are not what Orkes is typically brought in for.
What can Cyclr do that Orkes cannot?
Cyclr covers White-label integration UI, Connector library, Workflow builder, Custom connectors. Orkes covers JSON workflow definitions, Polyglot workers, Visual workflow builder, AI and LLM tasks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cyclr: What does Cyclr actually cost?

Published tiers start at 1,595 US dollars per month for 100,000 API calls and one connector, rising to 7,195 for unlimited connectors and five million calls.

Orkes: Does Netflix still maintain Conductor?

No. Netflix archived its repository in December 2023. The open source project continues at conductor-oss under Apache 2.0, maintained by Orkes.

Cyclr: Do my customers know they are using Cyclr?

No. The interface is white-labelled to appear as part of your product.

Orkes: Is there a free production tier?

No. The Developer Edition is a sandbox that the vendor states is unsuitable for production. Self-hosting Conductor OSS is the free production route.

Cyclr: Can I host it in the EU or UK?

Yes, on the private cloud tiers, which matters for European procurement requirements.

Orkes: What does Enterprise cost?

Nothing is published; it is quoted by deployment and support requirements.

Cyclr: What if the connector I need does not exist?

You build a custom connector using Cyclr tooling, which is work you own rather than work the platform removes.

Orkes: How does it compare with Temporal?

Conductor uses declarative JSON workflow definitions and external workers; Temporal defines workflows in code. Temporal has the larger community.

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