Technology · head to head
Drift vs Restate
Restate
Developer Tools
Durable execution engine in Rust with a free tier and low-latency workflows
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Only Restate has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Drift product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended; 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: Drift covers Live chat, Restate covers Durable execution.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Drift and Restate actually diverge.
Identical on both: 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 Drift
- Live chat
- AI chatbots
- Meeting scheduling
- Email sequences
- Visitor intelligence
- Conversation routing
- Mobile app
- Analytics dashboard
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.
Drift
- Lead qualificationnot Restate
- Meeting bookingnot Restate
- Customer supportnot Restate
- Account-based marketingnot Restate
- Sales accelerationnot Restate
Restate
- Payment or order flows where a crash between two external API calls must not double-charge or lose the ordernot Drift
- AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot Drift
- Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot Drift
- A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot Drift
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Drift
- Product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended
- Mandatory bundling within Salesloft increases cost
- No free tier available
- Customer support and knowledge base have been deprioritized
- Limited to enterprise B2B pipeline generation focus
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
Drift
$2500/monthNo published plan breakdown. See the Drift 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 Restate if
- You need durable execution.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, macOS, Web.
- You also want virtual objects.
Questions people ask
- Is Drift or Restate better?
- Neither clearly leads. Drift starts at $2500/month and Restate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Drift or Restate?
- Restate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2500/month for Drift and Free for Restate.
- Does Drift or Restate run on more platforms?
- Drift runs on Web. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
- Can I use Restate for free?
- Yes. Restate has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Drift starts at $2500/month.
- What is Drift best used for?
- Drift is most often used for lead qualification, meeting booking, customer support, account-based marketing. Of those, lead qualification and meeting booking are not what Restate is typically brought in for.
- What can Drift do that Restate cannot?
- Drift covers Live chat, AI chatbots, Meeting scheduling, Email sequences. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Drift: What is the current status of Drift in 2026?
On March 6, 2026, Clari and Salesloft announced the gradual sunset of Drift's conversational marketing solution, with 1mind named as its exclusive AI successor. Drift remains available but its future is limited.
SourceRestate: 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.
Drift: How much does Drift cost?
Drift pricing starts around $2,500/month ($30,000/year) for Premium chat-only capabilities, with Enterprise plans exceeding $80,000/year. Drift is bundled within Salesloft and billed annually only.
SourceRestate: 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.
Drift: What features come with Drift Premium?
Premium plans include live chat widget, custom chatbot flows, meeting scheduling with calendar integration, basic playbooks, email sequences, and standard integrations.
SourceRestate: Is there a free tier?
Yes, fifty thousand durable actions a month on Restate Cloud with no card required.
Drift: Does Drift offer a free plan?
No, Drift no longer publicly advertises a free plan as of 2026. All plans require annual billing through Salesloft.
SourceRestate: Which languages are supported?
TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python and Rust.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Drift vs Intercom
- Drift vs Attio
- Drift vs Close
- Drift vs Jenkins
- Drift vs Kubernetes
- Drift vs Monday.com
- Drift vs Terraform
- Drift vs Coda
- Drift vs Lovable
- Drift vs Raycast
- Drift vs Height
- Drift vs Redis
- Drift vs Honeycomb
- Drift vs Istio
- Drift vs Lucidchart
- Drift vs MongoDB
- Drift vs MongoDB Atlas
- Drift vs Helix
- Drift vs Rust
- Drift vs Atlantis
- Drift vs Jitsu
- Drift vs Okteto
- Drift vs Argo CD
- Drift vs Steampipe
- Drift vs Cloud Native Buildpacks
- Drift vs Deno
- Drift vs Visual Studio Code
- Drift vs Turborepo
- Drift vs Keycloak
- Drift vs Garden
- Drift vs GitLab CI/CD
- Drift vs HCP Terraform
- Drift vs Helm
- Drift vs Notepad++
- Restate vs Intercom
- Restate vs Attio
- Restate vs Close
- Restate vs Jenkins
- Restate vs Kubernetes
- Restate vs Monday.com
- Restate vs Terraform
- Restate vs Coda
- Restate vs Lovable
- Restate vs Raycast
- Restate vs Height
- Restate vs Redis
- Restate vs Honeycomb
- Restate vs Istio
- Restate vs Lucidchart
- Restate vs MongoDB
- Restate vs MongoDB Atlas
- Restate vs Helix
- Restate vs Rust
- Restate vs Atlantis
- Restate vs Jitsu
- Restate vs Okteto
- Restate vs Argo CD
- Restate vs Steampipe
- Restate vs Cloud Native Buildpacks
- Restate vs Deno
- Restate vs Visual Studio Code
- Restate vs Turborepo
- Restate vs Keycloak
- Restate vs Garden
- Restate vs GitLab CI/CD
- Restate vs HCP Terraform
- Restate vs Helm
- Restate vs Notepad++