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Jitsu vs Restate

Jitsu logo

Jitsu

Developer Tools

Open source event pipeline that streams behavioural data to your own warehouse

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Jitsu jitsu is a pipeline, not a customer data platform, so identity resolution, audience building and reverse ETL are absent and a marketing team expecting Segment parity will be disappointed.; 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: Jitsu covers Event collection, Restate covers Durable execution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Jitsu and Restate actually diverge.

Attributes where Jitsu and Restate differ
AttributeJitsuRestate
Pricing modelPer month by event volumePer month by durable action count
PlatformsWeb, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, iOS, AndroidLinux, macOS, Web

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

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 Jitsu

  • Event collection
  • Warehouse destinations
  • Connector syncs
  • Transformations
  • Bundled ClickHouse
  • Event debugger
  • Self-hosting
  • Custom domains

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.

Jitsu

  • A team paying five figures a year to a customer data platform when all it actually does is send events to Snowflakenot Restate
  • An engineering group that needs event collection running inside its own VPC for data residency or security review reasonsnot Restate
  • A product analytics setup that wants raw events in the warehouse as the source of truth rather than trapped in a vendor toolnot Restate
  • A startup that needs first-party event collection on its own domain to reduce loss from tracker blocking without paying CDP pricesnot Restate

Restate

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

Where each one falls short

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

Jitsu

  • Jitsu is a pipeline, not a customer data platform, so identity resolution, audience building and reverse ETL are absent and a marketing team expecting Segment parity will be disappointed.
  • Connector sync frequency is deliberately tiered, with the free plan limited to manual runs and one daily sync, so anything approaching operational freshness requires the paid plan or self-hosting.
  • Self-hosting means you own the reliability of a system that drops data silently when misconfigured, and event loss is uniquely hard to notice because nothing errors, the numbers are just quietly lower.
  • The connector catalogue is far smaller than Fivetran or Airbyte, so if your requirement is pulling from many SaaS sources rather than pushing events, Jitsu is the wrong half of the problem.
  • It is a small company with a small commercial team, so enterprise procurement processes around security review, contractual SLAs and support escalation take longer than with an incumbent vendor.

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

Jitsu

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • MIT licence
    • Self-host on any cloud
    • No usage limits
  • Cloud FreeFree
    • Unlimited captured events
    • 200,000 active events per month
    • Manual connector runs only
  • Business$99/month
    • 2,000,000 active events per month
    • $40 per additional million events
    • Hourly connector sync frequency
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom event volume
    • One minute sync frequency
    • Unlimited active syncs

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 Jitsu if

  • You need event collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, iOS, Android.
  • You also want warehouse destinations.
Jitsu 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 Jitsu or Restate better?
Neither clearly leads. Jitsu 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, Jitsu or Restate?
Jitsu starts at Free and Restate at Free.
Does Jitsu or Restate run on more platforms?
Jitsu runs on Web, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, iOS, Android. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
Can I use Jitsu for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Jitsu best used for?
Jitsu is most often used for a team paying five figures a year to a customer data platform when all it actually does is send events to snowflake, an engineering group that needs event collection running inside its own vpc for data residency or security review reasons, a product analytics setup that wants raw events in the warehouse as the source of truth rather than trapped in a vendor tool, a startup that needs first-party event collection on its own domain to reduce loss from tracker blocking without paying cdp prices. Of those, a team paying five figures a year to a customer data platform when all it actually does is send events to snowflake and an engineering group that needs event collection running inside its own vpc for data residency or security review reasons are not what Restate is typically brought in for.
What can Jitsu do that Restate cannot?
Jitsu covers Event collection, Warehouse destinations, Connector syncs, Transformations. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Jitsu: Is Jitsu the same as Jitsi?

No. Jitsu is an open source event data pipeline. Jitsi is an unrelated video conferencing project.

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.

Jitsu: Can I self-host for free?

Yes. The project is MIT licensed with no usage limits when self-hosted.

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.

Jitsu: How does the cost compare with Segment?

The Business plan is 99 US dollars a month for two million active events, where a per-tracked-user CDP typically costs orders of magnitude more at comparable volume.

Restate: Is there a free tier?

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

Jitsu: Does Jitsu do identity resolution?

No. It transports and transforms events; identity stitching and audiences are not part of the product.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

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

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