Is Letta or Orkes better?

Neither clearly leads. Letta starts at Free and Orkes at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Letta or Orkes?

Letta starts at Free and Orkes at Free.

Does Letta or Orkes run on more platforms?

Letta runs on Web. Orkes runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.

Can I use Letta for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Letta best used for?

Letta is most often used for building agents with memory for continuous learning, enabling reflection during idle periods via sleep-compute, managing agent context and extracting learnings. Of those, building agents with memory for continuous learning and enabling reflection during idle periods via sleep-compute are not what Orkes is typically brought in for.

What can Letta do that Orkes cannot?

Orkes covers JSON workflow definitions, Polyglot workers, Visual workflow builder, AI and LLM tasks.

Automation Integration · head to head

Letta vs Orkes

Letta

Automation Integration

Machines that learn

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Orkes

Automation Integration

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Letta free tier limited to 3 stateful agents; 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.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Letta and Orkes actually diverge.

Attributes where Letta and Orkes differ
Attribute	Letta	Orkes
Pricing model	freemium	quote
Platforms	Web	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Letta

Nothing recorded that Orkes does not also cover.

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.

Letta

Building agents with memory for continuous learningnot Orkes
Enabling reflection during idle periods via sleep-computenot Orkes
Managing agent context and extracting learningsnot Orkes

Orkes

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

Where each one falls short

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

Letta

Free tier limited to 3 stateful agents
Pro tier capped at 20 stateful agents
API Plan usage charges apply beyond base tier

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

Letta

Free

FreeFree
- Limited agents
- Limited Letta Auto usage
- Bring your own API keys
Pro$20/month
- Weekly and monthly Letta Auto quota
- Pay-as-you-go overage
- Up to 20 stateful agents
API Plan$20/month
- Unlimited agents
- $0.10/active agent/month
- $0.00015/second for tool execution
Teams Pro$20/month
- Per seat pricing
- Add teammates
- Letta Auto quota

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 Letta if

You want to start without paying.

Letta 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 Letta or Orkes better?: Neither clearly leads. Letta starts at Free and Orkes at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Letta or Orkes?: Letta starts at Free and Orkes at Free.
Does Letta or Orkes run on more platforms?: Letta runs on Web. Orkes runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Letta for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Letta best used for?: Letta is most often used for building agents with memory for continuous learning, enabling reflection during idle periods via sleep-compute, managing agent context and extracting learnings. Of those, building agents with memory for continuous learning and enabling reflection during idle periods via sleep-compute are not what Orkes is typically brought in for.
What can Letta do that Orkes cannot?: Orkes covers JSON workflow definitions, Polyglot workers, Visual workflow builder, AI and LLM tasks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Letta: How much does Letta cost?

Letta offers a free tier, then Pro plan at $20/month with up to 20 stateful agents, API Plan at $20/month base plus usage charges ($0.10/active agent/month, $0.00015/second for tool execution), and Teams Pro at $20/seat/month.

Source

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.

Letta: How many agents can I create on the free plan?

The free tier is limited to 3 stateful agents. Pro plan allows up to 20 stateful agents, while API Plan offers unlimited agents.

Source

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.

Letta: Does Letta charge for tool execution?

On the API Plan, Letta charges $0.00015 per second for tool execution. The Pro and Teams Pro plans include execution in their monthly fee.

Source

Orkes: What does Enterprise cost?

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

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.

Letta vs Orkes

Letta

Orkes

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Letta

Only in Orkes

What people use each for

Letta

Orkes

Where each one falls short

Letta

Orkes

Pricing, plan by plan

Letta

Orkes

Which should you pick?

Choose Letta if

Choose Orkes if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Letta

More on Orkes

Keep looking

Other head to heads