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Developer Tools · head to head

Restate vs Teleport

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
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Restate has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Restate covers Durable execution, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Restate and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where Restate and Teleport differ
AttributeRestateTeleport
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer month by durable action countquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, WebLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

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 Restate

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

Only in Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

What people use each for

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

Restate

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

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Restate
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Restate
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Restate
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot Restate

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

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.
Restate review

Choose Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Restate or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Restate starts at Free and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Restate or Teleport?
Restate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Restate and On request for Teleport.
Does Restate or Teleport run on more platforms?
Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Restate for free?
Yes. Restate has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Teleport starts at On request.
What is Restate best used for?
Restate is most often used for payment or order flows where a crash between two external api calls must not double-charge or lose the order, ai agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-run, replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservices, a small team that wants durable workflows without operating a temporal cluster and its database. Of those, payment or order flows where a crash between two external api calls must not double-charge or lose the order and ai agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-run are not what Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Restate do that Teleport cannot?
Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

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.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

Restate: Is there a free tier?

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

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

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

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

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