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Developer Tools · head to head

Restate vs Tilt

Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Tilt logo

Tilt

Developer Tools

Local Kubernetes development loop that rebuilds and live-updates containers on save

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Tilt docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • They diverge on capability: Restate covers Durable execution, Tilt covers Live update.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Restate and Tilt actually diverge.

Attributes where Restate and Tilt differ
AttributeRestateTilt
Pricing modelPer month by durable action countOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, macOS, WebLinux, macOS, Windows

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 Restate

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

Only in Tilt

  • Live update
  • Tiltfile as code
  • Unified web UI
  • Selective rebuilds
  • Local and remote clusters
  • Resource dependencies
  • Extensions registry
  • Custom buttons and triggers

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 Tilt
  • AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot Tilt
  • Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot Tilt
  • A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot Tilt

Tilt

  • A team of ten or more engineers whose application is fifteen microservices on Kubernetes and who currently wait on CI to test a changenot Restate
  • An organisation onboarding new developers who want a single command that stands up the whole stack from a committed Tiltfilenot Restate
  • A platform team giving product engineers a consistent local environment against a shared remote development clusternot Restate
  • A codebase where one repository contains several services and rebuilding all of them on every edit is the main source of lost timenot 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.

Tilt

  • Docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • The Tiltfile is Starlark, a Python dialect, so non-trivial setups become real programs that need reviewing and maintaining, and the person who wrote yours becomes a single point of failure.
  • Live update only works when the running container can accept synced files and restart the process; compiled languages, distroless images and read-only filesystems often force you back to a full image rebuild, which removes the main benefit.
  • It assumes Kubernetes. If your development target is plain Docker Compose or serverless functions, Tilt adds a cluster you did not need and a layer of abstraction with no payoff.
  • There is no commercial support contract, no SLA and no paid tier, so when a Kubernetes version upgrade breaks something you are dependent on GitHub issues and a Slack channel rather than a vendor you can escalate to.

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

Tilt

Free
  • TiltFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed
    • All features, no paid tier
    • Community support via the Kubernetes Slack #tilt channel

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 Tilt if

  • You need live update.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want tiltfile as code.
Tilt review

Questions people ask

Is Restate or Tilt better?
Neither clearly leads. Restate starts at Free and Tilt at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Restate or Tilt?
Restate starts at Free and Tilt at Free.
Does Restate or Tilt run on more platforms?
Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web. Tilt runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Restate for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 Tilt is typically brought in for.
What can Restate do that Tilt cannot?
Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs. Tilt covers Live update, Tiltfile as code, Unified web UI, Selective rebuilds.

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.

Tilt: Is Tilt free?

Yes, entirely. It is Apache 2.0 open source with no paid tier and no licence fee.

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.

Tilt: Who owns Tilt now?

Docker, which acquired it in May 2022. It remains open source and the repository is still actively maintained.

Restate: Is there a free tier?

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

Tilt: Do I need a remote cluster?

No. It works against a local cluster such as kind, minikube or Docker Desktop, and also against a shared remote development cluster if your services are too heavy to run locally.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

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

Tilt: How is it different from Skaffold?

Both automate the build-deploy loop. Tilt puts more weight on the live-update path and a multi-service dashboard; Skaffold is more configuration-driven and closer to Google's tooling.

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