# Orkes Conductor alternative: node-flow vs Orkes

> node-flow vs Orkes Conductor — a self-hosted, Conductor-compatible workflow engine with RBAC, SSO and AI tasks, free to run commercially on Postgres alone.

Source: https://node-flow.dev/docs/alternatives/orkes

**node-flow is a self-hosted alternative to Orkes Conductor.** Orkes is the
company founded by Conductor's original creators; it sells Conductor as a
managed cloud and as an enterprise install. node-flow offers the same workflow
model and a Conductor-compatible API as software you run yourself, on one
Postgres database, with no licence fee.

## Why people look for an Orkes alternative

* **Self-hosting without a sales process.** Running node-flow in production —
  for a business, inside a product you sell, for your customers — needs no
  commercial licence, seat count or revenue threshold.
* **Data residency.** Every workflow input, output and secret stays in your own
  Postgres, in your own network.
* **Enterprise features, included.** Namespaces, RBAC with groups and tags,
  OIDC and SAML SSO, service accounts, mTLS, sealed secrets, audit log and
  quotas are part of node-flow, not a paid tier.
* **One dependency.** Orkes' self-hosted distribution runs on a larger backend
  stack; node-flow needs PostgreSQL 18.

## node-flow vs Orkes at a glance

|                  | node-flow                                                                           | Orkes Conductor                                    |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Workflow model   | JSON DAG, Conductor-style                                                           | JSON DAG, Conductor                                |
| Hosting          | Self-hosted — Docker, Kubernetes, any managed Postgres                              | Orkes Cloud, or enterprise self-hosted             |
| Price            | Free to run, including commercially                                                 | Commercial                                         |
| Infrastructure   | PostgreSQL 18 only                                                                  | Managed, or a multi-store backend when self-hosted |
| Conductor SDKs   | Supported through `/conductor/api`                                                  | Native                                             |
| RBAC, SSO, audit | Included                                                                            | Included in commercial plans                       |
| AI / LLM tasks   | LLM text and chat, embeddings, vector indexes in Postgres, MCP, `AGENT`, guardrails | Included in Orkes' product                         |
| Human tasks      | `HUMAN` tasks with an inbox in the dashboard                                        | Included                                           |
| Support          | Community, or terms by agreement                                                    | Commercial support                                 |

## When Orkes is the better choice

* You want someone else to operate the orchestrator, with an SLA.
* You rely on Orkes-specific features, integrations or SDK behaviour beyond the
  Conductor API node-flow implements.
* Your procurement process needs an established vendor and a standard licence.

## Moving from Orkes

The path is the same as from Conductor OSS: change the SDK base URL to
node-flow's `/conductor` prefix, create node-flow service accounts, register
your definitions and move workers one queue at a time. Orkes credentials are
not imported — see [Conductor compatibility](/docs/guide/conductor#credentials-and-permissions).

## Frequently asked questions

### Is there a free, self-hosted alternative to Orkes Conductor?

node-flow is one: it implements Conductor’s JSON workflow model and a Conductor-compatible API, runs on PostgreSQL alone, and is free to run in production, including commercially. Conductor OSS is another option if you want the original Java server under Apache 2.0.

### Do Orkes JavaScript, Python or Java SDKs work with node-flow?

The supported workflow and worker endpoints work through node-flow’s /conductor/api layer. The JavaScript SDK 4.0.0 is exercised in node-flow’s regression suite. Other SDK versions and optional features should be verified before a production switch.

### Does node-flow include RBAC and SSO?

Yes. Namespaces, role-based access control with groups and tag-based grants, API keys, service accounts, mTLS, OIDC workload identity, OIDC and SAML single sign-on, sealed secrets and an audit log are all part of node-flow.

## Next

* [Quickstart](/docs/guide/quickstart)
* [Security](/docs/guide/security)
* [Netflix Conductor alternative](/docs/alternatives/conductor)