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BizTalk Server vs Temporal comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BizTalk Server
Ranking in Process Automation
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (9th)
Temporal
Ranking in Process Automation
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Srinidhi S - PeerSpot reviewer
For production environments, messages are easily stored within the MessageBox database and offers multiple deployment methods
Some room for improvement means... it's legacy. It's an on-premises system, requiring physical servers for deployment. This is different from Azure; you don't need any servers with Azure. If you have a subscription, you can do whatever you want. There are unit restrictions based on the environment (like non-production vs. production) in BizTalk. You need physical servers and databases. In Azure, those are not required – it's all in the cloud. Now, we have the option of integrating accounts and the On-Premises Data Gateway to connect on-premises BizTalk with Azure. But the trend is moving towards Azure. Not everyone wants a hybrid model. Companies are still going with hybrid scenarios, but they want both BizTalk and Azure. See, whatever you can do in BizTalk, you cannot do the same things the same way in Azure. One example is tracking. In BizTalk, especially for production environments, messages are easily stored within the MessageBox database. Support can assist in retrieving them directly. It's not as easy to track in Azure – everyone can potentially access it, and even reprocessing is different. Logic Apps have a preview mode. If a Logic App is stuck at a particular action, you can resubmit from there. Microsoft is still making improvements – I don't know when they'll have general availability for these features. However, tracking and message storage are more complex in Azure. We have to use Azure Blob storage for archiving, whereas in BizTalk, it's a built-in feature of the MessageBox DB. If you need to debug at any point, you can do so easily in BizTalk. This is one aspect influenced by the on-premises nature of BizTalk. Since everything is moving to the cloud, Microsoft will also end support for BizTalk Server 2030 – there won't be any further support. I don't think they'll release any new versions. 2020 was the last, and it's been four years. After the end of support, I think companies currently using BizTalk will move to Azure or another cloud-based integration technology.
AbhishekDash - PeerSpot reviewer
Orchestrates infrastructure tasks like deployment, deletion, and management
Temporal focus on developers rather than business users. In contrast to older workflow orchestration engines like Camunda, which are more business-oriented and strongly emphasize UI and workflow authoring, Temporal is geared toward developers. It provides extensive capabilities for building complex workflows. A standout feature of Temporal is its handling of long-running workflows, a significant advantage over many other solutions. Temporal excels in managing distributed transactions and application state durability, especially in microservice environments where transactions might fail due to network issues. Temporal simplifies these challenges by managing retries, fail-safes, and circuit breakers. As a result, developers don't need to implement these features manually; Temporal handles them implicitly, though it also allows for tuning based on specific needs.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of BizTalk Server is that it will turn XML into flexible transactions."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its integration with the banks. Its messaging and routing capabilities are good."
"Compared to the current solutions I use, like Azure Logic Apps and other cloud services, BizTalk was far better and more reliable."
"Essentially, you can do whatever you like with these systems, and you do not have to take care about the scaling because if one server is overloaded, it just forwards the message to the next server, even if it were designated to a specific server. It weeds out the messages according to the load. If you want to scale it, you just add new servers."
"BIzTalk's integration with Visual Studio is the most valuable feature of this product."
"I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten."
"We can handle a large number of messages without any issues, ensuring that everything runs smoothly."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability and stability. The first version of BizTalk was released in 2000, and many companies still use it. It was stable until 2013 when we had support."
"It is very useful for long-running workflows."
"The tool is easy for a beginner to learn. The documentation covers activities, workflows, workers, servers, and more. While more examples could be beneficial, the existing resources are good enough to help you get started. There are also YouTube videos available that can provide additional context. The Slack community for Temporal is very active and helpful, similar to Stack Overflow, where you can find answers to a wide range of questions from basic to advanced levels. If you have a unique question, the community is responsive and provides knowledgeable support."
"We like the fact that the whole process is durable, which is very useful to us."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to retry from an interrupted state."
"What I like best about the tool is that it's easy to install, especially since it uses JavaScript. It's also easy to set up with Docker, and the documentation is easy to understand."
"The solution's most valuable features include its ability to simplify the management of complex workflows, improve system resilience and fault tolerance, and reduce the need for extensive boilerplate code."
"The initial setup is easy."
"When some jobs take a lot of time and fail midway, the solution’s retry feature automatically causes them to retry."
 

Cons

"The product's deployment can be quicker"
"BizTalk is in the past, Microsoft is not going to evolve it any further or add any new features."
"It's a complex product because you have many degrees of freedom to connect different parts together. Whether it's sensible or not, is up to you, but the machine does allow it. But because of the vast degrees of freedom, it's complex."
"The product could be improved in monitoring, managing, and support functionalities."
"BizTalk Server is an outdated legacy system that does not support messaging."
"It's an on-premises system, requiring physical servers for deployment. This is different from Azure; you don't need any servers with Azure. If you have a subscription, you can do whatever you want. There are unit restrictions based on the environment (like non-production vs. production) in BizTalk. You need physical servers and databases. In Azure, those are not required – it's all in the cloud."
"BizTalk lacks native cloud support. BizTalk doesn't offer in-built support for cloud. We need to use third-party adapters to connect it to cloud services."
"The deployment could be simplified."
"Developers often mention the desire for a more intuitive visualization of workflow states."
"Configuring workflows can be improved —the solution could offer more options, but it's not a must-have."
"One area where I think Temporal could improve is its dashboard, particularly in event tracking. Currently, the dashboard doesn't show a time-based view of events, meaning it doesn't display when an event started or went through the retry process. If this feature could be added in a future release, it would significantly enhance monitoring capabilities. Other than that, Temporal's overall performance is quite impressive, and we're confident we can migrate to the Temporal workflow."
"Temporal's debugging is a bit complex."
"Temporal lacks many resources, like YouTube videos, which users can use to learn or refer to if they get stuck with the solution."
"Temporal images aren’t FIPS compliant, and we have to be FIPS compliant."
"One issue is that we don't have enough resources in the community to get answers when we face problems. We once had a cross-cluster persistence issue, which we solved using different keys. I think Temporal is good right now, but I'm part of the community and will let you know if I think of any improvements."
"Sometimes it scales kind of badly, but it depends on the process of our products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"BizTalk Server is not freeware. There's a significant licensing cost involved. Be sure you will actually utilize its features fully."
"Based on the knowledge, it is relatively cheaper than Azure Identity Services and cloud services in general."
"BizTalk Server is cheap. I would rate its pricing a two out of five."
"The cost will depend on the client's requirements."
"It was not cheap, but it was affordable."
"Temporal is open-source and free to use, which is great. We didn't have to pay for any premium features."
"The savings weren't as big as we initially expected, but they were pretty great from a developer's perspective."
"Temporal is a free, open-source tool."
"The tool is open source under the MIT license, so there are no hidden fees. You can freely use everything on their GitHub and Docker images."
"It is worth the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
18%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BizTalk Server?
The tool's most valuable feature is its integration with the banks. Its messaging and routing capabilities are good.
What needs improvement with BizTalk Server?
BizTalk is deployed on-premise. Deployment methodologies are vast in the cloud area. Whereas, if we want to update even a single thing on BizTalk, we need to take the DLL, put it in the system, and...
What advice do you have for others considering BizTalk Server?
When I started my career with BizTalk, people told me the vendor would sunset BizTalk Server, but it didn't happen. Higher versions are still being released. The product will not face the sunset. A...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Temporal?
Temporal OSS is expensive in infrastructure, but it brings back the reliability that companies need.
What needs improvement with Temporal?
The actual user interface is still in its early stages. It’s very basic. Users don’t really have a complex permission model yet. Users don’t really have ways to automate things like, for example, p...
What is your primary use case for Temporal?
We [my company] use it to run a large workload. We have a set of security scans we want to perform, and we distribute them over a full day, that’s over 24 hours. We use it to orchestrate all the st...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Centrebet, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, QualCare, Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, DTEK, Allscripts, United BioSource, Hogg Robinson
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