Temporal Reviews

Name: Temporal
Brand: Temporal Technologies
Rating: 4.3 (17 reviews)

4.3 out of 5

17 reviews
94% willing to recommend

What is Temporal?

Temporal automates and manages workflows efficiently, offering resilience in distributed systems with features like retry and fault tolerance. Its capabilities in handling complex workflows and integrating with programming languages make it a valuable tool for managing diverse business logic.

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Temporal is the #7 ranked solution in top Process Automation solutions. PeerSpot users give Temporal an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Temporal is most commonly compared to Camunda: Temporal vs Camunda. Temporal is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 71% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 30% of all views.

Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

Featured reviews

AbhishekDash

Senior Software Engineer at A.P. Moller - Maersk

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.

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Robin Shaw

Senior Data Engineer at Ernst & Young

The project I was working on was an AI project. We used to bring data from different sources using Temporal and put it into Elasticsearch. We would then take data from Elasticsearch, implement some AI logic on it, and insert it back into Elasticsearch. AI logic was implemented in Python codes, and our Temporal job was to do the calculations using Python codes and dump the data back into Elasticsearch. I suggest not using Temporal if your product is vital because if you are stuck somewhere, you will hardly get any resources. You will have to spend a lot of time to find out some functionality. Temporal has very limited documentation. If we have some POCs that are not so vital, then we can use Temporal to check something. I was able to do some basic things. However, you will find very little documentation or examples if you want to implement some big things. You must spend a lot of time understanding the functionality or connecting with the Temporal team to understand it. It is easy for a beginner to learn to use the solution for the first time. A new user may take around 15 days to one month to understand workflows. I also took around one month to understand the tool and then try to implement it. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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Gustavo Carneiro

Backend Software Engineer at Fortics

Sometimes it scales kind of badly, but it depends on the process of our products. If we have too many signals in a workflow, we might need 50 or 60 pods of the same worker. But this doesn’t happen with every worker; it just happens in some special use cases. The scalability is great, but could be better. We needed to change Temporal's database from Postgres to Cassandra to handle it more cheaply for our infrastructure. We do not use Temporal Cloud; we use Temporal Open Source. Cassandra DB was the best choice because it was cheaper. The problem with Postgres was the only problem we faced. But besides that, it has been great since the start.

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PeerAnalyst reports

Type	Title	Date
Category	Process Automation	Jan 21, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jan 21, 2025	Download
Comparison	Temporal vs Camunda	Jan 21, 2025	Download
Comparison	Temporal vs Pega Platform	Jan 21, 2025	Download
Comparison	Temporal vs Control-M	Jan 21, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Camunda	4.1	28.6%	89%	77 interviews Add to research
Control-M	4.4	4.7%	98%	118 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Temporal's standout features include managing and automating workflows without manual intervention, exceptional reliability, performance, visibility, retry capabilities, fault tolerance, durable execution, simplifying complex processes, handling distributed transactions, and reducing boilerplate code. Its integration with multiple programming languages is seamless, making it user-friendly for developers. Temporal offers extensive monitoring, debugging, and retry policies, which enhance system resilience and efficiency. Its ability to manage long-running workflows provides significant advantages in microservice environments.

"We like the fact that the whole process is durable, which is very useful to us."
"Temporal allows retryability for different workflows whenever they fail. It helps ensure idempotence and that things get done."
"It's easy to get started and user-friendly."

Room for Improvement

Temporal could improve by enhancing user-friendliness for beginners and better integration. Documentation and community support require significant enhancement to assist new users. Native data storage capabilities and improved dashboard features like time-based event tracking would benefit users. Streamlining certificate management and automation are needed. Addressing compatibility issues and improving scalability and visualization could assist developers. Adjusting the pricing model of Temporal Cloud for smaller users and improving authentication options would also be beneficial.

"Temporal images aren’t FIPS compliant, and we have to be FIPS compliant."
"Retro compatibility needs improvement. Sometimes, when we make new changes to a workflow, it fails if it is not configured properly due to compatibility issues."
"I don't like the limitations on data flow, particularly the difficulty of passing large amounts of data between different activities."

Pricing

Temporal offers a cost-effective solution for enterprise IT operations by being open-source under the MIT license, eliminating licensing fees for on-premise deployments. Organizations report using Temporal to potentially lower expenses by consolidating workflows, although they may incur infrastructure costs similar to other in-house solutions when using Kubernetes or Cassandra. The cloud version might involve additional costs, yet Temporal is praised for its reliability and flexibility, especially compared to more complex and costly ETL tools.

"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."
"It is worth the price."

Popular Use Cases

Organizations use Temporal primarily for orchestration, managing workflows across platforms and applications. They implement it to power internal workflow engines, handle complex data pipelines, manage API proxies and gateways, orchestrate infrastructure tasks, and ensure durability and scalability for async APIs. Temporal is also used to synchronize long-running workflows, schedule and trigger specific events, manage data flows, integrate with third-party systems, and support different programming languages within diverse environments.

Service and Support

Temporal's support operates through Slack and community channels, providing assistance mainly during US time zones, which can delay responses for international users. Many find their engineers and even the CEO responsive and helpful. Though some note a lack of dedicated support, users often praise the community's effectiveness. While some have never contacted support, others have experienced prompt and engaging responses, particularly through Slack, often within an hour, despite occasional time zone challenges.

Deployment

Temporal's initial setup is often easy and straightforward, particularly for those familiar with Kubernetes. Helm charts and Docker aid in smooth deployment, but specific contexts require complex management of integration points like Docker servers and distributed databases. Beginners may find challenges understanding functions and methods. While small-scale setups are manageable, larger deployments may demand significant resources and configuration. Some report difficulties with token setup on Temporal Cloud and handling specific compliance requirements. Maintenance varies, with cloud options being less complex than self-hosted.

Scalability

Temporal exhibits exceptional scalability, allowing for thousands of simultaneous workflows without issues. Its infrastructure, featuring distributed services and Cassandra, enhances scalability, although in-house deployment requires significant DevOps skills. While flexibility with worker processes in containers could improve efficiency, Temporal's cloud service meets high scaling demands effectively. Despite occasional challenges with special use cases, Temporal supports scaling needs across various organizational levels, with many rating its scalability eight out of ten.

Stability

Temporal has proven stable and reliable, according to users. Stability is rated highly, though issues occasionally arise from infrastructure challenges rather than Temporal itself. Documentation is seen as limited, creating hurdles in implementation. Users encounter difficulties with tracing and debugging due to SDK variations. Temporal excels in maintaining resilience, though its UI lacks detailed execution history. Some suggest improvements in diagnosing issues and managing databases efficiently.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Temporal Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

16%

Retailer

13%

Manufacturing Company

Logistics Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Government

Media Company

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Sports Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Paper And Forest Products

Pharma/Biotech Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Insurance Company

Training & Coaching Company

Leisure / Travel Company

University

Wellness & Fitness Company

Legal Firm

Hospitality Company

Performing Arts

Aerospace/Defense Firm

Construction Company

Compare Temporal with alternative products

Learn more about Temporal

Temporal excels in workflow orchestration, automating tasks across multiple platforms, and ensuring durability in asynchronous operations. It supports long-running workflows and simplifies handling distributed transactions, reducing boilerplate code. Temporal is noted for its durable execution and built-in retry policies, enhancing resilience. Despite its complexity and steep learning curve, it is valued for its integration with popular programming languages and relatively easy setup process, though it requires improvements in user-friendly features, documentation, community support, and security.

What are Temporal's key features?

Automation and Efficient Management: Automatically handles workflows without manual intervention.
Resilience and Fault Tolerance: Features built-in retry policies for increased reliability.
Integration: Supports various programming languages, easing development.
Distributed Transactions: Simplifies complex transaction handling with reduced boilerplate code.
Durable Execution: Ensures long-running workflows are reliably managed.

What benefits or ROI should users evaluate?

Scalability and Reliability: Enhances IT environments through robust workflow management.
Ease of Integration: Supports seamless multi-platform automation.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Reduces need for extensive coding, streamlining processes.
Durability and Fault Tolerance: Provides reliable asynchronous operations.

Temporal is implemented in sectors requiring robust workflow orchestration, such as managing data pipelines, API integration, and scheduling tasks. Organizations in a Kubernetes environment leverage it for its scalability and infrastructure management capabilities, securing integrations and enhancing reliability across IT operations.