Startups > Temporal.io

Temporal.io

Temporal enables developers to build resilient applications with durable workflow executions.

Series B $650M total Founded 2019 Bellevue, Washington

Temporal is a durable execution platform that enables developers to build resilient applications by guaranteeing reliable execution of complex, long-running workflows as code. It eliminates the need for custom infrastructure like message queues, pub/sub systems, and schedulers by providing built-in retries, event sourcing, state checkpointing, and task management. Used by companies like Stripe, Netflix, Datadog, and Snapchat to power millions of workflows daily, Temporal abstracts away distributed systems complexity so developers can write resilient code naturally.

Problem solved

Engineering teams spend significant time building custom infrastructure for retries, state management, task queues, timers, and event sourcing instead of focusing on business logic.

Target customer

Enterprise and mid-market engineering teams building mission-critical applications requiring reliable execution of long-running, complex workflows; companies like Stripe, Netflix, Datadog, and Snapchat.

Website LinkedIn Crunchbase

Founders

Samar Abbas

CEO & Co-Founder

20 years at AWS, Microsoft, and Uber; created Azure Durable Task Framework at Microsoft and co-created Cadence workflow engine at Uber.

Maxim Fateev

CTO & Co-Founder

Led development of Amazon SQS and AWS Simple Workflow Service; built Cherami messaging system and co-created Cadence at Uber; also worked at Google and Microsoft.

Funding history

Seed $6.8M 2020 Led by Amplify Partners

Series A $18.8M 2020 Led by Sequoia Capital

Series B $100M February 2022 Led by Index Ventures · Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Addition Ventures

Series B-Prime $75M February 2023 Led by Greenoaks · Amplify Partners, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Madrona, Addition Ventures

Series C $146M March 2025 Led by Tiger Global Management · Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, MongoDB

Secondary $105M October 2025 Led by GIC · Tiger Global, Index Ventures

Series D $300M February 2026 Led by Andreessen Horowitz · Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Index, Tiger, GIC, Madrona, Amplify

Total raised: $650M

Industries

Information Technology Internet Software

Pricing

Open-source under MIT license. Temporal Cloud pricing: Actions ($50 per million, or $0.00005 per action), Storage, and Cloud Plan. Four tiers: Essentials ($100/month), Business, Enterprise, Mission Critical. Pay-as-you-go or pre-purchased credits via AWS Marketplace.

Notable customers

Stripe, Netflix, Doordash, Snap, Box, Hashicorp, Coinbase, Datadog, Snapchat, Nvidia

Integrations

AWS Marketplace, language SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, Java, C#, Rust, PHP, C++)

Website

temporal.io/

Competitors

AWS Step Functions

AWS-proprietary service with visual workflow builder; Temporal is open-source, language-agnostic, and code-first with better developer experience.

Apache Airflow

Data pipeline orchestration tool; Temporal is designed for general-purpose durable execution with stronger guarantees and built-in state management.

Prefect

Modern workflow orchestration focused on data workflows; Temporal serves broader use cases with better handling of complex, long-running business logic.

Why this matters: Temporal has achieved exceptional scale and funding (raising $650M to a $5B valuation) by solving a fundamental infrastructure problem for enterprise engineering teams. Founded by engineers who built SQS and Cadence, the company is backed by top VCs and trusted by some of the world's most demanding companies (Stripe, Netflix, Snapchat), making it a leading platform for mission-critical orchestration.

Best for: Engineering teams building mission-critical applications requiring reliable execution of long-running, stateful workflows without managing custom infrastructure.

Use cases

Payment Processing Orchestration

Stripe uses Temporal to reliably execute complex payment workflows with automatic retries, timeouts, and state persistence. When a payment involves multiple steps (authorization, settlement, reconciliation), Temporal ensures each step completes reliably even if systems fail mid-process.

Delivery Order Coordination

DoorDash orchestrates multi-step delivery workflows using Temporal: order placement, restaurant confirmation, driver assignment, pickup coordination, and delivery. If any step fails, Temporal automatically resumes from the exact point of failure without data loss.

Media Processing Pipelines

Snapchat uses Temporal to manage long-running media processing jobs with guaranteed execution. Workflows handle transcoding, validation, storage, and notification steps reliably at massive scale with millions of daily workflows.

Distributed Transaction Management

Companies use Temporal to implement saga patterns for distributed transactions across microservices. It manages compensation logic, retry policies, and state consistency across service boundaries without custom infrastructure.

Alternatives

AWS Step Functions Choose Step Functions if you're AWS-native and want a managed service; choose Temporal for open-source flexibility and better multi-language support.

Apache Airflow Choose Airflow for data pipeline orchestration and scheduling; choose Temporal for general-purpose durable execution of business logic and microservice workflows.

Prefect Choose Prefect for modern data workflow orchestration with cloud-native design; choose Temporal for broader application use cases and stronger execution guarantees.

FAQ

What does Temporal do? +

Temporal is a durable execution platform that guarantees reliable execution of long-running workflows and activities as code. It handles retries, state management, timeouts, and task queues automatically, eliminating the need for custom infrastructure. Developers write workflows in their favorite programming language, and Temporal ensures they complete reliably even if systems fail.

How much does Temporal cost? +

Temporal is open-source (free). Temporal Cloud pricing is usage-based: $50 per million actions ($0.00005 per action), plus storage and plan fees. Essentials plan starts at $100/month. Enterprise and Mission Critical plans require custom quotes. Commitments available via AWS Marketplace.

What are alternatives to Temporal? +

AWS Step Functions (AWS-native visual workflows), Apache Airflow (data pipeline orchestration), and Prefect (modern data workflows). Temporal differentiates with code-first development, open-source availability, and stronger guarantees for general-purpose durable execution.

Who uses Temporal? +

Enterprise engineering teams at companies like Stripe, Netflix, DoorDash, Snap, Box, Coinbase, and Datadog. Over 1,000 paying Temporal Cloud customers as of April 2024, with millions of workflows running daily across finance, delivery, media, and infrastructure use cases.

How does Temporal compare to AWS Step Functions? +

Both orchestrate workflows, but Temporal is open-source, language-agnostic, and code-first (write in TypeScript, Python, Go, etc.), while Step Functions uses visual workflows and AWS-proprietary JSON. Temporal offers stronger consistency guarantees and better developer experience; Step Functions offers AWS integration and managed scaling.