Architecture and workflow differences
Temporal executes application code through its own workers. AWS Step Functions manages state machines through JSON declarations. Step Functions works well if your processes stay within the AWS ecosystem and you want no new runtime to operate. Temporal wins on portability because it supports eight language SDKs and runs on AWS, GCP, or self-hosted infrastructure. Step Functions Standard workflows cap at one year and 25,000 history events, whereas Step Functions Express workflows suit high-event-rate workloads but cap at five minutes. Temporal workflows can run for years through Continue-As-New. You should pick Temporal if your logic is real application code that must survive for months. Temporal manages state in a durable event log per workflow, whereas Step Functions holds state in a managed service. Temporal executes application code through its own workers while AWS Step Functions manages state machines through JSON declarations, so one requires you to operate a worker fleet and the other requires no new runtime. The Temporal Service runs frontend, history, matching, and worker services. The service executes none of the user code. Step Functions orchestrates work but does not compute it. A Task state represents a unit of work that another AWS service performs, such as AWS Lambda or ECS. Step Functions integrates with services like Athena, Glue, EMR, and SageMaker AI. Workers are stateless, so they scale horizontally.
Migration and the AI agent era
The current surge in interest for Cadence managed services shows that teams still value the open-source foundations of the original Uber project. Migrating from Temporal to Cadence requires changing client dependencies and mapping SDK packages. The core workflow logic remains mostly identical between the two. Both platforms utilize workers to execute logic, but the shift toward AI agents in 2026 makes durable execution more critical. In 2026, successful AI outcomes depend on improving the decisions that control tasks. Temporal integrates with the OpenAI Agents SDK to provide durability for agentic workflows. AWS Step Functions uses Bedrock AgentCore to handle agent execution. Why do teams still struggle to choose between code-based logic and managed state machines? In March 2026, Temporal reached general availability for Worker Versioning to help teams ship new code without breaking in-flight executions. The Rust SDK reached general availability on 4 September 2026. Migrating to Cadence involves two steps. First, you need a Cadence cluster. Second, you must convert your client code to use the Cadence client SDK. Both tools allow you to design workflows with error handling using Retry and Catch states.
Decision and implementation verdicts
Backend teams requiring processes that span months should choose Temporal. Temporal Cloud starts at $50 per million Actions plus separate storage rates. Temporal Cloud also bills for storage at $0.042 per GB-Hour for active data and $0.00042 per GB-Hour for retained data. Temporal Cloud support starts at $500 per month for the Business tier. For lightweight, AWS-centric automation, Step Functions remains the better choice because it charges $0.000025 per state transition on Standard workflows. Step Functions offers 4,000 free transitions a month. Step Functions Express workflows bill $1.00 per 1M requests and $0.00001667 per GB-second of duration. You should avoid passing large blobs through any orchestrator. Large history slows Temporal replays. Step Functions limits payloads to 256 KB per state input or output. Use object storage for large files. Step Functions provides a visual representation of executed workflows in the console. Temporal includes a dashboard that shows activity inputs, outputs, and a timeline view. For an order pipeline with 1 million executions and 20 states, Step Functions control plane costs roughly $500 in a year.
