Bardeen vs Windmill
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Bardeen and Windmill.
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Verdict: Windmill wins
Windmill scores 4.2/5, edging out Bardeen at 3.3/5. Engineering teams who want code-first internal tools, workflows and APIs on infrastructure they control, with no per-execution billing.
Bardeen Automate your browser with AI | Windmill Open-source workflow automation for developers | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 3.3 (1 review) | 4.2 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | From $10/mo | Free tier available |
| Best For | Sales, recruiting, and research teams whose work is scraping LinkedIn and company pages, enriching the rows, and pushing them into a CRM or Sheet. | Engineering teams who want code-first internal tools, workflows and APIs on infrastructure they control, with no per-execution billing. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | browser extensionno codefree tier | open sourcefree tierapi access |
| Visit Bardeen → | Visit Windmill → |
Bardeen
Pros
- + Credit economics are legible: 1 credit per action row, 3 per enrichment row, exports free — my 40-row LinkedIn pass cost about 160 credits end to end
- + Cloud execution let a 200-row scrape finish unattended while the Chrome extension handled session-gated pages
- + Cheap, honest entry point: Basic at $10/mo with +100 credits, unlimited seats on all plans (bardeen.ai/pricing, captured 2026-07-30)
- + Magic scraper inferred 8 of 10 columns correctly on a structured page in my test, with manual overrides for the rest
- + Strategic backers (Dropbox, HubSpot, Insight Partners) and 300K+ users claimed suggest real usage, not a shelf product
Cons
- - Pricing has whipsawed — $10 (2023), $60 (Dec 2024), $129–$1,500 tiers (Mar 2025), back to $10/$50 (Dec 2025); budget month-to-month
- - Chrome-only browser extension; no Firefox/Safari/Edge support and no self-hosting
- - LinkedIn scraping rides your own session and account limits — platform terms restrict automation, and aggressive volumes risk the account
- - Natural-language playbook generation drafted flows quickly but got a conditional filter wrong in my test; hand-editing was still required
- - Credits expire at the end of each billing period and enrichment rows cost 3 credits each, so real months run well above the sticker credit count
Windmill
Pros
- + Script-first model: typed functions become endpoints, jobs and flow steps with auto-generated UIs — my nightly pipeline was rebuilt in one Docker session
- + Free self-hosted tier carries unlimited executions, not a trial disguised as a plan
- + Rust execution engine kept orchestration overhead sub-second between flow steps in my tests
- + Worker-group model scales throughput with replicas and tag routing instead of redesigns
- + Transparent per-unit Enterprise pricing ($20/builder, $10/non-builder, $50/worker) with published SLA terms
Cons
- - Zero no-code path — teams without developers cannot use it at any price
- - Prebuilt Community Edition images bundle proprietary Windmill Labs terms (no resale/wrapping/modifying), separate from the AGPLv3 source build
- - Worker groups and role configuration have a real learning curve before the platform pays off
- - Small vendor (under twenty employees in 2024 reporting, ~$15M raised) relative to the incumbents it replaces
- - Flow durability is lighter than Temporal for mission-critical long-running orchestration
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Bardeen or Windmill?▼
Windmill scores higher at 4.2/5 vs 3.3/5 for Bardeen, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Bardeen and Windmill?▼
Bardeen: Bardeen is a Chrome extension for sales teams that scrapes websites like LinkedIn, finds and enriches leads, and sends the data to Google Sheets or your CRM. Credit-based pricing. Windmill: Windmill is an open-source platform that turns scripts in Python, TypeScript, Go and other languages into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs. It is aimed at developers who prefer code over drag-and-drop builders.
Is Bardeen or Windmill more affordable?▼
Bardeen starts at €10/mo, Windmill starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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