Skyvern vs Windmill
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Skyvern and Windmill.
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Verdict: Windmill wins
Windmill scores 4.2/5, edging out Skyvern at 4.0/5. Engineering teams who want code-first internal tools, workflows and APIs on infrastructure they control, with no per-execution billing.
Skyvern AI browser agent for workflow automation | Windmill Open-source workflow automation for developers | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.0 (1 review) | 4.2 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best For | Developers and ops teams automating login-gated, dynamic, CAPTCHA-protected browser workflows that keep breaking traditional scripts. | 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 | open sourcefree tierapi accessbyok | open sourcefree tierapi access |
| Visit Skyvern → | Visit Windmill → |
Skyvern
Pros
- + Vision-driven navigation survives UI changes that break selector-based scripts — layout drift in my test did not stop a run
- + Per-step run traces explain what the agent did and why, which turns failures into diagnoses instead of guesswork
- + Native CAPTCHA and 2FA/TOTP handling removes the two flows that most automation tools refuse to touch
- + Open-source AGPL core with a documented Docker self-host path for teams that cannot send credentials to a cloud vendor
- + Credit sizing is transparent: the pricing page publishes estimated action counts per tier (~170 / ~1,200 / ~6,200)
Cons
- - Per-action cost is inherently higher than scripted automation — each step carries LLM round trips, and self-hosters pay their own LLM API bills
- - Free tier (5,000 credits, 1 concurrent run) is an evaluation tier; team workspaces and 2FA support start at $149/month
- - Reliability on the hardest bot-protected and rate-limited sites is not something I would stake an SLA on despite native CAPTCHA solving
- - Seed-stage company with a small team; funding figures conflict across databases ($728K vs $2.7M) and long-term support is an open question
- - Not the right tool for high-volume extraction over stable pages, where a plain scraper is faster and far cheaper
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, Skyvern or Windmill?▼
Windmill scores higher at 4.2/5 vs 4.0/5 for Skyvern, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Skyvern and Windmill?▼
Skyvern: Open-source AI browser automation agent that can navigate complex websites, extract data, and complete workflows using LLMs and computer vision. 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 Skyvern or Windmill more affordable?▼
Skyvern starts at €0/mo, Windmill starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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