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Apache Airflow vs Prefect: catalog facts
Apache Airflow	Prefect
Free Free and open source, developed as an Apache Software Foundation project.	Freemium Open source core is free; the hosted platform has a free start and paid plans.
Web, Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted, Command line
Workflows are plain Python, so tasks can be generated dynamically Web UI with status and logs for every task run	Plain Python decorators define flows and tasks Built-in retries and scheduling
Requires Python knowledge to define workflows You run and maintain the scheduler, workers and web server yourself	Aimed at Python users Some features belong to the paid hosted platform
Self-hosted	Self-hosted, Hosted service
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: Apache-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.