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Prefect vs Apache Airflow: catalog facts
Prefect	Apache Airflow
Freemium Open source core is free; the hosted platform has a free start and paid plans.	Free Free and open source, developed as an Apache Software Foundation project.
Web, Self-hosted, Command line	Web, Self-hosted
Plain Python decorators define flows and tasks Built-in retries and scheduling	Workflows are plain Python, so tasks can be generated dynamically Web UI with status and logs for every task run
Aimed at Python users Some features belong to the paid hosted platform	Requires Python knowledge to define workflows You run and maintain the scheduler, workers and web server yourself
Self-hosted, Hosted service	Self-hosted
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

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