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1. ropela+(OP)[view] [source] 2023-05-12 22:32:31
I'm confused as to how this compares to tools in the workflow manager space such as Airflow/Perfect/Dragster. The words describing the software are almost the same but it seems to come from alternate universe of tools I'm not familiar with. Could someone fill me in?
replies(2): >>pas+L >>rubenf+g1
2. pas+L[view] [source] 2023-05-12 22:36:27
>>ropela+(OP)
this is targeting the "low-code" audience, like https://n8n.io
replies(1): >>rubenf+X2
3. rubenf+g1[view] [source] 2023-05-12 22:39:37
>>ropela+(OP)
It's similar to airflow/prefect/dragster in that it can run workflows, and those workflows can do ETL and ops and can run arbitrary code.

It's different in those fashions. Windmill can run python but also typescript, go and bash. Airflow/Prefect etc uses code annotation which mean the code is actually specific to the platform. We actually have the steps be directly scripts/code with a main function, and then have a low-code builder to compose them into powerful workflows. That low-code builder produces a yaml like that one: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill-sync-example/blob/... which you could theoretically write by hand.

The low-code builder is intuitive and similar to n8n except it has the feature-set of the above framework. It's easy to test the individual steps or to test the whole flow. The workflow engine is very efficient and running 50 steps will essentially have about 1s overhead total, and the steps are executed bare so it will take as much time as if you were running them without windmill on your node directly. They can be hardware accelerated easily in that fashion. We also support some features borrowed from temporal like the ability to suspend at no-cost flows until they are resumed by an external event such as an approval from slack.

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4. rubenf+X2[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-05-12 22:51:02
>>pas+L
I like to think that we target hybrid teams made of low-code/semi-technical people AND engineers that expect to have the same characteristics seen in temporal/airflow. Abstraction without compromise, or zero-cost abstractions as the rust community like to say
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