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BizTalk Server vs Temporal comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BizTalk Server
Ranking in Process Automation
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (9th)
Temporal
Ranking in Process Automation
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Srinidhi S - PeerSpot reviewer
For production environments, messages are easily stored within the MessageBox database and offers multiple deployment methods
Some room for improvement means... it's legacy. It's an on-premises system, requiring physical servers for deployment. This is different from Azure; you don't need any servers with Azure. If you have a subscription, you can do whatever you want. There are unit restrictions based on the environment (like non-production vs. production) in BizTalk. You need physical servers and databases. In Azure, those are not required – it's all in the cloud. Now, we have the option of integrating accounts and the On-Premises Data Gateway to connect on-premises BizTalk with Azure. But the trend is moving towards Azure. Not everyone wants a hybrid model. Companies are still going with hybrid scenarios, but they want both BizTalk and Azure. See, whatever you can do in BizTalk, you cannot do the same things the same way in Azure. One example is tracking. In BizTalk, especially for production environments, messages are easily stored within the MessageBox database. Support can assist in retrieving them directly. It's not as easy to track in Azure – everyone can potentially access it, and even reprocessing is different. Logic Apps have a preview mode. If a Logic App is stuck at a particular action, you can resubmit from there. Microsoft is still making improvements – I don't know when they'll have general availability for these features. However, tracking and message storage are more complex in Azure. We have to use Azure Blob storage for archiving, whereas in BizTalk, it's a built-in feature of the MessageBox DB. If you need to debug at any point, you can do so easily in BizTalk. This is one aspect influenced by the on-premises nature of BizTalk. Since everything is moving to the cloud, Microsoft will also end support for BizTalk Server 2030 – there won't be any further support. I don't think they'll release any new versions. 2020 was the last, and it's been four years. After the end of support, I think companies currently using BizTalk will move to Azure or another cloud-based integration technology.
AbhishekDash - PeerSpot reviewer
Orchestrates infrastructure tasks like deployment, deletion, and management
Temporal focus on developers rather than business users. In contrast to older workflow orchestration engines like Camunda, which are more business-oriented and strongly emphasize UI and workflow authoring, Temporal is geared toward developers. It provides extensive capabilities for building complex workflows. A standout feature of Temporal is its handling of long-running workflows, a significant advantage over many other solutions. Temporal excels in managing distributed transactions and application state durability, especially in microservice environments where transactions might fail due to network issues. Temporal simplifies these challenges by managing retries, fail-safes, and circuit breakers. As a result, developers don't need to implement these features manually; Temporal handles them implicitly, though it also allows for tuning based on specific needs.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The AS2 communication protocol is one of the most advanced processes."
"I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of BizTalk Server is that it will turn XML into flexible transactions."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its integration with the banks. Its messaging and routing capabilities are good."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability and stability. The first version of BizTalk was released in 2000, and many companies still use it. It was stable until 2013 when we had support."
"BIzTalk's integration with Visual Studio is the most valuable feature of this product."
"Essentially, you can do whatever you like with these systems, and you do not have to take care about the scaling because if one server is overloaded, it just forwards the message to the next server, even if it were designated to a specific server. It weeds out the messages according to the load. If you want to scale it, you just add new servers."
"We can handle a large number of messages without any issues, ensuring that everything runs smoothly."
"What I like best about Temporal is its durable execution, which means you don't need to write many boilerplate code for critical pieces, especially for retries. It also has great observability and a nice dashboard to see issues without digging into logs. The interface for viewing activities is excellent, with good tracing that shows how long activities took and what ran, making it almost perfect for debugging."
"The initial setup is easy."
"When some jobs take a lot of time and fail midway, the solution’s retry feature automatically causes them to retry."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to manage and automate workflows without manual intervention efficiently."
"Temporal focus on developers rather than business users."
"The most valuable thing about Temporal is that we can create multiple and child workflows. We can segregate work as we want, which is good for work organization. It's also easy to maintain. We're trying to generate and fill PDF forms with custom data, including digital signatures. We call AWS and do all activities through Temporal, like calling and saving data in buckets. We do this because we have a lot of load, with multiple users requesting data. We have two types of users: admin and customer. The admin creates forms, and employees or customers fill them out. When admin gets a form, it's stored in Temporal."
"The tool is easy for a beginner to learn. The documentation covers activities, workflows, workers, servers, and more. While more examples could be beneficial, the existing resources are good enough to help you get started. There are also YouTube videos available that can provide additional context. The Slack community for Temporal is very active and helpful, similar to Stack Overflow, where you can find answers to a wide range of questions from basic to advanced levels. If you have a unique question, the community is responsive and provides knowledgeable support."
"What I like best about the tool is that it's easy to install, especially since it uses JavaScript. It's also easy to set up with Docker, and the documentation is easy to understand."
 

Cons

"BizTalk is in the past, Microsoft is not going to evolve it any further or add any new features."
"It's an on-premises system, requiring physical servers for deployment. This is different from Azure; you don't need any servers with Azure. If you have a subscription, you can do whatever you want. There are unit restrictions based on the environment (like non-production vs. production) in BizTalk. You need physical servers and databases. In Azure, those are not required – it's all in the cloud."
"BizTalk Server is an outdated legacy system that does not support messaging."
"BizTalk lacks native cloud support. BizTalk doesn't offer in-built support for cloud. We need to use third-party adapters to connect it to cloud services."
"The deployment could be simplified."
"It's a complex product because you have many degrees of freedom to connect different parts together. Whether it's sensible or not, is up to you, but the machine does allow it. But because of the vast degrees of freedom, it's complex."
"The product's deployment can be quicker"
"The product could be improved in monitoring, managing, and support functionalities."
"We previously faced issues with the solution's patch system."
"Retro compatibility needs improvement. Sometimes, when we make new changes to a workflow, it fails if it is not configured properly due to compatibility issues."
"Temporal lacks many resources, like YouTube videos, which users can use to learn or refer to if they get stuck with the solution."
"One area where I think Temporal could improve is its dashboard, particularly in event tracking. Currently, the dashboard doesn't show a time-based view of events, meaning it doesn't display when an event started or went through the retry process. If this feature could be added in a future release, it would significantly enhance monitoring capabilities. Other than that, Temporal's overall performance is quite impressive, and we're confident we can migrate to the Temporal workflow."
"While the tool can be a bit daunting initially, especially if you're not used to async programming models, it's generally a pleasure. There's always room for improvement, though. I've noticed some limitations with the .NET SDK regarding dynamic workflows, but this might have been improved in recent versions. Overall, I think Temporal could be more open about implementing features in a more—.NET-friendly way, especially in how you add workers and clients."
"Temporal doesn't have built-in data storage to store the state of the ongoing execution."
"There are areas where Temporal could improve. For instance, calling multiple microservices with Temporal introduces latency due to workflow registration and analytics overhead."
"Temporal images aren’t FIPS compliant, and we have to be FIPS compliant."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BizTalk Server is cheap. I would rate its pricing a two out of five."
"The cost will depend on the client's requirements."
"Based on the knowledge, it is relatively cheaper than Azure Identity Services and cloud services in general."
"BizTalk Server is not freeware. There's a significant licensing cost involved. Be sure you will actually utilize its features fully."
"It was not cheap, but it was affordable."
"The solution is expensive."
"Temporal is open-source and free to use, which is great. We didn't have to pay for any premium features."
"Temporal is a free, open-source tool."
"The savings weren't as big as we initially expected, but they were pretty great from a developer's perspective."
"The tool is open source under the MIT license, so there are no hidden fees. You can freely use everything on their GitHub and Docker images."
"It is worth the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
18%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BizTalk Server?
The tool's most valuable feature is its integration with the banks. Its messaging and routing capabilities are good.
What needs improvement with BizTalk Server?
BizTalk is deployed on-premise. Deployment methodologies are vast in the cloud area. Whereas, if we want to update even a single thing on BizTalk, we need to take the DLL, put it in the system, and...
What advice do you have for others considering BizTalk Server?
When I started my career with BizTalk, people told me the vendor would sunset BizTalk Server, but it didn't happen. Higher versions are still being released. The product will not face the sunset. A...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Temporal?
Temporal OSS is expensive in infrastructure, but it brings back the reliability that companies need.
What needs improvement with Temporal?
The actual user interface is still in its early stages. It’s very basic. Users don’t really have a complex permission model yet. Users don’t really have ways to automate things like, for example, p...
What is your primary use case for Temporal?
We [my company] use it to run a large workload. We have a set of security scans we want to perform, and we distribute them over a full day, that’s over 24 hours. We use it to orchestrate all the st...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Centrebet, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, QualCare, Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, DTEK, Allscripts, United BioSource, Hogg Robinson
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