What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Prefect Cloud is high-volume data processing. We have scripts which run on client machines and we capture details and files from them. We have to run some processing on that data. Along with that, we have a lot of flows, daily summaries, and roll-up tables. Everything gets done through Prefect Cloud.
Regarding my use case with Prefect Cloud, Prefect local is available as a self-hosting option. That helps a lot. You don't have to always go with Prefect Cloud. You can first experiment if it's something you want to work on. If you want to use Prefect, you cannot pay for it initially and just use the self-hosted version. If you're okay with it, you can go with Prefect Cloud or you can scale up Prefect self-hosted too.
What is most valuable?
Prefect Cloud's best features include visibility, logs, and priority workers. You can have different worker pools. You can configure which can integrate with many cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, and Azure. It's super easy to test and run locally too, so you don't have to always have something running.
Out of those features, I find myself relying on local testing the most, as we iterate really quickly.
Prefect Cloud has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to iterate over our workflow management system. It was pretty out of the box, so we could focus on business logic rather than building the framework. Since we are a startup, it helped us move really fast.
What needs improvement?
For improvements in Prefect Cloud, the UI could be better and it could have been made much easier to self-host. Don't get me wrong, it is really good, but there are times when I have to debug a lot and try to figure things out on my own. Prefect Cloud's Slack channel is really helpful. They have a bot which you can ask questions if there are any issues. Their community support is also pretty solid. Prefect Cloud could be made more reliable and more customizable in terms of UI and API. Customization is what I would say as a developer.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prefect Cloud for about eight to nine months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Prefect Cloud is stable. In my experience, Prefect Cloud has a really good uptime. There is no doubt about that.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scaling as my workload grows, scaling is a bit of a concern right now. It scales well enough, but there are definitely reliability issues which I think we faced. But that could also be part of us configuring it differently. We definitely found issues and bugs which we reported and it got fixed.
Regarding Prefect Cloud's scalability, there are a few hiccups and bugs which are there. They can definitely be scalability issues. But overall, it's good for a medium volume setup.
How are customer service and support?
I would describe customer support for Prefect Cloud as very good. I use the channel and they have a bot, so I can ask the bot. It does a very good job. If the bot is not able to answer, then their support team answers in the thread. Personally, I have someone there with whom I've grown to share a lot of bugs and there's a relationship built. Anytime I have issues, I just ping that person and they get back really quickly.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used a different solution and I found that Prefect Cloud seemed the best option for us.
How was the initial setup?
Integrating Prefect Cloud with my existing systems and tools was very easy. They have a really good Python wrapper which I could easily use to integrate any function. I wouldn't say it was that easy though. It definitely has its own style or flavor of Python to use. Apart from that, it's not a huge overhead to integrate.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows no licensing issues. Pricing is based on how much computing you use. Setup cost, I do think it's not just in dollars, but in terms of overhead. I think that could be lessened. There's a lot of mental and engineering cost involved to set it up. But using it and the pricing, once you set it up, it's pretty easy. It doesn't cost a lot.
What was our ROI?
As a startup, I've seen a return on investment as time is very important for us and this has saved us a lot of time. We didn't have to build our own workflow system. It worked as intended for us. A lot of engineering and timing costs were saved there. Since it was self-hostable, that was a very good feature.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows no licensing issues. Pricing is based on how much computing you use. Setup cost, I do think it's not just in dollars, but in terms of overhead. I think that could be lessened. There's a lot of mental and engineering cost involved to set it up. But using it and the pricing, once you set it up, it's pretty easy. It doesn't cost a lot.
What other advice do I have?
For customer support, I would rate it a ten on a scale of one to ten.
For Prefect Cloud overall, I would rate it an eight on a scale of one to ten. I chose an eight because of the points I've explained. It's really good, but there are a few points of improvement. It's not an immediate impact as soon as you start using it. It slowly builds up and once you get to know Prefect Cloud, there's an initial phase where you have to really spend a lot of time to understand it. Once that is done, you'll realize the benefit, but it's not a one-click solution.
My advice for others looking into using Prefect Cloud is that if you're a startup and you need to manage workflows or have monitoring needs of those workflows, Prefect Cloud or Prefect self-hosted is the best way to go. As you grow, you might want to create your own or get something else, but as a startup, Prefect Cloud will really help with workflow management. My overall rating for Prefect Cloud is eight out of ten.
