Argo Workflows orchestrates multi-step jobs on Kubernetes: data pipelines, CI/CD, ML training, batch processing, all defined as directed acyclic graphs in YAML.

Each step in your workflow runs as a container on your cluster. You get parallelism, retries, conditionals, loops, and artifact passing between steps. The web UI shows you the DAG visually with real-time status. It's a CNCF graduated project, which means serious production adoption.

Used by Intuit, Tesla, Google, and many others. Completely free. Apache 2.0 license. Akuity offers commercial support and Argo CD (related but separate) as a managed service, but Argo Workflows itself is free. Small teams already on Kubernetes who need workflow orchestration beyond simple CronJobs should look here. If you're NOT on Kubernetes, this isn't for you. The entire model assumes K8s.

The catch: you need Kubernetes. That's a hard prerequisite. And YAML workflow definitions get painful fast for complex pipelines. The learning curve combines Kubernetes complexity with workflow engine complexity. Not for the faint of heart.

### Free

Everything. Apache 2.0 license. CNCF graduated project.

### What You Get

- DAG and step-based workflow definitions - Parallel execution with fan-out/fan-in - Artifact passing between steps (S3, GCS, HDFS, etc.) - Retry and timeout policies - Cron workflows (scheduled execution) - Web UI with real-time DAG visualization - Workflow templates (reusable components) - REST API and CLI

### Commercial Support

- **Akuity**: Managed Argo platform (Argo CD focus, but includes Workflows expertise), pricing on request - **Codefresh**: GitOps platform built on Argo, from $0 (free tier) to custom enterprise pricing

### Infrastructure Cost

Argo Workflows runs on your Kubernetes cluster. The cost is whatever your K8s cluster costs. The Argo controller itself uses minimal resources (~256MB RAM).

Argo Workflows

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