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I've used Zapier a fair amount and I wrote an article about Airflow so I have a fairly good understanding of that too. I would never really consider them alter

I've used Zapier a fair amount and I wrote an article about Airflow so I have a fairly good understanding of that too. I would never really consider them alternatives though? To me Zapier is a low/no code tool that offers a bazillion integrations and Airflow is a workflow orchestration tool. So comparing to both of them confuses me and I guess choosing one would give you a more nieche audience but one that you can connect better to as well.

newcrobuzon 6y ago
This is a very good point. My current line of thinking is: A workflow is a workflow is a workflow. Titanoboa is built the way that pretty much everything it shuffles is data - and either it can be big (Airflow) or the steps can have side effects (iPaaS/Zapier). The "no code" is achievable since adding more predefined steps is not that hard (there's not that many at the moment though) - see for instance https://github.com/mikub/titanoboa/wiki/Getting-Started-with-GUI https://github.com/mikub/titanoboa/wiki/Getting-Started-with... - you dont code, you just fill in properties, so it is very straightforward, pretty much like Zappier. My aim in the iPaaS space is more at the enterprise level, where the predefined steps won't do anymore and you have to custom develop them anyway - so in that are I think Titanoboa shines since you really can rapidly prototype steps on the fly, a bit like Repl.it and Zapier together... I agree that it might be good to pick one audience, at this stage I am just experimenting if somehow I can market to both and don't mess up and confuse both groups.
- j45 6y ago
  Keep converging and building. I have been experimenting with combinations of huggin, camunda, airflow and others to try and achieve an integrated workflow/state/process management. There exists a gap in the enterprise space between all these tools.. and it has been further exacerbated by the disruption introduced to many industries by covid. There is a real opportunity for small and medium businesses to be able to access tooling that is beyond what a base line Zap, etc can accomplish. Would be happy to connect offline.
  - newcrobuzon 6y ago
    Thanks! Will reach out when the traffic subsides :) Or feel free to shoot me an email, my email address is on the web page.
lewisjoe 6y ago
Very true. We really should stop overloading the term Workflow in software. As of now these are the broad categories that abuse the term workflow. 1. State Machines For example in Jira a bug/ticket moves through different states to reach a final stage. This type of state-machines can be found in a lot of different softwares - most CMS/bug-trackers/CRMs where the entity is different (document/bug/lead). The motive of these systems who call themselves as workflow engines - is to provide a structure to an otherwise ad-hoc movement of entities so that a lead/manager is able to ensure a process and collect statistics. 2. Automations For example "apple workflow" app or Zapier or Zoho Flow. These softwares define a sequence of steps that are triggered when an event occurs in the system. The motive of these systems are to enable automation and integrations between different software components with zero code (thus, no-code). 3. Process Designers (Bad term but can't think of anything better at the moment) For example Airflow/Camunda. These systems are not necessarily low-code but they mostly deal with arranging individual components of code such that a process can be assembled as quickly as possible. These systems usually are accompanied by a visual designer like what Zapier has, but the intentions are mostly to ease out the process, than being a complete no-code tool to create automations. However, their marketing tries to sell themselves as no-code platform for business folks. The motive is not yet very clear to me but from my initial intuition they can be used to initiate some data-processing pipeline, I guess? If anybody can throw more clarity, please leave a reply. Now as you can see, much like how a "Process" can mean many things in many different context, the term "Workflow" can mean a lot depending on the context. Any software that calls itself the ultimate workflow solution is just a lie. It's like calling something an "ultimate process engine" - doesn't make sense.
- mfateev 6y ago
  Which bucket temporal.io and Azure Durable Functions that support `workflow as code` do fall into?
- Grimm1 6y ago
  "However, their marketing tries to sell themselves as no-code platform for business folks." Huh? I've never seen Airflow described as no code or tried to sell itself that way, in fact all the pipelines are written in python and you can do some really complex orchestration. I get you're not saying Airflow is no code but that the category you've put it in is typically low code or marketed as low code, but then I don't think Airflow belongs in that category or rather, and maybe more accurately, no/low code is not really a major defining quality of the bucket you're calling "Process Designers". I've also been calling them "Process Schedulers" because typically it involves translating a more manual, but well defined process into it's automated phase.
mrweasel 6y ago
There's also a problem with describing your product as "an alternative to". I don't know what Zapier and Airflow is, but now I want to find out, which pushes me towards the competition, rather than just explaining what your product does and have me view the competition as the alternative.

newcrobuzon 6y ago

This is a very good point. My current line of thinking is: A workflow is a workflow is a workflow. Titanoboa is built the way that pretty much everything it shuffles is data - and either it can be big (Airflow) or the steps can have side effects (iPaaS/Zapier). The "no code" is achievable since adding more predefined steps is not that hard (there's not that many at the moment though) - see for instance https://github.com/mikub/titanoboa/wiki/Getting-Started-with-GUI https://github.com/mikub/titanoboa/wiki/Getting-Started-with... - you dont code, you just fill in properties, so it is very straightforward, pretty much like Zappier. My aim in the iPaaS space is more at the enterprise level, where the predefined steps won't do anymore and you have to custom develop them anyway - so in that are I think Titanoboa shines since you really can rapidly prototype steps on the fly, a bit like Repl.it and Zapier together... I agree that it might be good to pick one audience, at this stage I am just experimenting if somehow I can market to both and don't mess up and confuse both groups.

j45 6y ago
Keep converging and building. I have been experimenting with combinations of huggin, camunda, airflow and others to try and achieve an integrated workflow/state/process management. There exists a gap in the enterprise space between all these tools.. and it has been further exacerbated by the disruption introduced to many industries by covid. There is a real opportunity for small and medium businesses to be able to access tooling that is beyond what a base line Zap, etc can accomplish. Would be happy to connect offline.
- newcrobuzon 6y ago
  Thanks! Will reach out when the traffic subsides :) Or feel free to shoot me an email, my email address is on the web page.

lewisjoe 6y ago

Very true. We really should stop overloading the term Workflow in software. As of now these are the broad categories that abuse the term workflow. 1. State Machines For example in Jira a bug/ticket moves through different states to reach a final stage. This type of state-machines can be found in a lot of different softwares - most CMS/bug-trackers/CRMs where the entity is different (document/bug/lead). The motive of these systems who call themselves as workflow engines - is to provide a structure to an otherwise ad-hoc movement of entities so that a lead/manager is able to ensure a process and collect statistics. 2. Automations For example "apple workflow" app or Zapier or Zoho Flow. These softwares define a sequence of steps that are triggered when an event occurs in the system. The motive of these systems are to enable automation and integrations between different software components with zero code (thus, no-code). 3. Process Designers (Bad term but can't think of anything better at the moment) For example Airflow/Camunda. These systems are not necessarily low-code but they mostly deal with arranging individual components of code such that a process can be assembled as quickly as possible. These systems usually are accompanied by a visual designer like what Zapier has, but the intentions are mostly to ease out the process, than being a complete no-code tool to create automations. However, their marketing tries to sell themselves as no-code platform for business folks. The motive is not yet very clear to me but from my initial intuition they can be used to initiate some data-processing pipeline, I guess? If anybody can throw more clarity, please leave a reply. Now as you can see, much like how a "Process" can mean many things in many different context, the term "Workflow" can mean a lot depending on the context. Any software that calls itself the ultimate workflow solution is just a lie. It's like calling something an "ultimate process engine" - doesn't make sense.

mfateev 6y ago
Which bucket temporal.io and Azure Durable Functions that support `workflow as code` do fall into?
Grimm1 6y ago
"However, their marketing tries to sell themselves as no-code platform for business folks." Huh? I've never seen Airflow described as no code or tried to sell itself that way, in fact all the pipelines are written in python and you can do some really complex orchestration. I get you're not saying Airflow is no code but that the category you've put it in is typically low code or marketed as low code, but then I don't think Airflow belongs in that category or rather, and maybe more accurately, no/low code is not really a major defining quality of the bucket you're calling "Process Designers". I've also been calling them "Process Schedulers" because typically it involves translating a more manual, but well defined process into it's automated phase.

mrweasel 6y ago

There's also a problem with describing your product as "an alternative to". I don't know what Zapier and Airflow is, but now I want to find out, which pushes me towards the competition, rather than just explaining what your product does and have me view the competition as the alternative.