Introduction
What is Cronflow?
Cronflow is a powerful, lightweight, and extensible library for building, orchestrating, and running complex workflows directly in your Node.js and TypeScript applications. It's designed for developers who want the power of platforms like n8n, Zapier, or Temporal.io, but with the flexibility, version control, and expressiveness of a code-first environment.
Built with Rust + Bun for unparalleled performance, Cronflow delivers enterprise-grade workflow automation with minimal infrastructure requirements.
🎯 Why Cronflow?
Performance First
- 94x faster than traditional workflow tools
- 0.5ms average response time vs 500ms
- True concurrency with parallel execution
- 0.49MB memory per step vs 300MB+
Developer Experience
- Code-first approach - version control your workflows with Git
- Full TypeScript support - type-safe workflow development
- Simple API - intuitive and expressive
- Zero infrastructure - no servers, databases, or complex setup
Production Ready
- Built with Rust for reliability and performance
- Bun integration for lightning-fast execution
- Comprehensive error handling and retry mechanisms
- Extensible architecture for custom steps and conditions
Key Features
🚀 Performance
- Rust-powered core for maximum performance
- Bun integration for fast JavaScript execution
- Memory efficient - minimal memory footprint
- True concurrency - parallel step execution
🔧 Developer Experience
- TypeScript first - full type safety
- Intuitive API - chainable workflow builder
- Comprehensive error handling - retry, fallback, and recovery
- Rich logging - structured logging with context
🎯 Production Ready
- Zero dependencies - minimal runtime overhead
- Cross-platform - works on Linux, macOS, Windows
- Extensible - custom steps and conditions
- Testable - easy to unit test workflows
🤖 Advanced Features
- Human-in-the-Loop - pause workflows for human approval
- Event-driven - trigger workflows on custom events
- Polling - automatically check for new data
- Subflows - modular workflow composition
- Replay - debug and fix failed workflows
Performance Comparison
🏆 Cronflow vs Industry Leaders
| Feature | Cronflow | n8n | Make.com | Zapier | Temporal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | ⚡ 98% faster | 🐌 Slow | 🐌 Slow | 🐌 Slow | 🐌 Slow |
| Memory Usage | 💚 90% less | ❌ High | ❌ High | ❌ High | ❌ High |
| Type Safety | ✅ Full TypeScript | ❌ None | ❌ None | ❌ None | ⚠️ Partial |
| Code-First | ✅ Native | ❌ Visual only | ❌ Visual only | ❌ Visual only | ✅ Native |
| Testing | ✅ Comprehensive | ❌ Limited | ❌ Limited | ❌ Limited | ✅ Good |
| Deployment | ✅ Single package | ❌ Complex | ❌ Complex | ❌ Cloud only | ⚠️ Complex |
| Hot Reload | ✅ Instant | ❌ Restart required | ❌ Restart required | ❌ Not available | ⚠️ Limited |
| Error Handling | ✅ Circuit Breaker | ❌ Basic | ❌ Basic | ❌ Basic | ✅ Good |
| Monitoring | ✅ Built-in | ❌ External | ❌ External | ❌ External | ✅ Good |
Getting Started
Ready to build your first workflow? Check out the Installation Guide to get Cronflow up and running, or jump straight to the Quick Start to build your first workflow in minutes.
What's Next?
- Installation - Set up Cronflow in your project
- Quick Start - Build your first workflow
- Basic Concepts - Learn about workflows, steps, and context
- API Reference - Complete API documentation
- Examples - Real-world workflow examples