Syntherion vs Tines
Syntherion is the AI Department in a Box where teams build, ship, and govern agentic AI visually, conversationally, or with code. Here is how Syntherion compares to Tines on platform architecture, AI capabilities, integrations, pricing, security, and support. Every fact below is sourced and dated, last verified .
Syntherion is a platform for building, deploying, and managing AI agents. This page compares Syntherion to Tines across platform architecture, AI capabilities, integrations, pricing, security and compliance, observability, and support, using sourced, dated facts for buyers evaluating both platforms.
What is Syntherion?
Syntherion is the AI Department in a Box where teams build, ship, and govern agentic AI, connecting 1,000+ integrations and every major LLM to automate real work visually, conversationally, or with code.
What is Tines?
Tines is a proprietary workflow automation platform, available cloud-hosted or self-hosted, originally built for security operations. Teams build event-driven "Stories" via a visual no/low-code canvas, natural language, or the API. It recently added native AI agent, MCP, and copilot capabilities.
Syntherion vs Tines: feature-by-feature comparison
CompareSyntherion vs Tines
Syntherion
Tines
Platform
Builder type
Syntherion
Visual canvas, chat, or codeVisual drag-and-drop canvas, natural-language (Chat), or code (API/SDK)
Tines
Visual Stories canvas plus Workbench AI copilotVisual event-driven builder ('Stories') plus 'Workbench,' a natural-language AI copilot for building and editing stories. Workbench absorbed the former 'Story Copilot,' which was renamed 'Workbench for Storyboard' on June 2, 2026.
Learning curve
Syntherion
Low, plus natural-language Chat for non-technical usersLow for visual building; natural-language Chat surface (with a workflow-scoped Copilot) for non-technical builders. Chat lets users describe a workflow in plain language and have Syntherion scaffold or edit it; the visual canvas requires no code to connect blocks.
Tines
Moderate. API-centric, more setup than typical no-codeModerate. Tines favors direct HTTP/API actions over pre-built app connectors, giving flexibility but requiring more configuration knowledge than typical no-code tools
Self-hosting
Deployment options
Syntherion
Cloud-hosted or self-hosted, no mid-tier VPC optionCloud-hosted (managed, multi-tenant SaaS) or self-hosted (Docker/Kubernetes). No documented managed single-tenant/VPC hosting tier in between. The Enterprise plan's only hosting-related row in the pricing comparison table is a boolean "Self Hosting" flag; there is no dedicated-instance/VPC offering.
Tines
Cloud-hosted or self-hosted (Business/Enterprise)Tines-hosted cloud, and self-hosted (customer's own data center/cloud) for Business/Enterprise
Templates
Syntherion
Tines
Large public library across security, IT, HRLarge public "Tines library" of pre-built Story and Action templates across security, IT, HR, and other use cases
License
Syntherion
Apache 2.0Apache License 2.0
Tines
Proprietary SaaS; free Community Edition tierProprietary, closed-source commercial SaaS product. Offers a permanently free "Community Edition" tier, not an open-source license
Environment promotion
Syntherion
Yes: fork a whole workspace into a dev/qa/prod-style child, diff it, and promote or roll back changes in either direction. Credential and env-var remapping is required before every promote, so secrets are never silently copied across environments. Gated to Enterprise plan on hosted Syntherion, or a FORKING_ENABLED flag on self-hosted deployments.
Version control
Syntherion
Deployment rollback plus Copilot edit diff/revertDeployed-version history with rollback for every workflow; server-persisted checkpoint/revert and visual diff (accept/reject) specifically for Copilot AI edits. Manual drag-and-drop undo/redo is client-side/localStorage only (capped at 100 ops, 5 stacks), not server-synced across devices. Deployment history does not include an arbitrary version-to-version diff tool, and knowledge base documents have no version history.
Tines
Per-Story auto-save, diff preview, one-click rollbackPer-Story version history with auto-saved versions (every 5 min of inactivity or manual snapshot), diff preview between versions, and one-click restore. Scoped to a single Story, not a whole-project branch model
Realtime collaboration
Syntherion
Tines
No: Tines has no live, concurrent multi-user editing of the same Story canvas (shared cursors, selections, synced changes in real time). Its collaboration model centers on Cases (async, ticket-like collaboration on top of Records) and Send to Story (passing execution between stories), not simultaneous canvas co-editing.. Story editing follows a draft/versioning model rather than Figma/Google-Docs-style live co-editing. No evidence found of a lock-based alternative.
Native file storage
Syntherion
Yes: a native Files area with folder hierarchy, link-based sharing (public, password, email OTP, or SSO auth), and a workspace-level Recently Deleted view covering workflows, tables, knowledge bases, files, and folders. Admins can restrict which share-auth modes (public/password/email/SSO) a permission group is allowed to use.
Tines
No: Tines has no native, standalone file storage system with folder hierarchy, link-based sharing with auth options, or deleted-item recovery. File handling is per-feature: any action/tool can return a file to a Workbench user, and Pages can display file-related content, but there is no dedicated file-storage product.. Workbench file returns are scoped to a single user's chat session, not a shared workspace file store with folders/trash.
Native data tables
Syntherion
Yes: a native spreadsheet-like Tables feature (typed columns, not an external DB connector) with full keyboard support (arrow keys, Tab, copy-paste bulk load, Cmd/Ctrl+Z undo) and atomic per-row writes from multiple workflows at once. No public fixed row-limit figure is documented (guidance says paginate reads past ~100k rows); a workflow can also be wired to run per row via a "workflow column."
Tines
No: Records and Cases is a structured-data feature where record types define fields (text, number, boolean, timestamp, fixed values). Its table view lets you rearrange or filter columns and export to CSV, but lacks spreadsheet-style keyboard navigation (arrow keys, copy-paste across cells) and the row/column limits of a true spreadsheet grid.. The closest analog, Records/Cases, is a data table by record type with customizable row counts (e.g. up to 50 rows shown), not a general-purpose spreadsheet.
Rich-text document editor
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines Pages has a rich text page element (renamed from 'paragraph') that supports Markdown formatting, and Markdown is also supported inline within Pages table cells.. Markdown-based rich text, not a full WYSIWYG document editor, but a genuine inline formatted-text authoring feature within the platform.
Sub-workflows (composition)
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines' Send to Story action lets a parent Story call a separate sub-Story as a reusable step. The sub-story is configured with a webhook input action and a message-only output action; the parent's Send to Story action passes a payload, execution blocks until the sub-story finishes, and the sub-story's output event is returned to the calling action.. This is synchronous parent-waits-for-child composition with data passed in and returned, distinct from firing an independent story asynchronously via a plain webhook.
Custom blocks (org-wide reuse)
Syntherion
Yes: a user with admin access on a workflow's workspace can publish its deployed version as a named, iconed custom block that appears in the block toolbar for the whole organization. Inputs are read live from the source workflow's Start block; the publisher picks which outputs to expose. The block always runs the source workflow's latest deployed version, and its internal steps and intermediate values are never exposed to consumers. Enterprise-gated on Syntherion Cloud; self-hosted deployments can opt in via a feature flag. Distinct from the Workflow (sub-workflow) block, which composes a workflow the same author controls, and from custom code/tool blocks, which run inline code rather than a full deployed workflow.
Tines
No: Tines has no feature that lets a builder publish a Story as its own named, iconed entry in a shared block toolbar. The closest features are (1) Private/Public Templates, which are scoped to configuring a single action (e.g. a pre-built HTTP Request) with parameterized 'Action inputs' that hide that one action's underlying config, and can be shared team-wide or org-wide; and (2) Send to Story, one generic action type used to call any sub-story via a picker: the caller selects the target sub-story and enters its defined parameters, without needing view/edit access to the sub-story's own actions. Neither meets the bar: templates wrap one action, not a multi-step Story, and Send to Story is a single generic action a builder configures per call site, not a distinct block appearing in the toolbar for each published Story.. Public docs describe template edits as letting a builder 'optionally replace storyboard actions that use the template in one step,' confirming propagation is a manual, opt-in action rather than always running the source's latest deployed version automatically. Send to Story does genuinely hide a sub-story's internals from a caller without permission on it ('will not be able to view or modify the contents of the story unless you have the relevant permissions'), but it is one generic action configured with a target-story picker each time, not a separate published block per Story.
Pricing
Pricing model
Syntherion
Credit-based billing, BYOK exempt from capsCredit-based usage billing (Stripe), with bring-your-own-key exemption from metered caps
Tines
Tiered platform fee; Business/Enterprise are quote-onlyTiered platform-fee model (Community / Business / Enterprise) with add-ons to expand capacity (flows, teams, apps, AI credits, tunnels). No self-serve published dollar pricing; Business/Enterprise are "Contact Tines"
Entry paid plan
Syntherion
Pro plan at $25/user/monthPro: $25 per user/month
Tines
Business Edition, price on requestBusiness Edition. No public price; starts around 30 flows / 1 team / 100 users / 1.5M daily events per the pricing explainer, with self-hosting available
Free tier
Syntherion
Tines
Community Edition free forever, limited usageCommunity Edition is free forever: 1 builder, 3 flows/apps, 1 team, 25,000 monthly events, 50 AI runtime credits/month, unlimited viewers, SSO included
Bring your own key
Syntherion
Security & compliance
Data residency
Syntherion
Full control via self-hosting; Cloud region toggle is global, not per-customerFull data control via self-hosting (Docker/Kubernetes); data never leaves customer infrastructure when self-hosted. On Syntherion Cloud, async job execution has an internal US/EU region toggle, but it is deployment-wide, not a customer-selectable per-workspace residency option
Tines
Cloud or self-hosted for residency, retention controlsCloud-hosted (Tines-managed, AWS-based) or self-hosted in the customer's own data center/region for data-residency requirements; granular data retention controls provided
Role-based access control
Syntherion
Yes: admin/write/read workspace permissions, org-level admin/member roles, plus Enterprise-tier permission groups that allow/deny-list specific models, tools, and integrations per group on top of those base roles. See modelAndToolGovernance and credentialGovernance for the finer-grained permission-groups layer.
Audit logging
Syntherion
Additional compliance
Syntherion
SOC2SOC2. Self-hosting is the primary lever Syntherion offers for data-residency-sensitive compliance needs beyond SOC2, rather than additional certifications.
Tines
ISO 27001, 27701, and 42001 certifiedISO 27001, ISO 27701, and ISO 42001 (AI management systems), announced April 14, 2026 as the "ISO trifecta." No HIPAA, PCI, or FedRAMP certification; Tines says self-hosting can help meet regimes like FedRAMP, not that it holds FedRAMP certification
Model & tool governance
Syntherion
Yes: enterprise "permission groups" let an admin allow-list/deny-list specific LLM providers and models, and separately deny specific tools/integrations (or disable all MCP or custom tools) per group, layered on top of workspace admin/write/read roles. This does not control whether an LLM provider retains prompts. Syntherion offers no "zero data retention" mode or governed AI gateway. A separate, Enterprise-gated feature lets orgs set a log-retention window and redact PII, but that only controls how long Syntherion itself keeps execution logs.
Tines
Not publicly documentedUnknown. Not publicly documented.
Credential governance
Syntherion
Yes: shared credentials (connected accounts, service accounts, workspace secrets) are their own nested permission level (Member/Admin) below organization and workspace roles, and enterprise permission groups can further allow-list specific integrations and restrict which file-share auth modes (public/password/email/SSO) a group may use. A user's personal environment variables/secrets are never shared or inherited by anyone, including org owners/admins.
Tines
Yes: credentials are scoped to Teams by default, and Team Admin/Editor roles control which teams a credential can be shared with. Sensitive settings like Access (where a credential can be used) and Domains (allowed outbound hosts/paths) are restricted to Team Admins or the credential's creator. Custom roles can extend the default viewer/builder/manager roles for finer-grained control.. Governance operates at the team/role level with per-credential Access and Domain restrictions, not a credential-to-role assignment matrix like Syntherion's, but reaches a similar outcome.
Single sign-on (SSO)
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: SSO via SAML or OIDC, configured at the tenant Authentication settings, with certified integrations for Okta, Duo, and CyberArk among others. Docs describe validating the IdP connection and redirecting users to the identity provider on sign-in.. Public docs describe the IdP handshake and setup steps but do not explicitly detail 'organization auto-provisioning on first login' (JIT provisioning) as a named capability.
Vetted first-party integrations
Syntherion
Yes: every one of Syntherion's 266 blocks is first-party authored and code-reviewed through the standard pull-request process in the main Syntherion repository; there is no public marketplace where an arbitrary third party can publish and have other users install executable tool code without going through Syntherion's own review. Custom code steps run inside Syntherion's own isolated-vm sandbox rather than as an installable third-party skill package, so the supply-chain trust boundary is Syntherion's codebase review, not an open registry.
Tines
Yes: Tines' executable actions (HTTP Request, webhooks, email, Send to Story, AI Agent, etc.) are a fixed, first-party set built and maintained by Tines, not a plugin/node marketplace. Third-party integrations go through the generic HTTP Request action against that tool's API, or by importing a pre-built 'Story' (a workflow template/JSON config, not installable code) from the community Story Library. No mechanism lets a third party publish executable custom actions/nodes that other tenants install.. The public Story Library has a 'Community selection' of user-submitted Story templates alongside Tines-authored ones, but these are shareable workflow configurations built from the same fixed first-party action set, not third-party executable plugins with their own code/dependencies (unlike n8n community nodes or a skill/plugin registry). No public vetting process for community Story submissions is documented, and no public security incident involving Tines' Story Library or action set was found.
PII redaction
Syntherion
Tines
Unknown: no documented PII redactionUnknown: no documented built-in detection or redaction of PII (emails, SSNs, etc.) in workflow content or retained logs. Tines markets credential/secret protection and access controls, but not a dedicated PII-scanning/redaction capability.
Custom data retention
Syntherion
Tines
No: audit logs have a fixed two-year retention period, with no org-configurable retention window for logs or soft-deleted resources. Self-hosted deployments expose configurable event/rate limits via environment variables, but not data retention windows.. Org can extend retention indirectly by exporting audit logs to their own S3 bucket, but the in-product retention period itself is not shown as configurable.
White-labeling
Syntherion
Tines
No: branding customization is scoped to Pages (custom logo, background/action colors, light/dark mode, saved Page themes), not the whole workspace or product UI. No evidence of full white-labeling (removing the Tines name/logo tenant-wide) was found.. Page themes let you brand individual deployed pages differently per audience, which is narrower than workspace-wide white-labeling.
AI capabilities
Multi-LLM support
Syntherion
21 providers plus dynamic-resolution aggregators (OpenRouter, LiteLLM, etc.)21 provider integrations (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google/Gemini, Azure OpenAI, Azure Anthropic, Groq, Cerebras, Mistral, xAI, Bedrock, Vertex, Ollama, OpenRouter, and more), with OpenRouter, LiteLLM, vLLM, and Ollama resolving models dynamically at runtime rather than from a fixed list, so effective model reach extends well beyond the 21 named providers. apps/sim/providers/models.ts defines 21 provider entries.
Agent reasoning blocks
Syntherion
Natural-language building
Syntherion
Tines
Workbench assistant builds and edits Stories from chatStory Copilot and Workbench are now one product. Story Copilot was rebranded 'Workbench for Storyboard' on June 2, 2026, and the same Workbench assistant covers both general chat and in-story building/editing.
Knowledge base / RAG
Syntherion
Yes: hybrid vector (pgvector) plus full-text (tsvector) search knowledge base, 11 supported file formats (csv, doc, docx, html, json, md, pdf, pptx, txt, xlsx, yaml), configurable chunking, plus 51 connectors that continuously sync external sources (Google Drive, Confluence, Slack, Gmail, GitHub, HubSpot, Linear, Jira, and more) into the knowledge base rather than a one-shot upload
Tines
Connects to Notion, Glean, Confluence for contextSupports connecting to external knowledge sources (e.g. Notion, Glean, Confluence) for enterprise knowledge/RAG-style context in workflows, rather than a built-in vector database product
MCP support
Syntherion
Evaluation & guardrails
Syntherion
LLM-judge Evaluator plus Guardrails validation blockEvaluator block (LLM-judge scoring against user-defined named metrics) and Guardrails block (JSON validity, regex, RAG/hallucination scoring, PII detection/masking). These are per-call scoring/validation primitives, not a batch golden-dataset eval-suite runner or A/B prompt-testing harness.
Tines
Governance controls, no dedicated eval/guardrail productGovernance-oriented controls (policy-aligned MCP access, approvals, oversight), not a dedicated LLM-output evaluation/testing framework. No eval/guardrail product (output scoring, red-teaming) is documented
Human-in-the-loop
Syntherion
Tines
"Pages" collect mid-run input from people"Pages" let a running Story present a web form to a person for input mid-run, used for requester/approver flows. Exact pause/resume and notification mechanics are not publicly documented.
Generative media
Syntherion
Dynamic tool use
Syntherion
No: an Agent block calls tools the workflow author explicitly added to it at build time, rather than browsing and picking from a broader pool (e.g. an entire MCP server catalog) at inference time. Runtime MCP "discovery" exists to resolve/refresh the schema of an already-configured tool. The model does not browse or choose from the server's full tool list.
Tines
Not publicly documentedUnknown. Not publicly documented.
Automatic model fallback
Syntherion
No: a failed or rate-limited LLM call is retried using Syntherion's own hosted API keys for the same model, rather than automatically switching to a different model or provider. A "fallback" comment in the provider layer refers to rotating among Syntherion's own hosted API keys for the same model, not switching models.
Tines
Not publicly documentedUnknown. Not publicly documented.
Agent skills
Syntherion
Yes: named, reusable "Agent Skills" (built on the open Agent Skills / SKILL.md format) that agents load on demand via progressive disclosure, editable in-app or imported from a SKILL.md file or GitHub URL. Only the skill name and description sit in the agent's system prompt (~50-100 tokens each); the full instructions load into context only when the agent calls load_skill.
Tines
Yes: Tines Workbench supports Agent Skills, an open standard for packaging specialized knowledge or workflows as a SKILL.md file (name, description, instructions) that the AI loads on demand. Skills are created and managed in a team's Skills section alongside credentials and templates, are team-scoped, and toggle per preset for reuse across the team.. Distinct from Presets (which bundle templates/stories/instructions); Skills specifically are reusable named knowledge snippets loaded on demand.
Native chat deployment
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines' AI Agent action supports a Chat mode that can be deployed as a public-facing page with an 'Anyone with the link' access option, requiring no Tines login for external users; it supports a configurable URL, theming, an initial message, and idle timeout.. This is a deployable chat surface built on the AI Agent action rather than a separate 'Chat' module, but it meets the bar of a publicly deployable conversational surface.
Parallel execution
Syntherion
Yes: a native Parallel block fans a run out into concurrent branches (fixed count or one per list item) and joins their results back into the workflow automatically. Contained blocks run concurrently instead of sequentially, either a fixed number of times or once per item in a list/collection, and each branch's output aggregates for downstream blocks.
Tines
Yes: Tines supports native fan-out/fan-in via its Explode and Implode actions. Explode splits an array into individual events that flow through the rest of the story concurrently while sharing the same story run GUID; Implode recombines those parallel branches back into a single event using that shared GUID plus an item count.. Explode/Implode is Tines’ dedicated split-and-rejoin mechanism, distinct from a single sequential loop over an array.
Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol
Syntherion
Tines
No documented support. Tines' AI Agent action integrates with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for connecting to remote tool servers, but no Tines documentation, changelog, or help center article describes support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol or an Agent Card-based peer-to-peer agent discovery mechanism.. Tines documents MCP tool-calling explicitly. A2A is a distinct, newer standard for agent-to-agent (not agent-to-tool) communication and isn’t mentioned anywhere in Tines’ public docs.
Loop / iteration block
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines actions (including Event Transform in message-only mode and Send to Story) support a Loop attribute that points at a list or object field on the incoming event and invokes the action once per element, exposing a LOOP object for the current item on each pass. This is a per-action for-each attribute rather than a visual loop container block, and runs one item at a time rather than concurrently, distinct from the Explode/Implode parallel fan-out mechanism.. Tines caps a single loop at fewer than 20,000 elements. The dedicated concurrent-fan-out counterpart is Explode/Implode, documented separately as parallelExecution.
Integrations
Integrations
Syntherion
1,000+ integrations (266 blocks, ~3,900 tool actions)1,000+ integrations counting individual API actions, built from 266 first-party blocks and roughly 3,900 underlying tool actions. Syntherion's landing page cites the "1,000+ integrations" figure; the block/tool-action counts are the same integration surface measured at a different level of granularity.
Tines
API-centric; 1000s of preconfigured Action templatesTines does not market a fixed integration count. It is deliberately API-centric (the "HTTP Request" action can call any API) while also offering "1000s of preconfigured Action templates" for tools like Jira, Slack, and CrowdStrike
Trigger types
Syntherion
Webhook, cron, chat, REST API, 61 app triggers, plus a diff-aware Tables triggerWebhook, schedule/cron, chat, REST API, and event-based triggers for 61 apps (Slack, Gmail, GitHub, Stripe, etc.), plus a native row-level trigger on Syntherion Tables that fires on insert/update with an optional column watch-list and emits a before/after diff
Tines
Webhook, schedule, email, and Send-to-StoryWebhook actions (unique inbound URL), scheduled/interval runs, Receive Email (IMAP or generated address), and Send-to-Story (synchronous inbound API call)
Custom code steps
API publishing
Syntherion
Yes: a public REST API (mostly under /api/, with /api/v1 reserved for logs and audit-log endpoints) supporting API-triggered workflow execution and deployment rollback. The API reference does not document SSE streaming, a resumable event buffer, a dedicated API-trigger block, or a chat-deployment surface as part of the REST API itself.
SDKs & extensibility
Syntherion
Official Python and TypeScript SDKs, plus MCP, code block, and A2A protocolOfficial client SDKs exist for Python (simstudio-sdk, pip install simstudio-sdk) and TypeScript/JavaScript (simstudio-ts-sdk, npm install simstudio-ts-sdk), both wrapping the REST API (x-api-key header) with methods like execute_workflow / executeWorkflow, retry-with-backoff, and usage-limit lookups. Extensibility is further extended by MCP (client + server), a sandboxed code-execution block (JS/Python), custom tools, and an Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol block for external agent interop
Tines
Full REST API; no client SDK or marketplaceFull REST API (https://<tenant>/api/v1/...) covering Stories, Actions, Cases, audit logs, and more, but no dedicated client SDK or third-party integration marketplace. Extensibility runs through the generic HTTP Request action rather than an SDK/plugin marketplace
Publish as MCP server
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines lets you build an MCP server action directly on the storyboard, turning a Story into a callable MCP endpoint for external AI clients (e.g. Claude Desktop). The MCP server action configures which Tools (Public Templates, Private Templates, Send to Story) are exposed, supports HTTP Authorization header or URL-based secret auth, and the build panel provides ready-to-copy configuration for popular MCP clients.. Confirms the prior signal: any Story can be exposed as an MCP endpoint with configurable access/auth, the reverse direction of ordinary MCP client consumption.
Observability & durability
Tracing & observability
Syntherion
Yes: execution logs include a per-block/per-span trace view (duration, cost, token counts, and latency stats like TTFT/TPS) with expandable nested iteration groups, plus a "View Snapshot" frozen copy of the workflow structure and block states at run time for debugging. This trace view is built directly into Syntherion rather than a raw export browsable in an external tool like Jaeger, and does not expose aggregate latency-percentile charts (p50/p95/p99). The run snapshot serves as a log-detail/debugging artifact rather than a resumable mid-run checkpoint.
Tines
Per-run GUID trace; no built-in OpenTelemetry dashboardsEach workflow run ("Story run") gets a unique ID and a full, action-by-action event chain viewable in the UI or API. A Tenant Health dashboard (self-hosted) and Story/Action status views surface errors, run volume, and worker capacity, but this isn't OpenTelemetry-style distributed tracing by default; Tines' own documentation includes an official guide showing customers how to wire up their own OpenTelemetry dashboard
Durability & retries
Syntherion
Tool-call retries (up to 10x); single-attempt job orchestrationIndividual tool/API calls have configurable exponential-backoff retry (up to 10 attempts). The background job-orchestration layer itself retries only once by design. Durability instead comes from consecutive-failure tracking on schedules and the human-in-the-loop snapshot pause/resume mechanism. Syntherion does not offer guaranteed-once-only block execution, a failed-run holding queue for manual recovery, or a "replay a past execution with its original inputs" feature. The per-execution debugging snapshot serves as a log-detail artifact rather than a resumable mid-run checkpoint.
Tines
Configurable HTTP retries; no confirmed execution replayHTTP Request actions support configurable automatic retries with "retry on status" behavior, notifying only if the final retry fails. Story version history lets you restore a prior configuration, but no explicit feature to replay a past execution with its original captured inputs is confirmed
Failure alerting
Syntherion
Data drains
Syntherion
Yes: Enterprise orgs can continuously export workflow logs, job logs, or audit logs on a schedule to a customer-owned S3 bucket, GCS bucket, Azure Blob container, BigQuery table, Snowflake table, Datadog logs intake, or an HTTPS webhook. Each drain exports exactly one data source; multiple drains are created to export multiple sources. Viewing drain config/run history is restricted to org owners/admins.
Tines
No: Tines documents scheduled export of audit logs to Amazon S3 every 15 minutes, but no general-purpose, continuous data-drain feature for execution/workflow data to destinations like BigQuery, Datadog, or generic webhooks.. The audit-log-to-S3 export is the only continuous export destination found; broader execution-data drains are not documented.
Async execution
Syntherion
Yes: a workflow can be triggered in fire-and-forget async mode, returning HTTP 202 with a job ID immediately, then polled via a dedicated jobs endpoint through queued/processing/completed/failed states. Async jobs are tracked via polling the job endpoint rather than a completion webhook/callback option.
Tines
Yes: Tines supports asynchronous execution for Workflows as APIs. Triggering a story via an API request runs it in the background. If an Exit Action produces an event within 30 seconds, the response returns that data immediately. If it takes longer, the API returns an HTTP 504 with a response_url (also given in the X-Tines-Response-Location header) that can be polled later to fetch the eventual result, while the story keeps running regardless of the timeout.. The 30-second window only affects whether the HTTP response can return data immediately; the underlying story execution is not bound by it and continues in the background.
Execution limits
Syntherion
5-50 min sync; async defaults to 90 min, Enterprise up to 7 daysPlan-gated: synchronous API calls time out at 5 minutes on the free plan and 50 minutes on paid plans; async calls default to 90 minutes, while Enterprise policy can be configured up to 7 days; concurrency ranges from 10 to 1,000 executions per billing account depending on plan. An async API request may set a shorter server-side timeout but cannot exceed its account policy. Concurrency limits are published in the platform cost docs, and Enterprise limits are customizable. Request bodies are separately capped at 10 MB.
Tines
30s per-action timeouts; concurrency capped, unpublished numberTines publishes per-action timeout figures rather than one global run timeout: HTTP Request and AI Agent (LLM) actions default to a 30-second timeout, Run Script actions default to 10 seconds with a 110-second maximum, and MCP server tool responses cannot exceed 30 seconds before the client sees a timeout error. For Workflows as APIs, an Exit Action must emit an event within 30 seconds of the API request or the call returns a 504 Gateway Timeout (story execution continues regardless). Tines also caps the number of simultaneous API requests to a story; when exceeded it returns HTTP 201 Created instead of 200, signaled via the X-Tines-Status and X-Tines-Limit-Reached headers, without publishing an exact numeric concurrency ceiling.. No single 'max execution time per run' number is published; limits are per action-type. The exact numeric concurrency ceiling for simultaneous story API requests isn't disclosed in public docs, only that exceeding it changes the response status code.
Partial-failure handling
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines lets you connect a dedicated failure path from an action, so any action that errors emits its event down that path to a separate error-handling action instead of halting the whole story. This is configured via the action's context menu ('set failure path') and pairs with retry logic (e.g. HTTP Request actions retry on configured status codes, up to 25 retries with exponential backoff plus jitter) and an emit_failure_event option that fires once retries are exhausted, so downstream actions can react while the rest of the run proceeds.. Historically a failed HTTP Request action after exhausted retries would stop the story; Tines added error-event emission plus explicit 'failure path' routing so the rest of the story is not forced to halt.
Unattended execution
Syntherion
Yes: scheduled, webhook, and chat-triggered runs execute as background jobs on trigger.dev workers, entirely on Syntherion's servers. No client device needs to be open, awake, or connected for a run to fire or complete; closing the browser tab or shutting down a laptop has no effect on a scheduled or triggered workflow.
Tines
Yes: standard Stories (webhook, scheduled HTTP Request actions, Receive Email) run entirely server-side on Tines infrastructure, cloud-hosted or self-hosted, with no dependency on a browser tab or desktop client staying open. The one documented exception is a Story explicitly set to 'Workbench' mode, which can only be invoked interactively through Workbench chat and will not fire on its own schedule or accept external webhook events unless switched to a standard or 'Workbench and Send to Story' mode.. Workbench-only stories are intentionally excluded from license story limits precisely because they cannot run autonomously, confirming that autonomous (non-Workbench) stories are the default, unattended execution model.
Support
Support channels
Syntherion
Community support plus Enterprise 'Dedicated Support'Community (open source, GitHub) plus an unquantified "Dedicated Support" flag on the Enterprise plan. Enterprise and pricing pages do not include CSM, onboarding/enablement, or professional-services details beyond a plan-comparison-table "Dedicated Support" flag.
Tines
Dedicated support and training for Business/Enterprise"Dedicated support and training" for Business/Enterprise plans, per the pricing page; specific mechanisms (named CSM/CSE role, SLA terms) are not publicly itemized. The pricing page lists "Dedicated support and training" as a Business/Enterprise inclusion but does not name a specific role (e.g. Customer Success Manager/Engineer) or publish SLA terms.
SLA
Syntherion
Tines
Not publicly disclosedUnknown
Community
Syntherion
100,000+ buildersOver 100,000 builders use Syntherion
Tines
Public library, university/bootcamp, community SlackPublic "Tines Library" of shared Story/Action templates, a "Tines University"/bootcamp learning program, and a community Slack referenced in documentation
Academy / training
Syntherion
Tines
Yes: Tines offers a structured learning program, Tines University, with free foundational courses (about 30 minutes each), instructor-led and self-paced Bootcamps (fundamentals and advanced), and two certification tiers (Core and Advanced) that builders can share on LinkedIn.. Available free even on Community Edition; Advanced certification is hands-on labs, roughly 3 hours.
Syntherion standout features
AI Copilot / Chat agent-building surface
Chat builds and manages work across the workspace; in-editor Copilot edits a single workflow.
A workspace-wide natural-language surface (Chat) that can build workflows, manage data, and take actions across integrations, plus an in-editor Copilot scoped to building and editing a single workflow directly.Hybrid semantic + keyword knowledge base
Combines vector and full-text search with configurable chunking across 11 file formats.
Built-in RAG with pgvector embeddings and a generated tsvector column for combined vector + full-text search, plus a token-based chunker with configurable chunk size/overlap and 11 supported file formats (csv, doc, docx, html, json, md, pdf, pptx, txt, xlsx, yaml).Native MCP client and server
Call external MCP servers as tools, or expose Syntherion workflows as an MCP server.
A dedicated MCP block lets any workflow call external MCP servers as a tool, and a serve/workflow-servers API surface lets Syntherion expose its own workflows as MCP servers.Fork a workspace into dev, qa, and prod environments
Fork, diff, and promote environments with mandatory credential remapping.
Fork a whole workspace into a dev/qa/prod-style child environment, preview a diff, and promote changes bidirectionally. Credential and env-var remapping is required on every promote, so secrets never cross environments silently.Human-in-the-loop approvals with durable resume
Pause a run for human approval and resume later via a durable snapshot link.
A dedicated block pauses a run and waits for a human-submitted approval form, backed by persisted execution snapshots so the run can resume later via a link, even after a server restart.Self-hostable under Apache 2.0
Fully open source with Docker Compose and Helm deployment options.
Fully open source (Apache 2.0), with Docker Compose files and a Helm chart for Kubernetes deployment, alongside a managed cloud-hosted option.Live multiplayer canvas editing
Real-time cursors, selections, and synced edits on the same canvas.
Real-time cursors, selection broadcasting, and synced concurrent edits over a dedicated realtime backend, so a team can build the same workflow together at the same time.Documented Tines limitations
No public pricing above the free tier
Business and Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales.
Business and Enterprise plans have no published dollar pricing. Buyers must contact sales to get a quote, making self-serve cost comparison impossible.No cross-environment (dev/qa/prod) promotion model
No dev/qa/prod promotion model, only in-place change approval.
Version control is scoped to a single Story (auto-saved versions, diff, restore), not a fork/branch model for promoting a whole project between environments. The closest analog is in-place "Change Control" approval gating on edits.No documented built-in generative media blocks
No built-in image, video, or speech generation blocks.
Public docs show text-oriented AI features (AI Action, Agents, Workbench) via LLM providers, but no dedicated image, video, or text-to-speech/speech-to-text generation blocks. Those calls would need to go through the generic HTTP Request action against a third-party API.Not open source
Closed-source SaaS with a limited free tier, not an open-source license.
Tines is a closed-source commercial SaaS/self-hosted product; the free "Community Edition" is a limited product tier (1 builder, 3 flows, 25,000 monthly events), not an open-source license.Bottom line
Choose Syntherion if you need an AI Department in a Box: a domain-agnostic harness to build agentic AI in the Factory, drop into code when templates fail, ship to exact teams in one action through the Distribution Layer, and govern everything from a Control Tower, with evaluation gates and dual sign-off enforced by the platform, not left to policy.
Choose Tines if you specifically need ISO 42001 AI-governance certification: Tines announced the "ISO trifecta" on April 14, 2026: ISO 27001, ISO 27701, and ISO 42001, the international standard for AI management systems.
Frequently asked questions
Syntherion is a governed harness to build, test, deploy, and monitor agentic AI for any domain, with code-level depth on demand. Tines is a proprietary workflow automation platform, available cloud-hosted or self-hosted, originally built for security operations. Teams build event-driven "Stories" via a visual no/low-code canvas, natural language, or the API. It recently added native AI agent, MCP, and copilot capabilities. Teams considering a switch typically weigh governance (enforced evaluation and sign-off), domain flexibility, code-level depth, distribution precision, and pricing model.
For enterprise procurement & AI leaders
Stop renting your automation layer.
A 60-minute briefing: we map your stack, quantify what you'd replace, and show the results live.
- 01Architecture & governance review with your security team
- 02One working agent, built during the session and deployed to a real team dashboard
- 03Attributable ROI model tailored to your processes
Executive demo
45 minutes with our architects, a hands-on walkthrough against a process you actually care about.
SOC 2 · ISO 27001 · Self-hosted option · No commitment required