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Compare · Atelier vs Airplane
Airplane is built for engineering teams that want to turn scripts into internal tools — write a TypeScript task, get an audited UI, schedule it, chain it into a workflow. It's code-first by design. Atelier is operator-first by design — the people writing Flows are the same people running the operations, and the steps are Sage skills + PC Studio actions + human approvals, not arbitrary code. Different audiences, different value. Many teams have both: Airplane runs the engineering-owned internal tooling; Atelier runs the operator-owned playbooks.
When to use Atelier
The people who run your operations should be the ones authoring + iterating the Flows — Catalyst delivery, RFP response, intern onboarding, donor nurture. You want agent steps + PC Studio actions + human checkpoints as first-class primitives, not arbitrary code.
See Atelier pricing →When to use Airplane
Your engineering team owns a growing pile of internal tools (data exports, customer support actions, admin operations) that need real auth, audit logs, and scheduling — and you want them authored as TypeScript / Python by engineers who already work in that language.
Engineering-led internal tools + workflows
Side by side
Feature
Atelier
Airplane
Native to Perpetual Core Studio (Sage, Sentinel, RFP, Janice)
First-class step kinds + shared identity
Generic SQL / HTTP / Node integrations only
Agent-augmented steps (LLM with shared org memory)
sage_skill step kind, Sage Mnemosyne writes
OpenAI / Anthropic libs from inside a task; bring-your-own memory
Code-first authoring (TypeScript / Python tasks)
Operator-first — JSON / form / visual editor; code escape hatch via product_action
Airplane's differentiator — write tasks as code
Audited execution log with permissions per task
atelier_traces + RLS-enforced step authorship
Airplane Activity + per-task permission grants
Multi-tenant by org (RLS-enforced isolation)
Every row carries org_id; pc_runtime role enforced
Workspace-level isolation per Airplane team
Human approval steps with checkpoint timeline
human_task step kind with assignment + checkpoint
Required approvals on tasks; first-class in workflows
Conditional gates on accumulated context
gate step kind evaluates expressions on run.context
Workflow conditional steps (code-defined)
Scheduled runs (cron-style triggers)
Schedules table + scheduled triggers
Schedules + Runbooks; mature scheduling primitives
Versioned Flow / task definitions
atelier_flow_versions with global library + per-org forks
Git-backed task definitions
Visual editor for non-engineering authors
JSON / form editor today; visual canvas on v1.1 roadmap
Code-first by design; not the target user
Public API for external orchestration
Server-to-server today; first-party API in v1.1
REST API + CLI; first-class for engineering workflows
Cross-product event subscriptions with shared identity
PC Event Bus with HMAC envelope + org_id propagation
Webhooks / triggers; identity is per-integration
On pricing
Airplane pricing (2026): Free dev tier, Team $50/user/mo (annual), Enterprise contact. Atelier per-seat costs are comparable at the Team tier but the seat covers a different value — Airplane buys engineering-owned internal tools as code; Atelier buys operator-owned playbooks with agent + PC Studio steps. Many teams use both for those distinct audiences.
Honest take
If your engineering team needs to ship internal tools as code, Airplane is a great choice — its audited execution + permissions story is solid. If your operators need to author + iterate playbooks themselves with agent steps and PC Studio actions as primitives, that's what Atelier is for. The two coexist nicely when the audience for each is distinct.
Open a workspace
Atelier opens in fifteen minutes with five starter Flows and every Perpetual Core product already connected. Evaluate for fourteen days; bring your team when you're ready.