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Getting started with Windmill

Windmill is a fast, open-source workflow engine and developer platform. It's an alternative to the likes of Retool, Superblocks, n8n, Airflow, Prefect, Kestra and Temporal, designed to build comprehensive internal tools (endpoints, workflows, UIs). It supports coding in TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP, Bash, C#, SQL and Rust, or any Docker image, alongside intuitive low-code builders.

Choose your setup​

Windmill cloud​

Quickly get started with our Cloud App, no credit card required. Sign up using GitHub, GitLab, Google, or Microsoft SSO. Start with 1,000 monthly executions on our Community Plan, and easily upgrade for more. Start with Windmill cloud.

Windmill cloud is hosted in the US. We offer dedicated cloud instances in the EU for Cloud Enterprise customers.

Self-host Windmill​

For full control over your infrastructure, self-host Windmill using our helm charts for Kubernetes or docker-compose for simpler setups. Learn how to self-host Windmill.

Self-host Windmill
Self host Windmill in 2 minutes.

Development options​

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)​

Windmill supports development directly within its built-in IDE, tailored for creating scripts, workflows, low-code apps and full-code apps efficiently.

Local development​

Prefer your own setup? No problem. Windmill integrates smoothly with local environments, including a VS Code extension and tools for Git-based deployment to production. Explore local development options.

Local development
Develop from various environments such as your terminal, VS Code, and JetBrains IDEs.
VS Code extension
Build scripts and flows in the comfort of your VS Code or Cursor editor, while leveraging Windmill UIs for test & flows edition.

Ready to deploy?​

Move from staging to production seamlessly with Windmill's deployment guides, ensuring your projects are production-ready. Deploy to production.

Creating resources from the home page​

The workspace home page lists everything in your workspace. To create something new, use the New button in the top-right corner of the header. Hovering (or clicking) it opens a two-pane popover: the option list on the right, a description of the highlighted option on the left. Clicking New directly creates a script, the default option.

The available options are:

  • Script - a single standalone script in any supported language.
  • Flow - compose scripts into a workflow with branches, loops, approvals and retries.
  • App (full-code) - build a UI with React or Svelte.
  • Workflow-as-Code - badged Advanced. Express a whole workflow as a single script; picking it offers a Python or TypeScript choice.
  • Data pipelines - badged Alpha. Visual editor to chain ingestion, transformation and materialization steps.
  • App (low-code) - badged Legacy. Drag-and-drop UI builder. For new apps, prefer full-code apps.

Some options also expose secondary import actions in their detail panel (for example Import flow, Import Workflow-as-Code, Import full-code app, Import low-code app), which open a drawer where you paste a YAML or JSON export to pre-fill the editor.

The header also has a Hub button that opens the Windmill Hub in a new tab, and a CLI / MCP button to connect external tooling.