Metaflow

Metaflow is an open-source framework for building and managing real-life data science and machine learning projects. It began at Netflix and is released under the Apache 2.0 licence, with the official repository at github.com/Netflix/metaflow. The company behind its commercial platform, Outerbounds, was acquired: Anaconda announced the acquisition on April 29, 2026 and said it will keep investing in the open-source project. The open-source tier costs nothing, but you set up and manage infrastructure and security yourself.

Managed pricing comes from Outerbounds. Its own pricing page, per search, lists the Starter managed plan at $2,499 a month, while a third-party ZenML guide gives a different managed-tier figure of Starter from $1,199 a month on annual prepay or $2,499 a month on an annual contract. ZenML is a competitor, so its framing may favour itself. I could not confirm the 2026 figures from a primary source, so check the Outerbounds pricing page before relying on either number, and ask whether pricing or packaging is changing under Anaconda. Using open-source Metaflow keeps your code portable, since flows run on your own cloud or Kubernetes.

Metaflow suits data scientists who want to move from a laptop to production cloud workflows without learning heavy orchestration tooling. Compare ZenML, Prefect and Kubeflow. Browse the MLOps & Infrastructure tools directory for more.

Data science workflows

Laptop to production.

ML pipelines on your cloud

Portable flows.

Is Metaflow free?

Yes, Apache 2.0.

Who owns Outerbounds?

Anaconda, per an April 29, 2026 announcement.

How much is the managed plan?

Starter at $2,499 a month per Outerbounds; one guide says from $1,199.

Where did it start?

At Netflix.