Every category where a model named AWS Step Functions for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Workflow orchestration	Data platform	0%	64 of 86	39%	18	criticized challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for AWS Step Functions yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated AWS Step Functions across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	1	1	2
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	0	1	2
Perplexity Sonar	0	1	1	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	2	0	2
Mistral Small	0	1	1	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	1	0	1	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	1	0	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	1	1
Kimi K2	0	1	1	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	0	0	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	1	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct4 labelsNone

Paraphrase2 labelsNone

Comparative7 labelsNone

Budget-constrained5 labelsNone

Scale-constrained7 labelsNone

Negative18 labels2not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative43 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 2 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“If you want strictly serverless pay-per-use with zero servers: Go with AWS Step Functions” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Orchestration · budget prompt · alternative

“AWS‑centric serverless pipelines | AWS Step Functions” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Orchestration · comparative prompt · alternative

“Deep AWS investment | Step Functions” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Orchestration · scale prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“AWS Step Functions is tightly coupled to AWS and has no human-in-the-loop design or governance layer, making it unsuitable for operations teams.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Orchestration · negative prompt · soft negative

“be cautious if you need multi-cloud, on-prem, or strong portability... use an open-source alternative if you want to avoid AWS lock-in” Perplexity Sonar · Orchestration · negative prompt · soft negative

“Adopting these leads to deep vendor lock-in... Avoid if you have a multi-cloud strategy” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Orchestration · negative prompt · soft negative

“AWS-native service orchestration, but limited AI and human-in-the-loop capabilities.” Mistral Small · Orchestration · comparative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as AWS Step Functions, over the 43 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and AWS Step Functions was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Apache Airflow35 of 436Not in the top three

Temporal34 of 434Not in the top three

Prefect29 of 434Not in the top three

Zapier26 of 431Not in the top three

Camunda25 of 431Not in the top three

Dagster25 of 431Not in the top three

Make23 of 431Not in the top three

n8n18 of 431Not in the top three

Argo Workflows16 of 430Not in the top three

Workato14 of 431Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named AWS Step Functions. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 33 of the 43 answers that named AWS Step Functions and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

elementum.ai23

reddit.com19

teamwork.com19

zapier.com19

devopsschool.com16

kanerika.com16

enate.io15

wrike.com12

getorchestra.io10

kestra.io9

158 of the 158 domain citations in answers naming AWS Step Functions came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

elementum.ai/blog/best-workflow-orchestration-tools23

teamwork.com/blog/workflow-orchestration-tools19

zapier.com/blog/workflow-orchestration-tools18

kanerika.com/blogs/workflow-orchestration-tools16

devopsschool.com/blog/top-10-workflow-orchestration-tools-features-pros-cons-comparison15

enate.io/blog/workflow-orchestration-tools15

reddit.com/r/ITManagers/comments/1soh54t/enterprise_workflow_orchestration_platforms13

wrike.com/workflow-guide/workflow-orchestration-tools12

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as AWS Step Functions

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as AWS Step Functions; a claim can dispute any of them.

Step Functions 2

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when AWS Step Functions's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as AWS Step Functions, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at awsstepfunctions.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.