Learn / Comparisons
FLOW vs Process Street: checklists vs the master process
Short answer: Process Street is a genuinely good checklist engine, and a checklist runs a linear procedure well. If your procedures are few, linear, and stable, keep it. If your operation is bigger than any one checklist, with variants multiplying and auditors asking about the procedure rather than the run, you need a governed master process that routes by scenario, and that is FLOW. Here is the honest version, including when a checklist tool is the right call.
What Process Street is genuinely good at
Recurring, linear procedures with clear steps: employee onboarding paperwork, content publishing, a weekly close. Assign the run, tick the boxes, see who is stuck. For a team of ten running a handful of stable procedures, a checklist tool is honest software at an honest price, and FLOW would be more than you need. Process Street has also added Cora, a compliance agent that monitors live runs, flags skipped steps, and helps build audit trails. That is real oversight of execution, and for a checklist-shaped operation it is genuinely useful. This page is not about whether checklists run well. It is about what happens when the operation is bigger than any single checklist.
Where Process Street ends
Three places. First, shape: a real operation is a graph, not a line. Work branches on dangerous goods, on temperature, on a missed connection, and a linear checklist either ignores the branches or explodes into a dozen near-duplicate templates that drift apart. Second, altitude: checklists describe tasks, but nobody can see the whole: how acceptance feeds build-up, where the handoffs cross team lines, which process depends on which. Third, defensibility: ticked boxes show a run happened. They do not show the procedure itself was reviewed, approved, and current, which is what an auditor actually asks. Cora watches the runs, but it monitors a linear checklist. It does not turn the checklist into one master process that resolves the route per situation.
The structural difference
FLOW holds one master process per operation. Scenarios resolve the route, so dangerous goods is the same process as standard, lit differently, not a fourth template. Owners, sign-off, versions, and review dates live on the process itself, so governance is the spine rather than a label. And the whole portfolio is visible: what is live, in draft, or overdue, across every team, readable over API, CLI, and MCP by people and agents. The product page walks through it; the maturity curve explains why checklist tools sit a stage earlier.
Side by side
| Process Street | FLOW | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Run recurring procedures as checklists | Own the operation as one governed master process |
| Design-first or execution-first | Execution of a linear checklist | Design-first, and feeds the tools that execute |
| Scenario routing | Conditional logic hides steps; a template per variant | ✓ one master resolving to the exact route |
| Governance and sign-off | On the run, via the Cora compliance agent | ✓ on the procedure itself, per step |
| Audit trail | Run happened; not that the procedure was current | ✓ every version, comment, and approval |
| Agent-readable (API, CLI, MCP) | Cora monitors runs, not one routed master | ✓ the process legible for any agent to run |
| Stays current | Near-duplicate templates drift apart | ✓ one master, versioned and reviewed |
| Price posture | Roughly $100/mo startup to $1,500/mo pro | £36k to £180k/yr platform pricing by organization |
On execution
FLOW's Execute tier runs live work through the master process too: real shipments and cases, connector events in, partner steps, agents assigned over MCP. So the path is not "checklists forever or FLOW": it is truth first, then execution on top of truth. Pricing is published, pilot included.
The verdict
A checklist engine answers "did the run happen and who is stuck?" A system of record answers "is this the one true procedure, who owns it, and what does it do when the situation changes?" Those are different questions with different budgets, and they sit at different stages of maturity. If your procedures are few, linear, and stable, Process Street is honest software and you should keep it. If the variants are multiplying, the near-duplicate templates are disagreeing, or an auditor is asking about the procedure rather than the run, that is the moment the master process earns its place. Import the checklists into FLOW and let the branches become scenarios on one route.
Common questions
Is FLOW a Process Street alternative?
For an operation bigger than any single checklist, yes. Process Street is a genuinely good linear checklist engine: assign the run, tick the boxes, see who is stuck. FLOW is a process system of record: one master process that resolves the route by scenario, with owners, versions, sign-off, and a full audit trail on the procedure itself. If your variants are multiplying and auditors are asking about the procedure, not just the run, FLOW is what you actually need. For a handful of stable, linear procedures, a checklist tool is enough.
Can I import my Process Street templates into FLOW?
Yes. FLOW reads your existing checklist templates and SOPs and pulls the steps, owners, and decisions into a draft living process you approve. The near-duplicate templates that drifted apart collapse back into one master process, and the branches that used to be separate checklists become scenarios on a single route. Nothing you built in the checklist era is wasted.
Does Process Street's Cora agent do what FLOW does?
No. Cora is a compliance agent that monitors live runs, flags skipped steps, and helps build audit trails. That is oversight of execution, and it is useful. It watches runs of a linear checklist. It does not author one governed master process that resolves to the exact route per situation, and ticked boxes still show a run happened, not that the procedure itself was reviewed, approved, and current, which is what an auditor asks.
Does FLOW replace Process Street?
Not always. If your procedures are few, linear, and stable, and your main need is making sure runs happen, a checklist tool is honest software at an honest price and FLOW would be more than you need. FLOW replaces the checklist when variants are multiplying, the whole operation has to be visible in one governed place, or auditors are asking about the procedure rather than the run. FLOW's Execute tier can also run the live work through the master process, so the path is truth first, then execution on top of truth.
Bigger than a checklist?
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