Tines Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Tines is an intelligent workflow platform that lets security, IT, and operations teams build automated processes across their tools without writing code, now with conversational AI agents and a copilot for task execution. Best for: security operations and IT teams at mid-to-enterprise companies. Price: Free Community Edition, Business and Enterprise on custom pricing. Rating: 8.1/10

What is Tines?

We have run Tines on two production deployments for security alerting, and it remains one of the best no-code automation platforms for technical teams. Tines sits in the same neighbourhood as Zapier or n8n, but the product is engineered for security operations, IT, and infrastructure teams that need auditable, production-grade workflows rather than “move this Trello card to a Slack channel” automations. The difference shows up everywhere, from the storyboard editor to the version control to the approval gates.

The Story copilot update launched on Product Hunt on April 22, 2026, introducing conversational AI to the existing workbench and agents features. Tines has been building in public since 2018 out of Dublin, and the team now serves customers including GitLab, Coinbase, and Mars. The new copilot generates storyboards from natural language, suggests next steps during workflow construction, and can run inside active workflows as an agent that makes decisions on your behalf. That last bit is the interesting part. Most no-code tools have retrofitted AI as a writing assistant. Tines has built AI as a first-class workflow node.

What makes Tines stand apart is the seriousness of the platform. Every story is versioned, every action is logged, every integration is built once and reused everywhere. For security teams that need to defend their automations in an audit, this matters more than any single feature. Tines is what you pick when you need automation that a CISO can approve without losing sleep.

What Are Tines’ Key Features?

Storyboard

Stories are Tines’ name for workflows. They live on a visual canvas where you drag in actions, connect them with logic, and test each step in isolation. The editor is flexible enough for real engineering work and simple enough that a security analyst without a coding background can build a complete incident response workflow. Each action is a pre-built or custom integration, and Tines supports just about every tool a security or IT team would touch: Splunk, Jira, Slack, AWS, Okta, CrowdStrike, and hundreds more.

The version control deserves a separate callout. Every story version is tracked with a full history, and you can roll back, diff, or branch. For teams that treat their automations like production code, this is the feature that justifies the Tines premium over Zapier. Zapier will let you build the workflow. Tines will let you defend it in an audit.

Workbench (Universal AI Copilot)

Workbench is the copilot layer that helps you build stories faster. You describe what you want to automate, and Workbench suggests actions, wires up the logic, and fills in the integrations. It also works inside running stories, where you can ask it questions about in-flight data or invoke it as an agent to make decisions. The copilot is genuinely useful for beginners who need help constructing their first complex story, and experienced users can invoke it for the tedious parts like building a switch statement with 20 cases.

The copilot has guardrails. It will not touch production stories without explicit approval, and every action it takes is logged. That is the right design for a platform that sells into regulated industries.

Cases

Cases is the incident management layer that lets you track alerts through resolution with a structured record. You can escalate, assign, enrich with external data, and close cases out with a full audit trail. For SOC teams, Cases replaces a combination of TheHive, Jira, and spreadsheets with one unified surface. The case view is clean, filterable, and integrates natively with Stories so you can trigger automated playbooks from within a case.

This is where Tines competes directly with SOAR platforms like Splunk SOAR and Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR. Tines wins on ease of use and flexibility. The traditional SOAR tools win on deep integrations for enterprises that have already invested in the ecosystem.

Agents

The new Agents feature lets you build autonomous AI agents that can run inside a story or as standalone flows. Agents can ingest unstructured data, make classification decisions, and chain into other stories. This is particularly useful for triage workflows where an AI can sort alerts into “auto-close”, “needs analyst attention”, or “page on-call” before any human touches them. The implementation is sensible. You define a goal, a set of tools the agent can use, and guardrails, then let it run.

How Much Does Tines Cost?

Tines does not publish public pricing beyond the Community Edition, which is free with no credit card and no time limit, capped at a single user and a limited number of stories. Business and Enterprise pricing is custom. Based on conversations with customers, expect Business to start in the low five figures per year for a small team and scale up with story volume and user count. Enterprise pricing is typically a six-figure annual contract for larger organisations.

There is a Startup Program for companies under 100 employees, under $50M raised, and under five years old. The discounts are meaningful and make Tines viable for growth-stage startups that might otherwise stretch to afford it. If you are an eligible startup, apply before committing to a Business contract, because the Startup Program pricing is notably better.

Is it worth the custom pricing? For serious security operations work, yes. Tines pays for itself by replacing analyst hours on repetitive triage. The ROI math is usually straightforward once you map the workflows you would automate.

Who is Tines Best For?

Use Tines if you run a security operations team, an IT operations team, or an infrastructure team that needs production-grade workflow automation. Companies with existing SOAR or SIEM investments who want to layer automation on top are a natural fit. Mid-market through enterprise is the sweet spot. Tines is also excellent for any team that needs to demonstrate audit compliance for their automated processes.

Skip Tines if you are a marketing team, a founder wiring together Airtable and Gmail, or a solo operator who needs basic “when this, then that” flows. Zapier or n8n will serve you faster and cheaper. Also skip Tines if you do not have the internal capacity to maintain workflows. Tines is a platform, not a service. The workflows you build still need owners.

Best Tines Alternatives

• n8n: Open-source alternative with strong developer ergonomics. Cheaper for teams with technical capacity. Self-hostable.
• Zapier: Easier for non-technical teams, weaker for security-grade workflows. Starts at $19.99 per month.
• Splunk SOAR: Enterprise SOAR with deeper security tool integrations. More expensive and harder to learn.
• Cortex XSOAR (Palo Alto): Another enterprise SOAR option. Best if you are already on Palo Alto.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Tines?

Tines is a no-code workflow automation platform built for security, IT, and operations teams. It lets you build production-grade automated workflows with auditability, version control, and deep integrations across hundreds of tools.

How much does Tines cost?

Tines offers a free Community Edition. Business and Enterprise pricing is custom. Startup Program discounts are available for companies under 100 employees, under $50M raised, and under five years old.

Is Tines worth it?

For security operations and IT teams that need audit-grade automation, yes. Tines pays for itself in analyst hours saved on repetitive triage and incident response work.

What are the best Tines alternatives?

n8n for open-source flexibility, Zapier for simpler non-technical workflows, and Splunk SOAR or Cortex XSOAR for enterprise security operations with deep tool integrations.

Does Tines offer a free plan?

Yes, Tines has a Community Edition that is free with no credit card required. It is capped at a single user and a limited number of stories, but there is no time limit on the free tier.

Who is Tines best for?

Security operations teams, IT operations teams, and infrastructure teams at mid-to-enterprise companies that need audit-ready workflow automation with deep integrations.

Final Verdict: Is Tines Worth It?

Tines is the best no-code automation platform we have tested for technical teams that need production-grade reliability. The Story copilot update is a genuine quality-of-life improvement, the Agents feature makes Tines relevant in the AI era, and the core platform remains the gold standard for auditable automation. Custom pricing will scare off smaller teams, but the Community Edition is generous enough to evaluate seriously, and the Startup Program keeps Tines affordable for growth-stage companies. For a security operations lead weighing Zapier versus something purpose-built, this is the purpose-built option. Rating 8.1/10.