Pilla vs Vellum
Vellum positions itself as "Your Personal Intelligence". Pilla is AI workflow automation built for deskless teams — the people doing the work on their feet, not at a desk.
Compared against Vellum's own documentation · last verified Thu May 21 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
The short version
- Choose Pilla if
- Pilla wins whenever the buyer is operating a deskless or frontline team and the deliverable is "the team actually does the work, on their phones, with evidence".
- Choose Vellum if
- Vellum wins when the buyer is an engineering or product team building LLM features they will embed in their own application.
At a glance
| Capability | Pilla | Vellum |
|---|---|---|
| AI automated action step | Yes | Yes |
| Photo input | Yes | Yes |
| Checklist | Yes | No |
| Location / clock-in input | Yes | No |
| Group team chats | Yes | No |
| Push notifications on new message | Yes | No |
| Public forms (external submissions) | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server (connect Claude / Cursor / other) | Yes | Not documented |
How Vellum positions itself
Vellum's homepage now leads with "Your Personal Intelligence" — a personal AI assistant with persistent memory, identity and proactive reach-outs across macOS, iOS, Slack and Telegram. That sits alongside Vellum's original product: an LLM development platform for engineering and product teams who need to build, deploy, evaluate and monitor production AI features. The platform side covers a visual Workflows builder, a code-first SDK, evaluations, observability and an Agent Builder copilot. Customer profile skews to Series A-to-B SaaS, fintech and healthcare teams actively shipping generative-AI features.
When teams choose Vellum
Vellum wins when the buyer is an engineering or product team building LLM features they will embed in their own application. The Workflows SDK, prompt versioning, online evaluations, deployment environments, observability with full traces, and SOC 2 / HIPAA posture are genuinely mature. Composio + MCP support inside the Agent Node gives developers a clean way to call Slack, Gmail or any external tool from inside an agent. AI Apps make those workflows shareable as no-code interfaces. None of this is fake — Vellum has Series A funding and a real product. If the buyer is technical and the deliverable is "an AI feature inside our software", Vellum is a credible pick.
When Pilla wins
Pilla wins whenever the buyer is operating a deskless or frontline team and the deliverable is "the team actually does the work, on their phones, with evidence". Vellum has no checklist step, no photo evidence step, no geolocation or clock-in, no signature capture, no team messaging, no broadcasts, no read receipts and no concept of "team performance" — because Vellum's workflows are LLM pipelines that run server-side, not opening procedures or compliance checks completed by humans on shift. The Agent Builder helps developers build AI features; Pilla's in-product agent helps managers run and supervise frontline operations. Different buyer, different output, almost no surface overlap.
Full feature comparison
How Pilla and Vellum compare across 72 capabilities. A dash means the feature is not documented on Vellum's own site.
| Feature | Pilla | Vellum |
|---|---|---|
Workflows | ||
| Recurring workflow templates | Yes | Yes |
| Ad-hoc workflow creation | Yes | Yes |
| Reusable workflow blueprints | Yes | Yes |
| Reusable element templates | Yes | Yes |
| Custom tags & categories | Yes | Yes |
| Issue reporting on workflows | Yes | No |
| Activity audit trail | Yes | Yes |
| Public template library | Yes | Yes |
| Public forms (external submissions) | Yes | Yes |
| CSV data exports | Yes | Not documented |
| Bulk operations | Yes | Not documented |
| Template impact analysis | Yes | No |
| Template analytics & insights | Yes | Yes |
| Template version history | Yes | Yes |
Input Steps | ||
| Text input | Yes | Yes |
| Number input | Yes | Yes |
| Date input | Yes | Not documented |
| Time input | Yes | Not documented |
| Location / clock-in input | Yes | No |
| Checklist | Yes | No |
| Single-choice input | Yes | Not documented |
| Multi-choice input | Yes | Not documented |
| Cascading select | Yes | No |
| Rating scale | Yes | No |
| Photo input | Yes | Yes |
| Video input | Yes | No |
| Audio note / input | Yes | No |
| File input | Yes | Yes |
| Signature input | Yes | No |
Guidance Steps | ||
| Rich text guidance | Yes | No |
| Video guidance | Yes | No |
| Photo guidance | Yes | No |
AI Steps | ||
| AI context briefing step | Yes | Yes |
| AI decision gate step | Yes | Yes |
| AI decision tree step | Yes | Yes |
| AI automated action step | Yes | Yes |
Communication | ||
| In-app 1:1 direct messages | Yes | No |
| Group team chats | Yes | No |
| Team-wide broadcasts | Yes | No |
| Photo, video & file attachments | Yes | No |
| Threaded replies | Yes | No |
| Emoji reactions | Yes | No |
| @mention teammates | Yes | Not documented |
| Read receipts | Yes | No |
| Push notifications on new message | Yes | No |
| Messages linked to workflows | Yes | No |
In-app agent | ||
| Plain-English Q&A on how it works | Yes | Yes |
| In-product walkthroughs and tutorials | Yes | Not documented |
| Saved chat history & resumable sessions | Yes | Yes |
| Cites help docs and source data | Yes | Not documented |
| File feedback, bugs & feature requests from chat | Yes | No |
| Q&A on your workflows | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A on your team's performance | Yes | No |
| Q&A across connected integrations | Yes | Yes |
Integrations & API | ||
| Native integrations | Yes | Yes |
| 100+ MCP integrations | Yes | Not documented |
| Public REST API | Yes | Yes |
| Outbound webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server (connect Claude / Cursor / other) | Yes | Not documented |
| IP allowlist on API keys | Yes | Not documented |
| Custom API rate limits | Yes | Yes |
Administration | ||
| User roles (staff / manager / admin) | Yes | Yes |
| CSV user & team import | Yes | Not documented |
| Tenant-isolated data | Yes | Yes |
| Account-wide audit logs | Yes | Yes |
| Custom step run allowances | Yes | Yes |
| Annual step run pooling | Yes | Not documented |
| SSO & SAML | Yes | Yes |
| SCIM provisioning | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated success manager | Yes | Yes |
| Custom onboarding | Yes | Yes |
| Service-level agreement (SLA) | Yes | Not documented |
Pricing
Pilla
£19+ / team / month
Free tier to start. Priced per team, not per seat, so every user is included.
Vellum
$25 / per user plus prepaid credits
Free tier available. Enterprise plan available.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Pilla a good Vellum alternative?
- Pilla wins whenever the buyer is operating a deskless or frontline team and the deliverable is "the team actually does the work, on their phones, with evidence".
- What can Pilla do that Vellum can't?
- Checked against Vellum's own documentation, Pilla offers issue reporting on workflows, template impact analysis, location / clock-in input, checklist, and cascading select — none of which Vellum documents.
- When should I choose Vellum over Pilla?
- Vellum wins when the buyer is an engineering or product team building LLM features they will embed in their own application.
- How much does Pilla cost compared to Vellum?
- Pilla starts free and is priced per team rather than per seat, from £19 per team per month with all users included. Vellum offers a free tier and starts at $25 per user plus prepaid credits.
Run your workflows where the work happens
Pilla brings AI workflow automation to deskless teams. Start free, no credit card needed.