Security risk is expensive and teams feel it in production.
In our State of Development 2025 report, nearly half of respondents say outages lead to customer churn (49%) and higher operational costs (49%). Decision makers rank security as the top challenge in their current systems (36%) and list it as the leading concern when adopting new tools (47%). Reliability and security compliance are also the top priority for the next 12–24 months (36%).
We designed Temporal for this reality: it orchestrates mission-critical workflows without seeing your plaintext data, without calling into your network, and with controls your security team can verify. The result is simple: higher assurance for the CISO, less friction for the builders. Here are ten reasons that balance holds up in practice.
1. You keep the keys#
Sensitive payloads are encrypted in your environment with your keys before they ever leave it. Temporal orchestrates opaque, encrypted blobs. The service can’t read your data.
2. No inbound connectivity, ever#
Temporal Cloud never calls into your network, and it doesn’t run your code. Workers poll Temporal over outbound HTTPS, so you don’t open firewall ports or expose internal services.
3. Mutual TLS anchored to your CA#
Each Namespace has a unique endpoint secured with mutual TLS. Client certificates come from your Certificate Authority, so you control issuance and revocation. Without a valid cert, a connection can’t be established.
4. Enterprise auth that matches real roles#
Use SAML SSO for centralized user lifecycle control, API keys cover CI/CD and serverless. Role-based access control (RBAC) at account and Namespace scopes aligns permissions with real responsibilities.
5. Private connectivity options#
Keep Workflow traffic off the public internet with AWS PrivateLink or Google Cloud Private Service Connect. Connectivity flows out from workers to Temporal, not the other way around.
6. Secure debugging without exposing data#
A Codec Server that you host enables developers to decrypt payloads locally in the browser when viewing executions. Developers keep visibility; plaintext stays out of Temporal.
7. Compliance-ready by design#
SOC 2 Type II controls, HIPAA support with BAA, and GDPR alignment are available — visit our Trust Center for details. Because your code and credentials remain in your environment, many control objectives are simpler to meet.
8. Operational defense in depth#
Production access is SSO-gated with MFA, granted just-in-time, time-boxed, fully logged, and regularly audited. No shared accounts. Independent penetration testing is performed on a regular cadence and for major features.
9. Security that speeds teams up#
The same mTLS and encryption models work in development and production. Workflows get durable retries, audit trails, and deterministic history out of the box. Shipping faster no longer means expanding your attack surface.
10. Proven outcomes at scale#
Enterprises in regulated industries rely on Temporal to run sensitive Workflows while keeping personal and confidential data under their control. The model scales without trading off security for speed.
If you tried to build this from scratch#
You would need to set up and maintain:
- Deep expertise in distributed systems, cryptography, and secure operations
- Processes for key management, certificate rotation, incident response
- Highly available infrastructure with disaster recovery and scale characteristics
- All of the above while still shipping your actual business applications
Temporal Cloud already brings:
- Independently audited SOC 2 Type II controls
- HIPAA support with signed BAA
- GDPR-aligned processing with DPA
- Deterministic, auditable Workflow history and robust failure handling
Bringing it together#
The shortest path to lower risk is to reduce what any outside service can see or do. Temporal Cloud keeps your code and plaintext data in your environment, authenticates every call with mTLS, supports private connectivity, and gives developers secure visibility when they need it. CISOs get provable controls and a smaller blast radius. Builders get a smoother path to shipping reliable systems.