Workflow or flow designer

[J_47]

Which is better Workflow or flow designer?

[Uncle Rob]

Workflow Editor is legacy.  I was a late adopter of Flow Designer, but since then (YEARS ago) I haven't found a single case in 100's of use cases that made WorkFlow Editor better than Flow Designer.
Flow Designer is simply
- easier to understand for a wider variety of people
- is WAY easier to test and troubleshoot
- has far and away better graphical representation of flow
- is easier to construct subflows and custom actions with.

Simply no comparison.  Only time you should be in Workflow Editor (legacy workflow) is to help understand and migrate old flows to Flow Designer.

[prajaktajga]

Hello @J_47 ,

Flow Designer should be used for all new development.
Workflow should only be used to maintain existing implementations.

ServiceNow has made Flow Designer the strategic automation engine. It offers better performance, error handling, visibility, and native integrations, while Workflow no longer receives enhancements.

Using Workflow
A Workflow is created on the Incident table with approval activities and script steps. It runs when the incident reaches a specific state and handles approvals using workflow activities. This approach is script-heavy and harder to debug, but still works for existing implementations.

Using Flow Designer
A Flow is created on the Incident table that triggers when the state changes. The flow uses an approval action, conditions, and optional script steps.

[Anand Kumar P]

Hi @J_47 ,

Flow Designer is always most preferred approach because of its low code even non technical person easily built and understand flow.

• For new automation using low-code / natural language
• When workflows do not already exist
• To use reusable actions across multiple processes

Benefits of Flow Designer:

• Reusable components reduce development effort and cost
• Upgrade-safe, minimizes custom scripting
• Easy to build, share, and reuse actions and subflows
• Seamless integrations via IntegrationHub
• No heavy scripting—business-friendly, low-code design
• Single interface to design, run, and troubleshoot automations

If my response helped, please mark it as the accepted solution ✅ and give a thumbs up👍.
Thanks,
Anand