A StateWorkflow is one of the two basic workflow models included with WindowsWorkflowFoundation, the other being a SequentialWorkflow. A StateWorkflow is basically an implementation of a FiniteStateMachine. The main advantage of a StateWorkflow is that the workflow can switch between states at will, either because of a SetStateActivity in an event handler or explicitly by using the SetStateQueue queue with a SetStateEventArgs argument indicating the target state.

Because of this free transition between states a StateWorkflow is much more remenicent of the way humans work. For this reason a StateWorkflow is often a better match when human interaction is modeld in a workfow.