Whereas TPL Dataflow is all about passing messages between blocks, Reactive Extensions is about sequences. With sequences we can create projections, transformations and filters. We can combine multiple sequences into a single one. It is a very flexible and powerful paradigm but with such power comes extra complexity. I find TPL Dataflow easier to reason about due to its simple model. Reactive Extensions can get pretty complex and is not always intuitive, but you can create some elegant solutions with it. It will require some investment in time and tinkering to get a reasonable understanding of it.