n8n

Updated October 2026

n8n counts a whole workflow run as one execution, however many steps it contains, and that one rule shapes the rest of the product. You build on a visual canvas where each node shows its inputs and outputs next to its settings. There are 500+ native integrations, an HTTP node for any API that lacks one, and code steps in JavaScript or Python for everything else. Parameters accept expressions, so a field mapping can compute a value instead of just copying one.

How it works in practice

The debugging tools are the main reason developers pick n8n over Make. The vendor's pages describe replaying a past run, mocking data so you can skip waiting on external systems, and re-running only the failed step. On a 40-step flow that calls a rate-limited API, re-running one step instead of the whole chain saves both calls and time.

History is thin on the cheapest plan. The cloud plan comparison gives Starter 1 day of workflow history, Pro 5 days and Enterprise 365+. If you debug incidents that surface a week later, Starter won't hold the evidence.

The AI layer sits in the same canvas. The AI Agent node, MCP Server Trigger and MCP Client are included on every cloud plan, Starter too, so you can expose a workflow as an MCP server or call external MCP tools without paying extra. Human approval steps can route through Slack, which suits agents that touch payments, tickets or CRM records.

What stands out

Self-hosting that covers the AI stack. The Community Edition is on GitHub and had 208,818 stars at the last check, which puts it among the most-starred projects on the platform. The features page describes a fully self-hosted AI setup using Ollama, Qdrant and PostgreSQL, with no external data transfer. It also lists Docker Hardened Images, distroless containers and running workflows as unprivileged users. For a team with a data residency rule, that's a concrete deployment path, not a marketing line. On Enterprise, credentials can come from AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault or HashiCorp Vault without being stored in n8n.

The hosted side is documented too. n8n GmbH, a German company, states SOC 2 and GDPR compliance, says it doesn't use customer content to train AI, and deletes execution data according to your retention settings.

Agents you can open up afterwards. n8n's pitch is that you can open any past run and see what each step did, including agent decisions. Pro adds metric-based evaluations, and the Enterprise tier lists guardrails. That's the right shape for anything that acts on real systems, because you can check a bad decision after the fact instead of guessing.

The vendor's own case studies give the headline numbers. Huel reports 1,000 hours saved, and Vodafone reports a £2.2M security operations win using n8n for SOAR-style workflows. Both are n8n-published, so read them as best-case results from teams with engineers to spare.

Git and environments, but only on Business. Version control through Git, multiple environments, queue mode for scaling, SSO and LDAP all arrive at the Business tier. Workflow diffs make it possible to see what changed before a regression ships. That's table stakes for an engineering team, and it's a shame the entry point is the most expensive self-serve plan.

Where it falls short

The low-code claim holds for two-step flows. Branching, looping and reshaping data need expressions, and expressions need working JavaScript. A team without a developer will stall, and Zapier's approach suits that team better.

Business is self-hosted only. You can't buy SSO or Git on n8n's cloud below Enterprise. Self-hosted licensed features also need a daily check-in with n8n's license server, so a locked-down network or an air-gapped deployment needs a conversation with sales before you commit.

Support is forum-only on everything below Enterprise, and that includes Business at €667 a month. Dedicated support with an SLA sits in the custom-priced tier. If an outage costs you money, price that in.

Concurrency is a planning constraint. Starter allows 5 concurrent executions, so a webhook that receives a burst of events will queue behind them. Pro goes up to 50, which is workable for most small teams. Enterprise starts at 200+.

The in-product Assistant is labelled preview. Starter gets 1,600 credits a month and Pro up to 9,600. On Business it's listed as preview, and on Enterprise it's available on request, so don't build a process around it yet.

Finally, default error behaviour on a failed node is to stop the run. Long batch jobs need an error workflow you design yourself.

Value for money

As of October 2026, Starter is €20 a month for 2,500 executions and Pro is €50 a month for 10,000, both billed annually. At full use, Pro works out to €0.005 per execution. Every plan includes unlimited users and workflows, so adding colleagues doesn't raise the bill. That's the opposite of per-seat tools, and it's why n8n suits a team where several people edit the same automations.

Step count is where the gap with per-task billing opens. A flow with 12 nodes costs one execution on n8n. On a platform that meters tasks, it can cost many more, so the longer your flows, the more n8n wins. For short two- or three-step zaps, run your own volumes through both pricing pages first, because the gap narrows.

The weak spot is Business at €667 a month for 40,000 executions. That's more than 13 times the Pro price for 4 times the executions, and what you're buying is SSO, LDAP, Git, environments and queue mode. Teams under 20 employees can ask for the Startup plan, which takes 50% off Business. If you don't qualify and only need Git, self-hosting the free Community Edition and managing your own deployment is the cheaper route. For options beyond n8n, open source Zapier alternatives by licence and self-hosting cost lays out what each costs to run.

Who should pick it, who should skip it

Pick n8n if you're a developer, DevOps engineer or technical ops team that wants production automation with control over where data lives. It fits long multi-step flows, AI agents with approval gates, and compliance-sensitive processing. It also fits anyone who'd rather run the free Community Edition on their own infrastructure than rent a hosted tool.

Skip it if nobody on your team writes code, or if you only want to connect two apps this afternoon. Zapier will get you running faster, and Make has a friendlier canvas for data routing. Skip it, too, if you need hosted SSO or Git but can't justify Enterprise pricing, because Business forces you to self-host.

Setup notes

The free cloud trial needs no credit card, but it's limited to 1,000 executions, 5 concurrent executions, a 180-second execution timeout and 1 team project. Long-running jobs and multi-project permissions can't be properly tested inside it. If SSO or Git is the reason you're evaluating, plan on a self-hosted instance from day one, since Business can't be hosted by n8n.