Most teams think about automation tools in terms of which apps they support and how easy the workflows are to build. That's the right question for getting started. But there's a question most teams never ask: whose server are your credentials on?
When you connect Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, your database, and your billing system to Zapier or Make, you're storing authenticated access to your entire SaaS stack on their infrastructure. Every OAuth token. Every API key. Every webhook secret. These platforms are, by design, maximally credentialed into your business — which makes them a high-value target for any attacker who wants to move laterally across an organization.
n8n is the alternative that changes this equation. Self-hosted, open source, and capable of doing most of what Zapier can do — with your credentials on your infrastructure.
| n8n | Zapier | Make | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Technical teams, compliance requirements, high-volume automations | Non-technical teams needing widest app coverage | Visual complex workflows, cost-effective mid-scale |
| Free tier | Unlimited (self-hosted) | 100 tasks/month | 1,000 ops/month |
| Entry paid | $24/month cloud | Starter $29.99/month | Core $10.59/month |
| Self-hosted | Yes, free | No | No |
| App integrations | 400+ native, 1,000+ community | 6,000+ | 1,500+ |
| Key limitation | Requires technical setup to self-host | Per-task pricing scales badly | Cloud-only, no self-hosting option |
What Each Tool Is
Zapier is the automation market leader. Founded in 2011, it has over 6,000 app integrations, more than any competitor by a significant margin. The Zap builder is designed for non-developers: trigger an event in App A, take an action in App B, add filters and conditions with a form-based interface. No code required. For the app integrations and the simplicity, Zapier is often the right default.
The core limitation is pricing. Zapier's free tier is 100 tasks per month, not much. The Starter plan at $29.99/month gives 750 tasks. The Professional plan at $73.50/month gives 2,000 tasks. Team starts at $448.80/month. Every step in a Zap that runs counts as a task. A five-step Zap processing 200 records is 1,000 tasks, already past Starter.
Make (formerly Integromat) is the visual middle ground. The scenario builder shows your entire workflow as a flowchart, triggers, routers, iterators, aggregators all visible simultaneously. For complex workflows with branching logic and data transformation, Make's visual representation makes it easier to build and debug than Zapier's linear list view.
Make's pricing is operations-based like Zapier but cheaper per operation at comparable volumes. The Core plan at $10.59/month includes 10,000 operations. 1,500+ app integrations covers most common tools. Make is cloud-only, no self-hosting option.
n8n is fair-code licensed (source-available, free for self-hosted use, commercial license for embedding in products). The workflow builder is node-based, you build graphs rather than linear sequences. The key differentiators: JavaScript and Python code nodes that let you write actual code within workflows, 400+ native integrations plus 1,000+ community-built integrations, and full self-hosting support.
Self-hosted n8n runs on Docker, npm, or Kubernetes. Your credentials, your data, your server. n8n cloud starts at $24/month for 2,500 workflow executions. The community edition is free indefinitely.
Pricing: The Zapier Cost Explosion
| n8n | Zapier | Make | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Unlimited (self-hosted) | 100 tasks/month | 1,000 operations/month |
| Entry paid | Starter: $24/month (cloud) | Starter: $29.99/month | Core: $10.59/month |
| Entry volume | 2,500 executions | 750 tasks | 10,000 operations |
| Mid-tier | Pro: $60/month | Professional: $73.50/month | Pro: $18.82/month |
| Mid volume | 10,000 executions | 2,000 tasks | 10,000 ops + priority |
| Team plan | Enterprise | $448.80/month | $34.12/month |
| Team volume | Custom | 50,000 tasks | 10,000 ops + teams |
| Self-hosted | Yes (free) | No | No |
| Pricing model | Per execution | Per task (each step) | Per operation (each step) |
The pricing model difference matters more than the headline numbers. Zapier counts every step in every run as a task. Make counts every operation. n8n cloud counts workflow executions (the entire run counts as one, regardless of how many nodes execute). Self-hosted n8n has no execution limits.
A practical example: a CRM enrichment workflow, trigger on new contact, look up company data from an API, update HubSpot, create a task in your CRM, send a Slack notification, is 5 steps. Running this on 300 new contacts per day:
- ▸Zapier: 300 × 5 = 1,500 tasks/day × 30 = 45,000 tasks/month → Professional plan ($73.50/month), likely hitting limits
- ▸Make: 300 × 5 = 1,500 operations/day × 30 = 45,000 ops/month → requires enterprise or additional operation bundles
- ▸n8n cloud: 300 executions/day × 30 = 9,000 executions/month → Pro plan ($60/month)
- ▸n8n self-hosted: free
Scaling to 1,000 new contacts per day: Zapier Team at $448.80/month. n8n self-hosted: still free. This is why "Zapier is free to start" becomes "why is our automation bill $600/month."
The Security Angle
This is the question most automation tool evaluations skip, and it's the one security teams should ask first.
Every app you connect to Zapier or Make requires OAuth credentials or API keys that live on their servers. When you build a Zap that touches Salesforce, your Salesforce OAuth token is stored on Zapier's infrastructure. When you build a Make scenario that reads from your PostgreSQL database, those database credentials are stored on Make's servers. Your Stripe API key, your internal webhook endpoints, your HR system credentials, all of it.
Automation platforms are explicitly designed to be authenticated into everything. That's the value proposition. It also means they hold the keys to your entire connected stack. A breach of the automation platform's credential store is effectively a breach of everything you've automated against.
This isn't hypothetical. High-value SaaS platforms with broad API access are attractive targets. The 2022 CircleCI breach, where environment variables and secrets stored in their CI platform were compromised, is the pattern to understand: a platform that's supposed to help you build things ends up being the attack surface.
Self-hosted n8n changes this architecture. Your n8n instance runs on your infrastructure. Credentials are stored in your database, behind your network controls, subject to your access policies. You can put n8n behind your VPN. You can audit who accesses it. For teams with SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 requirements, or teams handling sensitive customer data in their automations, this distinction is not academic.
n8n Self-Hosting: What It Actually Takes
Self-hosting n8n is Docker Compose. The documentation is thorough, the setup takes an hour for someone with basic server experience. You need a VPS ($10-20/month) or existing server infrastructure.
Ongoing maintenance: n8n releases updates regularly, database backups need to be configured, and the instance needs to stay reachable for webhook triggers. For a technical team with existing infrastructure practices, this is minimal additional overhead, another Docker container in the stack.
The code nodes are worth discussing separately. In any n8n workflow, you can add a Code node that runs JavaScript or Python. You have access to all input data, you can make HTTP requests, you can do complex data transformation, you can call internal APIs. This is the capability ceiling that differentiates n8n from Zapier and Make for technical teams. Zapier and Make both have limited code execution (JavaScript only, on higher paid plans). n8n has it as a first-class feature on every tier including the free self-hosted version.
For teams building automations that touch internal systems, require custom data processing, or need to integrate with APIs that don't have pre-built connectors, the code nodes are the feature that makes n8n viable where Zapier would require workarounds.
Feature Comparison
| n8n | Zapier | Make | |
|---|---|---|---|
| App integrations | 400+ native, 1,000+ community | 6,000+ | 1,500+ |
| Visual workflow builder | Node graph | Linear list | Visual flowchart |
| Code nodes (JS/Python) | Yes (all tiers) | JS only (Professional+) | Limited |
| Self-hosted | Yes (free) | No | No |
| Open source | Yes (fair-code) | No | No |
| Webhook triggers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP requests (any API) | Yes | Yes (Professional+) | Yes |
| Conditional logic | Yes | Yes | Yes (routers) |
| Loops / iteration | Yes | Limited | Yes (iterators) |
| Error handling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Human-in-the-loop | Yes (wait node) | Limited | Limited |
| AI agent nodes | Yes (LangChain) | Yes (AI features) | Limited |
| Execution history | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Credential storage | Your infrastructure (self-hosted) | Zapier's servers | Make's servers |
| HIPAA / SOC 2 ready | Self-hosted yes | Enterprise | Enterprise |
When Zapier Wins
Non-technical teams who need reliability above all: Zapier's uptime and reliability track record is the best in the category. The interface is the most approachable for non-developers. If the team who will own the automations doesn't include a developer and you want minimal maintenance overhead, Zapier is the defensible choice.
App coverage is a hard requirement: 6,000 integrations means Zapier almost certainly has a native connector for the tool you need. n8n's 400+ native integrations and community extensions cover most common tools but will have gaps for niche or enterprise-specific SaaS. If your workflow requires a specific obscure integration, check Zapier first.
Quick setup for simple automations: Two-step Zaps (trigger → action) are genuinely the easiest to build in Zapier. For a marketing team setting up basic automations without developer involvement, Zapier gets workflows running faster.
When Make Wins
Complex visual workflows at better economics than Zapier: Make's flowchart representation is better for multi-branch, conditional workflows than Zapier's linear list. At comparable volumes, Make is cheaper per operation. For technically comfortable non-developers who need complex logic at reasonable cost, Make hits the best balance of visual clarity and pricing.
Moderate scale without self-hosting: Teams processing thousands of operations per month who don't need self-hosting and don't have developers to run n8n will find Make significantly cheaper than Zapier at scale while retaining a good visual interface.
For Home Users and Personal Automation
Automation is not just for businesses. People automate their personal lives too.
Zapier Free for simple personal automations. Save Gmail attachments to Google Drive automatically. Get a Slack message when your favorite subreddit has a hot post. Forward Etsy order notifications to a spreadsheet. The free tier handles 100 tasks per month, which covers most personal use.
Make for hobbyists who enjoy building. If you like tinkering, Make is visual and satisfying to use. Automate your smart home, build a personal dashboard that pulls data from multiple services, or create a birthday reminder system. The free tier is more generous than Zapier.
n8n for the self-hosted crowd. If you already run a home server or NAS, n8n is free to self-host with no task limits. Popular home automations include media server management, backup monitoring, and home automation integrations that are too complex for IFTTT.
Most people should start with Zapier. The templates cover common personal automations and setup takes minutes. Only switch to Make or n8n if you hit the free tier limits or want more complex multi-step workflows.
When n8n Wins
Any compliance or data privacy requirement: HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR data residency, industry regulations around data handling, self-hosted n8n keeps your automation data and credentials on your infrastructure. Zapier and Make offer enterprise compliance options, but they require enterprise contracts and significant additional cost. n8n self-hosted provides this by default.
High volume automations: Above a few thousand workflow executions per month, n8n cloud ($60/month for 10,000 executions) is competitive or cheaper than Zapier. Self-hosted n8n has no limits. For teams doing tens of thousands of automation runs per month, the cost difference is substantial.
Technical teams building complex logic: The JavaScript and Python code nodes mean n8n can do things Zapier and Make cannot without workarounds. Internal API calls, complex data transformation, custom business logic, these belong in a Code node, not six chained filter steps.
Organizations concerned about credential security: If the question "whose server are our credentials on?" matters to your security posture, the answer for Zapier and Make is "theirs." For self-hosted n8n, it's "yours."
The automation tool decision is usually framed as a feature and ease-of-use comparison. At smaller scales with simpler workflows and no compliance requirements, that framing is sufficient, and it argues for Zapier's reliability and app coverage.
At scale, with technical teams, or with security requirements, the framing changes. Storing authenticated access to your entire SaaS stack on a third party's servers is a security architecture decision, not just a tool preference. Make is a more cost-effective version of the same architecture. n8n self-hosted is a different architecture entirely, your credentials on your infrastructure, your data in your database, your automation logic under your operational control.
The question of which is "better" depends entirely on which of those tradeoffs you're willing to make.