n8n vs Make vs Zapier: Which Automation Platform Fits Your Team?

n8n vs Make vs Zapier at a glance

All three tools connect apps and run workflows when something happens, such as a new form entry, a paid invoice or an email. They differ in who they are built for and how much control they give you.

• Zapier: linear Zaps that are quick to set up, a catalog of more than 10,000 apps, and Agents, Chatbots, Tables and Forms in the same account. It runs as a hosted service.
• Make: a visual canvas where scenarios branch, loop and handle errors on screen, with 3,000+ apps and a choice of US or EU data center.
• n8n: a node-based editor with JavaScript and Python code nodes, 2,000+ integrations plus a generic HTTP Request node, and the option to run it on your own servers.

How do n8n, Make and Zapier price workflows?

Zapier bills tasks. A task is a successful action step. Triggers, polling, filters, Paths and Formatter steps do not count, and failed actions are free. If you switch on pay-per-task, usage continues past your plan at a higher per-task rate; if not, Zaps pause until the next cycle. Some steps cost more than one task. Zapier's pricing page gives one MCP tool call as two tasks, and AI steps are priced by model tier.

Make has billed in credits since August 27, 2025, when credits replaced operations as the billing unit. Most module actions use one credit, while routers and error-handler modules use none. Make's pricing page says some AI features may use more credits. When credits run out, scenarios stop until you add more.

n8n's cloud and paid plans meter workflow executions. One execution is one full run of a workflow, and n8n's pricing page says the number of steps does not matter. All plans include unlimited users and workflows. The self-hosted Community Edition has no execution fee at all; you pay for the server and the time to run it.

Here is how one workflow compares. A trigger plus eight action steps runs 1,000 times a month. On Zapier that is about 8,000 tasks if every action succeeds. On Make it is roughly one credit per module per run, so around 9,000 credits if all nine modules run. On n8n Cloud it is 1,000 executions. Long workflows favor n8n's model, and Zapier's free filters help when most runs stop early.

Which platform can you self-host?

n8n is the only one of the three you can run on your own infrastructure, using npm or Docker on a server you control. The Community Edition uses n8n's Sustainable Use License, a fair-code license. It lets you use and modify n8n for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and it restricts distribution to free, non-commercial cases. Files marked .ee need a separate n8n Enterprise License. Features such as SSO, environments, Git version control and log streaming sit in paid editions.

Make and Zapier are hosted services. Make asks you to pick a US or EU data center when you create an organization, and its help center says you cannot change it afterwards. Zapier's pricing page lists custom task-history retention and an option to route supported AI processing through your own AWS Bedrock account.

Self-hosting is not free in effort. Someone has to patch the server, back up the database, rotate credentials, watch for failed executions and upgrade n8n when new versions ship. Teams with data-residency needs in the GCC, or with sensitive records, often accept that work. Teams without an engineer usually should not.

How do their AI agent features compare?

n8n treats AI as a set of building blocks. You connect models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others, and combine agents with tools, memory and vector databases. Its documentation also covers connecting an agent to an MCP server and running evaluations to test AI workflows before you trust them.

Make AI Agents sit on the same canvas as your scenarios. Make says they can reason over unstructured input, trigger real workflows and show each decision in a reasoning panel, with manual approvals and stop points. They are available on all plans.

Zapier Agents are created at agents.zapier.com from plain-language instructions or templates. They can use connected knowledge sources and run on triggers from other apps. Agents and Chatbots are separate products with their own billing. Zapier's help center notes that agents are personal to your account and cannot be embedded as a customer-facing tool; it points to Zapier Chatbots for that.

Code flexibility and integrations

Code is where the three differ most. The n8n Code node runs JavaScript and Python, with native Python stable from n8n 2. Self-hosted instances can import external npm modules; n8n Cloud cannot. Code by Zapier runs short JavaScript or Python snippets in a sandbox with time and memory limits set by your plan, and Python steps cannot install extra libraries. Make's custom functions are an Enterprise feature. They run JavaScript ES6 with a 300-millisecond limit, no third-party libraries and no HTTP requests.

On integrations, Zapier leads on count, and that matters for long-tail SaaS apps your team already uses. For systems with an API but no connector, all three can make HTTP calls. For older ERPs, on-premise databases or files on a local server, a self-hosted n8n instance inside your network is often the only one of the three that can reach them directly.

Team features and governance

Zapier's Team plan adds up to 25 seats, shared workspaces and app connections, folder permissions and SAML SSO, and Enterprise adds admin and governance controls. Make's custom functions follow its team roles: team members can use them, and team admins create and edit them. n8n puts SSO, environments and Git-based version control in its paid self-hosted tiers, and custom roles, audit logging and log streaming in Enterprise.

If several people will build workflows, decide early who owns each one, where credentials live and how changes are reviewed. A workflow that bills customers deserves the same review as any other code that touches money.

When to pick n8n, Make or Zapier

Start from who will maintain the workflows and how much data passes through them. The tool that fits your team today is a better choice than the one with the longest feature list.

• Pick Zapier when non-technical staff will build and maintain automations, the apps are common SaaS tools and volumes are modest.
• Pick Make when workflows branch and loop, you want to see the logic on a canvas and you need an EU data center option.
• Pick n8n when you have an engineer, want self-hosting or code, or run long workflows at volume.

When a custom build beats all three

Workflow tools reach their limit when a process becomes part of your product. Signs include complex state that spans days, approvals with many branches, heavy data transformation, strict audit needs, or a monthly bill dominated by per-step charges. At that point a small service in your own codebase, with tests and version control, is often cheaper to run and easier to reason about. Many teams keep n8n or Make for the glue and move the core process into code.

Safock's n8n automation work follows the same split. It builds on n8n when the workflow suits it and writes custom services when it does not. In both cases the client owns the instance, the code and the documentation.