Best n8n Alternatives of 2026
Seven automation and AI agent platforms to consider instead of n8n, ranked on price per run, ease of use, integrations, hosting and trust.
By , research by the BestBots team · Updated Oct 19, 2026
Fact checked against each company's published pricing, documentation and verified user ratings. How we score
Make is the best n8n alternative for most teams: the same visual workflow canvas and AI Agents on every plan, no server to run, and 10,000 credits for $16 a month. Zapier is the easiest option with 9,000+ apps, Gumloop is the strongest agent first pick at $37, and Stack AI is the enterprise choice if you still need self hosting.
Our top picks
Why look beyond n8n
n8n is the best value automation platform for technical teams, so most people do not leave it over price per run. They leave for four other reasons.
The learning curve. n8n rewards people who think in JSON, expressions and code nodes. Marketers and ops staff often find Zapier or Make faster to learn.
Hosting. The free Community Edition means you own uptime, updates, backups and security patches. n8n Cloud removes that, but caps you at 50,000 executions on Pro.
The Business jump. SSO, LDAP and more shared projects start at Business, about $900 (€800) a month billed monthly or about $751 (€667) billed annually, up from about $163 (€145) on Pro 50K. Business is also self hosted only. See the full math in n8n pricing.
Support. Paid plans below Enterprise get forum support only. n8n's Trustpilot page shows 3.0 from 50 reviews, with the complaints centered on slow email support and account recovery.
How to choose an alternative
Who builds the workflows? If developers do, Make or Gumloop keep the power with less upkeep. If business users do, Zapier or Lindy will get used.
How do you get billed? n8n bills one execution per full run. Make bills per module run, Zapier per action step, Gumloop and Lindy per credit tied to model and tool usage. For long workflows at volume, every alternative here costs more per run than n8n.
Do you still need your own infrastructure? Only Stack AI matches n8n on self hosting, and only on Enterprise. If data residency is a hard rule and you have no enterprise budget, the practical fix is often to keep n8n self hosted.
Workflows or conversations? If n8n powers a support or sales chat, a conversation platform such as Botpress fits better than another workflow tool.
Our picks, in detail
- Starting price
- $16 per month billed monthly
- Free tier
- 1,000 credits per month
- Integrations count
- 3,500+ apps
- Self host
- No, cloud only
Make keeps n8n's visual canvas and branching logic but needs no server, and Core at $16 a month billed monthly includes 10,000 credits, the most volume per dollar among hosted tools. AI Agents run on every plan, Free included, and its reasoning panel shows each agent decision step by step.
Pros
- AI Agents available on all plans, including Free
- 10,000 credits for $16 a month, far more volume per dollar than Zapier
- Reasoning panel shows each agent decision step by step
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 listed
Cons
- Visual canvas takes longer to learn than Zapier
- AI Provider actions can use more than 1 credit per step
- No self hosting
- Trustpilot 2.7 from 172 reviews
Skip it if you run long workflows at high volume; Make bills every module run, while n8n bills one execution per whole workflow.
- Starting price
- $29.99 per month billed monthly
- Free tier
- 100 tasks and 400 agent activities per month
- Integrations count
- 9,000+ apps
- Self host
- No, cloud only
Zapier connects 9,000+ apps, roughly 18 times n8n's 500+, and Copilot builds workflows and agents from a plain English prompt. The Free plan includes 100 tasks and 400 agent activities a month, so a marketer or ops lead can ship without touching code or hosting.
Pros
- 9,000+ app integrations, the largest catalog in this category
- Free plan includes Agents with 400 activities a month
- Zapier Copilot builds agents from a plain English prompt
- SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 listed on its comparison page
Cons
- Per task billing gets expensive for high volume workflows
- Agents are a separate meter on top of your Zap plan
- No self hosting option
- Trustpilot score of 1.3 from 324 reviews, mostly billing and renewal complaints
Skip it if cost per run matters; a 6 step workflow at 1,500 runs a month uses 9,000 tasks and costs $193.50 a month billed monthly.
- Starting price
- $37 per month
- Free tier
- 14 day trial only
- Integrations count
- 400+ connectors listed on the homepage, plus custom MCP servers
- Self host
- No; VPC on Enterprise
Gumloop is built agent first: 35+ models with fallback, unlimited seats and agents, and agents your team can reach in Slack, Microsoft Teams and email, all on one $37 a month plan with 20,000 credits. Usage is billed at provider list price plus an 8% fee, so the cost of each run is traceable.
Pros
- Unlimited seats, agents and teams on the $37 plan
- 35+ models with model fallback and bring your own key
- Agents reachable in Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, hosted pages and API
- Clear credit math: $0.005 per credit, published per chat cost breakdown
- SOC 2 Type II listed on the homepage
Cons
- No permanent free plan, only a 14 day trial
- 8% orchestration fee on top of model costs, 16% with your own keys
- Agents stop at the credit cap unless overage is switched on
- Shared credentials, Company Brain and SSO are Enterprise only
- No G2, Capterra or Trustpilot listing with 10+ reviews found (Product Hunt 5.0 from 9)
Skip it if you need self hosting or a permanent free plan; it offers a 14 day trial and a VPC option only on Enterprise.
- Starting price
- $49.99 per month
- Free tier
- 7 day trial with $50 in credits
- Integrations count
- 1,500+ tools plus MCP servers
- Self host
- No
If you were wiring n8n to triage email, take meeting notes and update a CRM, Lindy does those jobs out of the box with 40+ skills and 1,500+ integrations, reachable from Slack, iMessage and email. Team starts at $49.99 a month for 5,000 credits.
Pros
- Ready made skills for email triage, meeting notes, scheduling and CRM updates
- 1,500+ integrations plus MCP and browser automation
- SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA and PIPEDA listed
- Editable plain text memory about your team
Cons
- Credit usage per task is hard to forecast before you run it
- No free plan after the 7 day trial
- Trustpilot 1.7 from 40 reviews
Skip it if you need predictable bills or heavy back office automation; tasks cost 2 to 2,500 credits each and every active user is billed.
- Starting price
- Quote only
- Free tier
- 500 runs per month, 1 seat
- Integrations count
- 500+ enterprise integrations
- Self host
- Yes, on premises or VPC on Enterprise
Stack AI is the closest match to n8n's self hosting story for big companies: on premises or VPC deployment with HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and GDPR listed, plus a no code builder for agents on internal data. A free plan gives 500 runs a month to prototype.
Pros
- On premises and VPC deployment
- HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and GDPR listed
- Free plan with 500 runs to prototype
- Model agnostic
Cons
- No self serve paid plan between Free and Enterprise
- Free plan limited to 1 seat and 2 projects
- Asana acquisition announced October 2026, so the roadmap may change
Skip it if you need a self serve paid plan; there is nothing between Free and a custom Enterprise contract, and Asana announced it is acquiring Stack AI, so the roadmap may change.
- Starting price
- $150 per month billed annually
- Free tier
- 100 conversations a month, 3 agents, 3 seats
- Integrations count
- 50+ Hub integrations
- Self host
- No for the current cloud platform; legacy v12 only
If your n8n workflows mostly power chatbots, Botpress is purpose built for them, with channels such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and Slack and a free tier of 100 conversations a month. It holds 4.5 on G2 from 514 reviews, the strongest review base on this list.
Pros
- Free tier with 100 conversations
- Unlimited agents on paid plans
- Per conversation rate drops to $0.50 on Team
- 4.5 on G2 from 514 reviews
Cons
- Paid plans shown only with annual billing
- Conversation packs auto add at 95% of quota and cannot be disabled
- You build and maintain the support logic
- Voice channel only on Enterprise
Skip it if you need general app automation; it is a conversation platform, and paid plans start at $150 a month billed annually.
- Starting price
- $29 per month
- Free tier
- None (Free plan retired)
- Integrations count
- 2,000+ apps and 1,000+ triggers
- Self host
- No
Relevance AI builds teams of specialist agents, such as a BDR, meeting prep and post call agent, that hand work to each other, and it passes model costs through at wholesale with no markup. It publishes an average cost of $0.09 per task.
Pros
- Specialist agent templates such as a BDR, meeting prep and post call agent
- Workforces chain agents with AI handoffs or fixed next steps
- Vendor Credits pass model costs through at wholesale with no markup, and you can bring your own keys
- SOC 2 Type II and GDPR, with SSO, RBAC, audit logs and PII masking on Enterprise
Cons
- Two meters to track: Actions and Vendor Credits
- Extra Actions cost $80 per 1,000, far above the plan rate
- Calling and meeting agents start at $349 a month on Team
- Public pricing page shows only Enterprise, and too few public reviews to rate (2 on Trustpilot)
Skip it if you want a public price; the only plan listed is a custom Enterprise contract.
Price comparison
| Platform | Entry paid plan, billed monthly | What it includes | Billing unit | Self host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| n8n | about $27 (€24) | 2,500 executions | Per workflow run | Yes, free Community Edition |
| Make | $16 | 10,000 credits | Per module run | No |
| Zapier | $29.99 | 750 tasks | Per action step | No |
| Gumloop | $37 | 20,000 credits | Usage at list price plus 8% | No, VPC on Enterprise |
| Lindy | $49.99 per user | 5,000 credits | Per task, 2 to 2,500 credits | No |
| Stack AI | Free, then quote only | 500 runs free | Runs | Yes, on Enterprise |
| Botpress | $150 billed annually | 250 conversations | Per conversation | No |
| Relevance AI | Quote only | Custom | Actions and vendor credits | No |
Prices as listed on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026. n8n lists euros only; USD converts at the ECB rate of 1.1253 on October 16, 2026.
One workflow, four bills. Take a 6 step lead routing workflow that runs 1,500 times a month. On n8n it is 1,500 executions, inside Starter at about $27 (€24). On Make it is about 9,000 credits, inside Core at $16. On Zapier it is 9,000 tasks, which needs the 10,000 task Professional tier at $193.50 a month billed monthly. Self hosted n8n on a $12 server costs $12.
Five users who need SSO. n8n requires Business at about $751 (€667) a month billed annually. Zapier Team includes SAML SSO from $103.50 a month billed monthly for 2,000 tasks and 25 users. Gumloop's $37 plan includes unlimited seats, with SAML on Enterprise.
What you give up
Leaving n8n costs you three things no hosted rival fully replaces. First, free self hosting with no execution cap. Second, flat per run billing, which makes a 30 step agent chain cost the same as a 3 step one. Third, real code: JavaScript and Python nodes inside any workflow, plus an open codebase with 207,000+ GitHub stars and a large community of shared templates. If those matter more than ease of use, compare the tradeoffs in n8n vs Make and n8n vs Zapier before you switch.
How we picked
We compared platforms that cover the same jobs as n8n, workflow automation and AI agents, on published facts only: vendor pricing pages and docs opened in October 2026, and public review listings with at least 10 reviews. We did not run benchmarks. The order is editorial, based on price per run, ease of use, integrations, hosting options and trust signals, and no vendor paid for placement. See how we score and the full best AI agent builders ranking.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to n8n?
Make, for most teams. It offers the same kind of visual workflow canvas with AI Agents on every plan, needs no server, and Core costs $16 a month billed monthly for 10,000 credits. If your team is not technical, Zapier is easier and has 9,000+ app integrations, at a higher price per run.
Is there an open source alternative to n8n?
None of the platforms on this list is open source; n8n's Community Edition is the main open source option in this category. If self hosting is the requirement, Stack AI offers on premises and VPC deployment, but only on a custom Enterprise contract.
Is Zapier better than n8n?
Zapier is easier and has far more integrations, 9,000+ against n8n's 500+. n8n is much cheaper for multi step workflows because it bills one execution per run while Zapier bills each action as a task. Pick Zapier for simple automations owned by non technical staff, n8n for volume and complex logic.
Is Make cheaper than n8n?
For short workflows, yes. Make Core is $16 a month for 10,000 credits against n8n Starter at about $27 (€24) for 2,500 executions. As workflows get longer, n8n catches up, because a 10 step workflow costs 10 Make credits per run and still one n8n execution.
What is easier to use than n8n?
Zapier is the easiest, with plain English workflow building through Copilot. Lindy is easier still for assistant jobs like email triage, meeting notes and CRM updates, since it ships with ready made skills instead of a canvas.
Why do people leave n8n?
The common reasons are the learning curve for non developers, the price jump to Business (€800 a month billed monthly) for SSO, the work of maintaining a self hosted server, and support complaints on its Trustpilot page, which shows 3.0 from 50 reviews.
Which n8n alternative is best for AI agents?
Gumloop is the most agent focused option with self serve pricing: 35+ models, unlimited seats and agents on a $37 a month plan, and agents reachable in Slack, Teams and email. Relevance AI is stronger for multi agent sales teams but is sold only on Enterprise contracts.