n8n Alternatives (2026): What to Switch To and Why

Why people look for an n8n alternative

People leave n8n for five reasons: running the server, the Cloud cap, the price of team features, the license and the learning curve. The first three often have a fix inside n8n, and the n8n pricing guide covers every plan, the execution rules and server costs in detail, so here they get one line each.

• Running the server. On the free Community Edition, the server and its upkeep are yours, and n8n's guide to choosing how to use n8n points anyone without technical expertise to n8n Cloud, which it calls fully managed.
• The Cloud cap. Starter includes 2,500 executions a month and Pro 10,000, and both "are capped and have no overages" (n8n pricing). A Schedule Trigger counts every time it fires, even when it finds nothing, so check your schedules first.
• Team features. Git version control, SSO, environments and sharing are among the 10 features the free Community Edition leaves out (edition comparison). They start with the self-hosted Business plan at €667 a month billed yearly for 40,000 executions, and companies under 20 employees that qualify get the Start-up Plan at 50% off Business.
• The license. n8n is fair-code under its Sustainable Use License and says it isn't open source by the OSI definition. Most businesses can live with it (see the license table below).
• The learning curve. n8n passes data between nodes as items you map with expressions; Zapier and Make hide more of that, but count every step.

Pick an n8n alternative by your reason for leaving

Start from the reason, not the tool. Seven of the eight reasons below have something to try inside n8n first.

USD a month unless marked; n8n in euros. Checked on each vendor's page on October 26, 2026. Make's prices are the US ones from the pricing data its own page loads, because Make sets prices by country.

Paying month to month, without a yearly commitment, the entry plans line up like this:

The n8n alternatives in detail (checked October 26, 2026)

Each of these n8n competitors gets the same questions, ending with what happens to your n8n setup. The order follows the decision table, not a ranking; for a roundup of automation tools in general, see the best AI automation tools.

Make, for a visual builder without a server

• Price: Core is $12 a month billed yearly or $16 monthly for 10,000 credits in the US; Pro is $21 or $28 and Teams $38 or $51 (Make pricing). Make prices by country: our browser in Israel saw Core at $11 billed yearly.
• Free tier: 1,000 credits a month, with scheduled runs at most every 15 minutes.
• How usage counts: every module action uses credits, most of them 1, while routers and error handlers are free. When credits run out, scenarios stop until you add more, and unused credits expire at the end of the term.
• Self-hosting and license: none; hosted by Make only.
• AI: Make AI Agents (beta), included on every plan with Make's AI Provider or your own model key, and Maia, which builds scenarios and agents from a chat.
• From your n8n setup: we found no official importer. A scenario with 10 modules uses about 10 credits per run where n8n counted 1 execution; n8n vs Zapier vs Make prices the same workflows on all three.

make.com/pricing

Zapier, for the gentlest start and the most apps

• Price: Professional from $19.99 a month billed yearly or $29.99 monthly for 750 tasks; Team from $69 or $103.50 for 2,000 tasks, in USD (Zapier pricing). The price follows your task tier, as the clip below shows.
• Free tier: 100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps only, one user.
• How usage counts: each successful action is a task, while triggers and built-in tools such as Filter, Paths, Formatter and Looping are free. When you reach your tier, Zapier switches you to pay-per-task billing unless you turn it off, up to 3 times the plan's limit, then holds runs.
• Self-hosting and license: none; proprietary and hosted by Zapier.
• AI: Zapier Agents with their own quota (400 activities a month free), and AI by Zapier steps at 1, 3 or 5 tasks by model tier, or 1 task with your own AI key on Advanced or Premium models.
• From your n8n setup: no importer found. Free has no webhooks (they start on Professional), and a run with a trigger and 9 actions uses 9 tasks where n8n counted 1 execution.

Activepieces, the closest open source n8n alternative

• Price: Plus is $20 flat a month, or $16 billed yearly, for 10,000 credits and up to 5 users; Team is $200, or $166 billed yearly, for 50,000 credits and 25 users with SSO, in USD (Activepieces pricing). Extra credits cost $0.007 each.
• Free tier: 1,000 credits, unlimited flows and up to 5 users. The page lists a daily reset in its table and a monthly one in its FAQ, so check which applies.
• How usage counts: one flow run is 1 credit however many steps it has, the closest match to an n8n execution. AI steps add 2, 10 or 20 credits by model, or 1 with your own keys on Plus and up.
• Self-hosting and license: the Community Edition is MIT, except the enterprise folders, which have their own license; the recommended setup is Docker Compose with PostgreSQL and Redis.
• AI: an Agents product and a Run Agent step inside flows, plus 772 pieces (integrations) with 6,524 actions.
• From your n8n setup: no importer, and its docs don't mention n8n, but your execution math carries over best here. The catch: Activepieces calls the free Community Edition the automation core on its own, so access control, change history, separate team spaces, safe releases, Agents and Chat need a paid plan, and its SOC 2 program is still in progress.

activepieces.com/pricing

Microsoft Power Automate, if your company runs on Microsoft 365

• Price: Premium is $15.00 per user a month, paid yearly; Process is $150.00 per bot and Hosted Process $215.00 (Power Automate pricing). These are US dollar prices, and Microsoft notes they vary by currency, country and region.
• Free tier: no lasting free plan, only a 30-day trial with standard connectors. Some Microsoft 365 licenses include Power Automate, with 6,000 requests per 24 hours.
• How usage counts: a license per user or per bot, with 40,000 requests per 24 hours per paid user; every connector call and built-in action counts, successful or failed.
• Self-hosting and license: proprietary, and a cloud service only, says Microsoft's FAQ. Desktop flows (software robots that click through apps like a person) run in the Power Automate for desktop app on Windows 10 and 11, or on a Microsoft-run virtual machine with Hosted Process.
• AI: Copilot builds and edits flows from plain language; agents come through Copilot Studio, priced separately.
• From your n8n setup: no importer. It has more than 1,400 prebuilt connectors, but premium ones need a paid license.

microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-automate/pricing

Windmill, if you or your team write code

• Price: Cloud Team is $10 a month per builder ($5 per non-builder), with 10,000 executions per seat and at most 10 seats; Cloud Enterprise starts at $840 a month, in USD (Windmill pricing).
• Free tier: Cloud Free gives 1,000 executions a month; the self-hosted Community Edition has unlimited executions, 3 workspaces, up to 50 users and SSO for up to 10.
• How usage counts: an execution is a job under 1 second, each extra second counts again, and a flow's executions are the sum of its steps.
• Self-hosting and license: AGPLv3 and Apache 2.0 code plus proprietary enterprise features. The Community Edition is free to use inside your company but can't be resold or run as a managed service without an agreement.
• AI: AI agent steps inside flows, with your own key for OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter and others.
• From your n8n setup: no importer, though its README calls it a self-hostable alternative to n8n. You write steps as scripts in Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash and more, so it suits developers.

Node-RED and Huginn, free on your own server

• Price: free software with no paid plan from either project. Node-RED lists FlowFuse, AWS and Azure as cloud options (we didn't check their prices); Huginn's README says to expect a small monthly hosting bill.
• Free tier and usage: no metering at all; you pay for the machine.
• Self-hosting and license: Node-RED is Apache 2.0, part of the OpenJS Foundation, and runs on your own computer, a Raspberry Pi, Docker or a cloud server (nodered.org). Huginn is MIT, with Docker Compose as the recommended production setup.
• AI: for Node-RED, look in its library of 6,325 community nodes, which has an AI category. Huginn's agents watch for events and act on them, and it can summarize, classify or translate text through OpenAI-compatible APIs.
• From your n8n setup: no importer. Node-RED's editor isn't secured by default: anyone who can reach its address can change your flows, so secure it before it goes online.

Lindy and Gumloop, if you want an AI agent more than a workflow

• Price: Lindy Team is $29.99 a month per active user for 3,000 credits each, with top-ups at $10 per 1,000 credits (Lindy pricing). Gumloop Pro starts at $37 a month for 20,000 credits, 12,600 of them bonus (Gumloop pricing). Both in USD.
• Free tier: Lindy gives $50 in credits with no card, valid for 7 days. Gumloop has no free plan: its 14-day Pro trial needs a card and rolls into Pro unless you cancel.
• How usage counts: Lindy draws 2 to 250 credits for an everyday ask and up to 2,500 for a big build from a team pool, and pauses when the pool runs out. Gumloop bills model tokens at list price, 5 credits per minute of agent work and at least 1 per tool call, plus an 8% orchestration fee (16% with your own model keys).
• Self-hosting and license: neither; both are proprietary, and Gumloop lists a Virtual Private Cloud option on Enterprise.
• AI: it's the whole product. Lindy works in Slack, email and meetings with 1,500+ integrations plus MCP; Gumloop offers 35+ models and 400+ connectors. The best AI agent platforms compares them with other agent builders.
• From your n8n setup: no importer. Gumloop now labels its workflow builder "Workflows (Legacy)", so expect to turn an n8n workflow into an agent's instructions.

gumloop.com/pricing

Integrately, for simple app-to-app jobs

• Price: Starter is $19.99 a month billed yearly or $29.99 monthly for 2,000 tasks, in USD, taxes extra (Integrately pricing).
• Free tier: 100 tasks and up to 5 single-step automations, updated every 15 minutes.
• How usage counts: every successful action, condition, data edit and search is a task; triggers and failed actions are free.
• Self-hosting and license: none; proprietary.
• AI: OpenAI actions such as generating a response; we found no agent builder.
• From your n8n setup: no importer, and branching costs tasks, so a workflow full of IF nodes adds up.

Free and open source n8n alternatives, and their catch

Four tools here publish their code under open source licenses, and each one's catch is features, hosting or your own time. n8n's own Community Edition is free to self-host too, with no execution cap from a plan. The hosted free tiers (Make's 1,000 credits, Zapier's and Integrately's 100 tasks) are in each tool's section above.

For an open source n8n alternative that a non-coder can run, Activepieces is the realistic pick: you can try its hosted free tier, which includes building from a chat, before you install anything. Node-RED and Huginn are fully open, but you run and secure them yourself.

Do you have to leave n8n over the license?

Probably not, if n8n runs your own business or your client work. The Sustainable Use License limits use to your own internal business purposes or non-commercial use, and n8n's License FAQ spells out what that covers. On client work, "The determining factor is client access", not the number of clients or the revenue.

Source: n8n's License FAQ, October 26, 2026. A No row is the one reason on this page with no fix inside free n8n.

What carries over from n8n

Your workflow logic carries over as a map, not as a file another tool can open, and your credentials and webhook URLs don't carry over at all. This comes from n8n's docs and each alternative's pages on October 26, 2026.

Clean any export before you share it: n8n's export and import docs say the JSON includes credential names and IDs, and HTTP Request nodes imported from cURL can hold authentication headers.

On self-hosted n8n, these two commands from n8n's command line docs export every workflow and every credential (not a full backup of the instance); run them where n8n runs:

# every workflow, one JSON file each
$ n8n export:workflow --backup --output=backups/latest/
# every credential in plain text: treat this file like a password
$ n8n export:credentials --all --decrypted --output=backups/decrypted.json
$ 

An AI assistant can turn one export into a rebuild plan. Remove credential names and any authentication headers first:

Here is an n8n workflow exported as JSON: [PASTE THE CLEANED JSON].
I am rebuilding it in [NEW TOOL]. List every node in the order it runs, with its job in one line, the fields it takes from earlier nodes, and any expressions or code it uses.
Then suggest the matching [NEW TOOL] step for each node, mark any node with no clear match, and list every app connection and webhook URL I will need to recreate.

Check the suggested steps against the new tool's own docs before you build: the assistant sees your JSON, not the tool.

Where our AI automation course fits

ai school teaches AI automation, and I build automations for clients, so read this page with that in mind: that's why our course isn't in the decision table and nothing here is ranked. The AI automation course is in early access (pre-order) and covers automations for leads, email, social posting and connecting your tools without code. If a tool above fits your reason better, use that tool.

What to do next

Find your reason in the decision table and, if it has a fix inside n8n, try that for a month before you move anything. If you still switch, export every workflow, rebuild your busiest one on the free tier or trial of your pick, and run both side by side for a week before you cancel n8n. If you're still weighing whether automation is worth the effort, what AI automation is explains the building blocks and their real costs, the ground our AI automation course builds on.