n8n vs Zapier vs Make

Teams that want custom logic, agents and hosting control.

Teams wanting a guided route between familiar apps.

Teams wanting to inspect branches and data movement on a canvas.

Combine AI with explicit workflow logic and custom tools.

A large integration catalogue supports common business hand-offs.

Routers split scenarios into condition-based routes.

Self-hosting requires deployment, security and maintenance skills.

Repeated successful actions add up across multi-step workflows.

Data bundles and AI features can change consumption.

Choose managed hosting or take responsibility for your instance.

Evaluate offered governance and connection controls for your team.

Enterprise on-prem connectivity is not full self-hosting.

Use managed hosting if you cannot maintain the underlying service.

Review n8n when running the workflow engine yourself is essential.

A visual graph may add setup effort to a single app-to-app action.

Connect data, models and tools into a controlled workflow.

Build Zaps; paid plans add multi-step capabilities.

Connect modules and route bundles through the scenario.

Check required actions, authentication and payload support.

App count alone does not confirm a particular action is supported.

Check the exact module and operation you need.

Keep predictable steps explicit; delegate ambiguous decisions selectively.

Confirm plan access for the required routing features.

Process routes in a configured order; a router is not automatic parallelism.

Useful when a standard connector does not cover your API.

Professional lists webhook access for custom event-driven connections.

Available routes depend on the service API and chosen plan.

Back up and update self-hosted deployments.

Track task usage and failed or repeated runs.

Check route conditions and credit-heavy modules.

Coordinate models, memory, tools and explicit workflow steps.

Give agents instructions and access to connected application actions.

Use agent tools within the scenario-based automation environment.

Build specialist agents with defined roles and hand-offs.

Verify the available hand-off actions instead of assuming shared context.

Use scenarios and tools deliberately; do not assume autonomous collaboration.

Add approvals around consequential agent actions.

Give the agent only the actions its job requires.

Review the inputs and effects of exposed scenarios.

Include model calls and infrastructure in the total budget.

Agent activities are not the same as ordinary Zap tasks.

Make AI Provider and your own connections have different cost components.

Model choice, context and retries determine token use.

A task or activity count is not a token measurement.

A credit is not a universal fixed quantity of tokens.

Cloud offers a trial; infrastructure still costs time or money.

Basic entry plan; confirm feature eligibility for your workflow.

Includes limited active scenarios and a 15-minute scheduling minimum.

Billed annually; 2,500 workflow executions.

Displayed starting rate; check billing term and task tier in the selector.

At 10,000 credits; confirm billing term at checkout.

A workflow run is the primary billing unit, rather than each step.

Tasks count qualifying actions; some built-in tools are exempt.

Most standard operations use one; some AI features consume more.

Assume one workflow run per lead, no additional runs or retries.

Assume three billable successful actions per lead; excludes exempt steps.

Assume exactly three one-credit operations per lead; excludes polling and AI.

Schedules, retries and model usage change the total.

Extra steps, Agents allowances and task tiers affect spend.

Loops, repeated items and variable-credit modules affect spend.

Include maintenance and throughput, not only execution price.

Count real successful actions from representative runs.

Measure credits from actual scenario history and AI usage.