n8n Review 2026

n8n bills each full workflow run as one execution, however many steps it has, while Zapier bills each successful action step as a task. That difference decides the bill.

A four-step workflow that runs 2,000 times a month is 2,000 executions on n8n and 8,000 tasks on Zapier.

This review covers the n8n Cloud plans and the free self-hosted edition, what the limits do to real workloads, where n8n falls short, and how it compares with the three alternatives here.

Toolradar data: the no-code workflow automation ranking we run evaluates 1,016 tools, updated October 2026, and only 3 of its 10 top picks offer a free plan.

Prices were checked on each vendor's own pricing page in October 2026, and the license was read in n8n's public GitHub repository. This is a desk review of those sources, not a hands-on trial.

Methodology: each plan's limits and billing unit are taken as printed on the vendor's pricing page, and the per-run and per-task comparisons below use only those printed figures and simple division.

n8n is a workflow automation platform that connects apps, APIs and code steps into one workflow, with AI agent nodes built in. It runs as a hosted Cloud service, or as a self-hosted install from its public repository on GitHub.

Every plan includes unlimited users and workflows and every integration, so the price difference comes down to how many executions run each month and how much control you need over the instance.

The code is source-available under the Sustainable Use License.

It permits internal business use and limits how the software can be given to others. It was built for technical teams. The editor sits next to JavaScript and Python code steps, custom HTTP and GraphQL requests, and an API and CLI for managing the instance.

A workflow is a canvas of nodes: a trigger such as a webhook, a schedule or an app event, then action nodes, branches and code steps. n8n's pricing counts a run from trigger to finish as one execution, so a 12-node workflow costs the same as a 3-node one.

That is the main reason it suits multi-step AI and data jobs. Adding steps does not raise the bill. Hosting the self-hosted version is a separate cost, and our cloud free tiers comparison lists what the main providers give away.

The limits you hit first are concurrency and duration, not steps.

Starter runs five executions at once and stops any single run at five minutes, which rules out long agent loops or batch jobs. Pro raises concurrency to 50 and the maximum run time to 40 minutes. Jobs longer than 40 minutes belong on a self-hosted install, where these Cloud caps do not apply.

If your workflows are mostly LLM calls rather than pipelines, a tool such as Dify is built around that job more directly.

n8n lists Cloud prices in euros only, billed annually, according to its pricing page read in October 2026. The page shows no US-dollar price, so this review does not convert them.

Per execution, the arithmetic is about EUR 0.008 on Starter, EUR 0.005 on Pro and about EUR 0.017 on Business, each plan's monthly price divided by its execution cap. Pro is the cheapest per execution, and Business costs roughly twice Starter per run.

The page lists Business as self-hosted only.

The Community Edition costs nothing to download, but you pay for the server and for the time to run it.

Its license allows use for your own internal business purposes and does not cover offering n8n to others as a service.

The alternatives publish dollar prices.

Zapier's pricing page lists a free plan and a Professional plan from $19.99 a month on annual billing for 750 tasks. Pipedream's pricing page lists a Startup plan at $99 a month on annual billing or $150 monthly.

Activepieces' pricing page lists a Plus plan at $20 a month, flat. These are dollar figures, so they cannot be set against n8n's euro prices without an exchange rate, which this review does not use.

n8n suits engineering and data teams that run multi-step jobs between their own systems, including AI steps. A product team that wires an LLM into its CRM, its support queue or a data pipeline, and runs thousands of runs a month, gets the most value, because the bill counts runs and not steps.

Teams that want to own the infrastructure gain the most from the free self-hosted edition. If your stack already runs on Supabase or Claude Code, n8n is the layer that connects them to the rest of your apps.

Toolradar keeps listings for n8n and Zapier alongside the other tools in this comparison.

It is the wrong pick in four cases. A team that stays under 100 tasks a month can run on Zapier's free plan, which allows two-step Zaps only.

A team that needs a permanent free cloud tier will not find one on n8n, only the trial. And a company that wants to host n8n for its customers falls outside what the free Community Edition license allows.

Non-technical builders will likely find the canvas heavier than a no-code tool, and Zapier is the simpler fit for them.