n8n vs. Make

About n8n

n8n is a powerful, source-available, self-hostable alternative to Make (formerly Integromat) for workflow automation. You can simply handle branching, merging, and data manipulation using n8n, as well as writing custom JavaScript and running it as a step in your workflow. You can use either pre-built integrations or create your connectors to any service with an API by utilizing the HTTP Request node.

About Make

Make is a platform for creating processes in automation systems with a focus on API integration. Instead of needing the code, Integromat has turned these complicated APIs into simple blocks that can be connected with a simple drag-and-drop. Integromat calls these blocks ‘Modules’ and the visual connections between them ‘Scenarios’.

Costs

n8n

n8n is a workflow automation tool under the sustainable use license. You can host it on your own server. The source code is available here on GitHub. For organizations with stricter security or compliance requirements, n8n has an enterprise offer.

n8n Cloud is n8n's hosted solution. In addition to all the features of n8n, it provides added benefits such as:

• No technical setup or maintenance for your n8n instance
• 24/7 uptime monitoring
• Connect apps in just 1 click via OAuth
• One-click upgrades to the newest n8n versions

n8n Cloud packages start at €20 per month for 2,500 workflow executions.

Unlike Make, n8n doesn’t charge you extra for running more advanced workflows that have a lot of operations, steps, or tasks. n8n doesn’t have Premium apps – all integrations are at your free disposal. At the top end, it’s several hundred euros cheaper per month, or thousands of euros cheaper per year.

Learn more about n8n’s execution advantage: why n8n is the most cost-effective option in the market.

Make

Make offers only cloud plans: Free plan, Core ($9/month), Pro ($16/month), Teams ($29/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing). These prices are based on 10,000 operations/month. Prices increase if you add more operations.

In Make, every time a module in a scenario performs an action, it counts as an operation. For example, when your scenario reads a record from Pipedrive, writes a row into a Google sheet, or posts a tweet, each counts as one operation. Depending on the complexity of the process you’re automating, your scenario can perform anywhere from two operations to thousands of operations in a single run. A single workflow can be thousands of tasks that can burn through 1/4 of the budget with a single careless execution. It’s better to use other tools for more specialized needs like scraping or looping/transforming data as even such trivial tasks will eat up most of the ops.

Customer support

n8n

Depending on your issue, there are multiple ways to contact n8n. However, n8n users always mention the forum support as the best way to address questions regarding nodes creation, workflow templates, or feature requests.
With n8n’s engineers constantly answering topics on the forum, plus a large active community of n8n experts, you can be sure you will be assisted quickly. It usually takes up to 8 hours to get replies on forum.

Also, n8n’s documentation gets updated every day with the last release updates so you can navigate there to find the solutions you might need.

Make

The support is reported not to be consistent, therefore users can’t rely 100% on communities. The documentation is not always up to date, that makes users guess how some modules work and/or find user-made documentation. Therefore the learning curve is a bit steep.

Self-hosting

n8n

Self-hosting is a faster way to start and it gives more control and data security. Easier to comply with internal regulations and data privacy laws. You can choose how to set up your n8n instance:

• npm is a quick way to get started with n8n on your local machine. You must have Node.js installed;
• Docker installation that allows setting up n8n in a clean environment. It also offers an easier setup for your preferred database.

Make

All Make’s plans provides you with AWS to host your data and the Enterprise plan offers Celonis AWS environment.

Create your own integrations

n8n

n8n can interface with any service in an easy way (with a little bit of effort). A good thing is that you can start developing a node independently without the need to contact anyone. All you need is:

• some familiarity with JavaScript and TypeScript;
• ability to manage your own development environment, including git;
• knowledge of npm, including creating and submitting packages;
• familiarity with n8n, including a good understanding of data structures and item linking.

Make

With Make you have to wait until their customer support accepts your request and puts it under development. Whereas with n8n you can either ask for community feedback and help on your own integration or hire an expert by filling in this form.

UI built for developers

n8n

n8n is closer to a developer’s own workflow:

• You can directly write Javascript as a code block and use it to transform data;
• Error handling: in n8n, you can set up an error handling workflow that is triggered whenever a workflow fails;
• Array/string manipulation in n8n is as simple as using vanilla Javascript (https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_array_methods.asp);
• n8n’s nodes functionality and UI are more like a flow diagram (more natural for developers).

Make

• In Make, you need to use learn their own expression language - it’s harder to get help on this when you’re stuck;
• Error handling: extra steps in Integromat to catch errors and error handling is time-consuming to set up;
• Some features have been massively voted (like a merged path) and years later, it's not there yet;
• Arrays and collections work differently, which is always a headache to convert to the format your need in my experience.

Bonus: Nodes only n8n has

• Merge node: There’s no merge node in Integromat. Once you branch, you can never bring them back together;
• There are two places where you can use code in n8n: the Code node and the expressions editor;
• The Set node allows you to set workflow data. This node can set completely new data as well as overwrite data that already exists. This node is crucial in workflows that expect incoming data from previous nodes, such as when inserting values to Google Sheets or databases;
• The Split In Batches node saves the original incoming data, and with each iteration, it returns a predefined amount of data. This node can be used to loop through the data;
• Sticky Notes allow you to annotate and comment on your workflows. n8n recommends using Sticky Notes heavily, especially on template workflows, to help other users understand your workflow.

Make vs n8n: Which one to choose?

Simply speaking, n8n and Make both have feature parity. However, n8n might resonate more with developers’ mindsets due to its:

• flow diagram UI,
• two places where you can use code in n8n: the Code node and the expressions editor.
• unique nodes such as Merge, Split in Batches, or Set which make doing complex tasks easy in a no-code interface.

Also, n8n stands out when it comes to the customer support response rate and quality, ability to self-host, and fair pricing model based on workflow executions, not ops used.

Make is, however, an easier-to-use option for non-developers that still has a lot of functionality and flexibility. A visual interface that is simple enough but provides outstanding possibilities and a lot of useful built-in functions.

You’re now armed with knowledge! Hopefully, this guide was useful to give you a general overview of Make compared to n8n.

Switching to n8n gives you the flexibility of a fully customizable workflow, and we have a support team on hand if you need help migrating your data. If you still have questions, you can reach us any time on [email protected]. Tom or Jon will answer, usually within 1 hour or less during Berlin business hours (CET).

Or if you’re ready to work on your first n8n workflow right away!