Self-hosting
n8n
Self-hosting is a faster way to start: you can self-host n8n for cheap or free (no fees to n8n) on your choice of Virtual Private Server (VPS), Heroku, your own server or even your personal computer. Self-hosting also means you can keep your data private instead of letting Zapier have a free pass at it, which also means you could simplify GDPR compliance.
Zapier
Zapier hosts data in AWS servers located in the United States, including customers' personal data and the data that is processed on behalf of customers.
Universal connectors
n8n
Firstly, n8n is building its own native integrations and accepting community-built connectors to its library (available for self-hosted now, coming soon for cloud). However, if you don’t find the integrations you need, that’s fine: you can send HTTP requests or even write your own JavaScript code inside a workflow to do pretty much anything.
You can also code your own custom integrations, or even radically change the system or its UI to better suit your use case. The code for n8n is available on GitHub and n8n team is always keen to accept new contributions from the community.
Zapier
Zapier's got you covered with 5,000+ apps that you can integrate between each other – they are easy to configure and incredibly reliable.
To build more custom integrations, you can send webhooks in Zaps or trigger Zaps from webhooks if you're on a paid plan. Webhooks by Zapier offers GET, POST, PUT methods, which include automatic data parsing, and you can also select Custom Request for other use cases. All webhooks in Zapier are subject to a collective limit of 10,000 requests in a 5-minute window. This includes subscription webhooks or REST Hooks.
Branching and conditional logic
n8n
n8n is made specifically for use cases with complex logic and that’s why in your workflows you can represent:
- Merging: if you want to merge items returned by different nodes;
- Looping: if you want to process multiple similar items;
- IF conditions: if you want to split a workflow conditionally based on comparison operations;
- The Switch node: is similar to the IF node, but supports up to four conditional routes;
- The Execute Command node: if you want to run shell commands on the host machine that runs n8n;
- Comparing databases: if you want to compare data from two input streams.
n8n uses a concept of data flowing from start to finish. You can add variables and "items" and access previous items and data from previous nodes. Check out the docs.
Zapier
Zapier does a good job at handling triggers (e.g. Zapier Gmail node allows you to filter messages for matching a specific filter) and regularly checks your trigger for new data. When the Zap triggers, Zapier automatically performs your action for you.
Zapier offers multi-step Zaps, however no powerful conditional Zaps. There’s still a workaround such as three separate Zaps where each has a unique filter, but without a possibility to route to different steps based on variable input. Also, there’s a limit on the number of levels of logical branching which is sometimes better to be replaced with Google Scripts which offers a richer feature set despite the increase in coding.
Some of the multi-step Zaps are not intuitive to create and the more complicated your workflow, the more difficult it is to visualize:
UI built for developers
n8n
In n8n, you can write custom JavaScript code snippets to add, remove, and update the data you receive from a node. The Code node gives you access to the incoming data and you can manipulate it.
Apart from the n8n Code node, overall n8n’s UI is closer to a developer’s own environment:
- The Schedule Trigger node to run workflows at fixed intervals and times;
- Multiple trigger nodes and waiting for data;
- Error handling workflow that is triggered whenever a workflow fails;
- Array/string manipulation in n8n is as simple as using vanilla Javascript;
- Input and output views to save your mental energy when going back and forth between data sets;
- Data pinning to save the output data of a node, and use the saved data instead of fetching fresh data in future workflow executions;
- Sticky Notes to annotate and comment on your workflows.
Zapier
Code node by Zapier is a step that can be added to your workflow just like any other trigger or action but with writing either Python or Javascript code.
Even though Zapier allows you to incorporate code snippets into the workflow, it’s still not that scalable and advanced when it comes to branching, loops, custom scripts, and HTTP calls.
Moreover, Zapier was simply not made for complex workflows and that's why:
- Code Steps are limited to returning 250 items in the output object;
- The total size of the code and the data processed by the code cannot exceed 6MB;
- You cannot require external libraries or install or import libraries commonly referred to as "npm modules".
- Webhook is a premium feature and not all apps can send back data in a way that Zapier can interpret in subsequent steps.
Keep in mind that the Code app is an advanced feature, and the Zapier support team can't help to troubleshoot the code if there are errors.
Customer support
n8n
With 2,000+ active members, the n8n community is very open, so you’ll get fairly quick responses (often the same day) in the n8n’s community forum. There are still multiple other ways to contact n8n or use a large active community of n8n experts. 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.
Zapier
Zapier offers community support as well as premier support and Live chats that become available only with the Team or Company plans and before that, you will have Zapier’s help center to find your answers.
