I’ve been working with Zapier for workflow automation but I’m starting to look into other options that might be more cost effective for my needs. I’m specifically interested in platforms that have solid webhook integration capabilities since that’s pretty important for my current setup.
I keep hearing about Make.com (formerly Integromat) and n8n as potential alternatives but I haven’t tried either one yet. Has anyone here switched from Zapier to one of these platforms? I’m curious about the pricing differences and whether the learning curve is steep.
What’s been your experience with reliability and the number of available integrations? Any major limitations I should know about before making the jump?
honestly zapier’s pricing got ridiculous for me too. i ended up going with make.com after testing both options you mentioned. n8n looked intresting but didnt want to deal with hosting headaches. make’s operations-based pricing is way better than zapier’s per-automation model - saved me like 60% monthly. webhook stuff works great, maybe even better debugging than zapier had. learning curve wasnt too bad coming from zapier, took maybe a week to feel comfortable.
Been running n8n for about six months now after getting tired of Zapier’s pricing escalation. The self-hosted option is what drew me in initially - you can run it on a basic VPS for under $10/month, which beats any SaaS automation platform if you’re comfortable with basic server management. Their cloud offering is also reasonably priced if you prefer managed hosting. Webhook handling in n8n is excellent, probably better than Zapier in terms of flexibility and debugging capabilities. The node-based editor feels more technical but gives you granular control over every step. Integration-wise, they cover most popular services and the community actively contributes new nodes. The main drawback is definitely the learning curve - it’s more developer-oriented than Zapier’s user-friendly approach. Documentation can be spotty for some integrations too. Reliability has been solid for me, though you’ll want to set up proper monitoring if you go self-hosted. The trade-off is clear: more technical complexity for significant cost savings and better customization options.
I made the switch from Zapier to Make.com about eight months ago and it’s been a game changer for my budget. The pricing model is much more reasonable - you get significantly more operations for your money compared to Zapier’s per-zap pricing structure. The webhook functionality is actually more robust than what I had with Zapier, with better error handling and more detailed logging.
The interface took me maybe two weeks to fully get comfortable with, but it’s actually more intuitive once you understand the visual workflow builder. I’ve found Make.com to be just as reliable as Zapier for my day-to-day automations. The integration library isn’t quite as extensive as Zapier’s but covers all the major platforms I need. One thing that surprised me was how much more control you have over data manipulation and conditional logic without needing premium features.