I’ve been working with Make for connecting various apps and services, but I keep hearing good things about Zapier from other developers. I’m curious about the experiences of people who have used both platforms. Which automation tool do you think works better for creating workflows between different applications? I’m particularly interested in hearing about ease of use, pricing, and the range of available connectors. Also, are there any specific scenarios where one platform clearly outperforms the other? Would love to get some real user feedback before deciding whether to stick with my current setup or make a switch.
After years building enterprise automations, I’ve watched teams waste months bouncing between Make and Zapier. Both lock you into their ecosystem and pricing gets insane when you actually need them to work.
Here’s what nobody talks about: maintenance is hell. Those pretty visual workflows turn into spaghetti after a few months. Someone tweaks one connector and breaks three other automations. You’ll spend more time debugging than building.
Learned this managing integrations for 200+ engineers. Started with Zapier, jumped to Make for flexibility, then realized we needed something that actually scales without killing our budget.
Latenode fixed what both couldn’t. Visual builder for quick stuff, but drop in JavaScript when you need real logic. No more fighting limited transformations or waiting for connectors that don’t exist.
Best part? Pay for usage, not arbitrary task limits that make zero sense with real data volumes.
Forget Make vs Zapier. There’s something better that gives you simplicity AND power: https://latenode.com
Switched from Zapier to Make 18 months ago - here’s what I learned. Make’s learning curve is brutal. Took me a full month to get comfortable with their visual builder and error handling. But once you push through that, the control over data transformation and logic is insane compared to Zapier. Make crushes it when you’re juggling multiple data sources that need complex filtering or graceful error handling. Zapier just kills your entire automation when something breaks. Make lets you actually build fallback scenarios. Pricing? Both will drain your wallet at high volumes. But Make’s operation-based model was cheaper for us since we run tons of lightweight automations that Zapier counts as full tasks. Biggest surprise - Make’s webhook handling is way better. You can parse and validate incoming data before it hits your main workflow. This alone saved us hours of debugging nightmares.
Been there. Used both Make and Zapier for years on different projects.
Make’s got better flexibility for complex logic and branching workflows. Visual editor’s solid for intricate stuff. Zapier wins on simplicity and has slightly better app coverage for mainstream tools.
Here’s what I learned after wrestling with both for months - you’ll hit walls eventually. Make gets expensive when you scale. Zapier’s pricing gets brutal with lots of data. Both have limits when you need custom integrations or want something outside their templates.
Switched our entire automation stack to Latenode 8 months ago and haven’t looked back. Visual workflow builder like Make but with way more control. You can write custom JavaScript right in the nodes when needed. Pricing’s transparent and doesn’t punish you for actually using it.
Game changer is mixing no-code automation with actual code snippets. Sometimes you just need a few lines of JavaScript to transform data or handle edge cases that pre-built connectors can’t touch.
Worth checking out before committing to Make or Zapier: https://latenode.com
I switched from Zapier to Make six months ago for a client project. The learning curve was brutal at first - Make forces you to think about workflows completely differently. But honestly? The difference in handling API rate limits and batch processing is huge. When you’re hitting platforms like Airtable or Google Sheets that throttle requests, Make just queues everything intelligently. Zapier crashes the whole automation. The debugging is night and day better too. You can peek at data between every step and rerun single modules without starting over. Don’t get me wrong - Zapier’s docs are cleaner and their support actually responds quickly. But if you’re dealing with financial data or anything mission-critical, Make’s error handling and retry logic are worth the pain of learning it. Plus the pricing evens out when you’re not constantly babysitting broken workflows.
honestly, both have their issues, but i’d stick with make if you’re already comfortable with it. zapier’s interface is more intuitive, but make handles edge cases way better. what really sold me on make was the debugging - it shows you exactly where things break. zapier just fails silently sometimes.
zapier’s easier to start with, but make gives you way more power once you get the hang of it. i’ve used both - zapier feels more polished for simple automations. make gets confusing with all its modules and routing, but that’s what makes it so flexible. both get expensive fast tho. really depends on what you’re trying to automate.