Our team has been utilizing Zapier for automating customer interactions and managing workflows as we develop our startup. While it performs adequately, the escalating costs are becoming frustrating.
We’re considering n8n as a potential substitute, likely opting for a self-hosted setup. It offers clear advantages such as increased flexibility, better cost management, and the essential features we require are available without charge… at least for now.
I’m particularly concerned about whether it will be sufficient if their pricing changes down the line.
For those with significant hands-on experience using n8n:
- Did it effectively scale with your needs, or did you encounter challenges?
- Have you faced any significant breakdowns while expanding your workflows?
- Did you invest in their cloud service, additional plugins, or customer support? Was it a good investment?
- Do you believe the platform will remain reliable in the long run, or do you have contingency plans?
As a bit of context, I’m involved in product development at our firm. We’re aiming to create more tailored automation that integrates various tools, focusing on aspects like dashboards, action routing, and user management. We require a solution that can expand with us, rather than just a basic Zapier replacement.
We switched two years ago and the technical complexity hit us hard at first. Harry47 had a smooth experience, but we definitely struggled those first few months. Database maintenance, SSL renewals, and version control became extra work we didn’t see coming. Zapier’s cost wasn’t our only issue - we were frustrated by the limits on custom logic and data transformation. n8n’s JavaScript functions and HTTP nodes gave us the flexibility our customer onboarding flows desperately needed. On pricing concerns, n8n being open source gives you some protection. Even if they change licensing dramatically, you can stick with the current version. We’ve documented everything internally and could fork it if we had to (though that’s pretty unlikely). Here’s the catch - integration quality is way more inconsistent than Zapier’s polished connectors. You’ll spend way more time troubleshooting API calls and building custom nodes for specific services. Don’t forget to factor in developer time when you’re calculating real costs. For dashboards and user management, think about whether n8n will orchestrate your purpose-built tools rather than trying to make it do everything itself.
Been using n8n for 8 months now and the learning curve was brutal. Coming from Zapier felt like switching from automatic to manual transmission lol. But once it clicks, the flexibility is insane - we built some wild custom workflows that Zapier’s limitations would never allow. Biggest pain was debugging failed runs without Zapier’s clean error messages. Had to set up our own logging. Performance has been rock solid though, handles our email sequences and CRM sync without any issues.
Zapier and n8n both hit walls when you need real customization. I’ve been there.
Self-hosting sounds great until you’re stuck maintaining servers, handling updates, debugging connections, and scaling infrastructure. That time adds up quick.
You’ll probably outgrow basic workflow tools anyway for dashboards, action routing, and user management. They’re fine for simple trigger-action stuff but get messy with complex business logic.
Check out Latenode instead. No maintenance headaches, pricing that actually scales, and way more control than typical drag-and-drop tools.
The visual builder handles those custom automations you want, connects to everything, and you won’t spend hours wrestling with API docs.
Worth a look before you commit to babysitting an n8n server: https://latenode.com
I’ve been running self-hosted n8n for 18 months after making the same jump from Zapier. Cost savings alone made it worth it - we dropped from $300+ monthly to just server costs. Scaling went better than expected. Started with basic webhook automations, now we’re processing thousands of operations daily through complex multi-step workflows. The platform handled it fine - our biggest hurdle was learning proper error handling and workflow design. We had one major issue during a server migration where we lost execution history, but the workflows stayed intact. Now we do proper backups and monitoring. Never needed their cloud service or paid support. Community edition’s been solid, and their docs got way better this past year. We keep workflow exports as backup and could migrate to Zapier or elsewhere if things went south. For dashboards and user management, you’ll need to connect n8n with other tools. It’s great for automation but won’t be your complete business platform.