n8n vs Zapier

Pricing

Zapier generally counts a successful action performed by a Zap as a task; multi-step Zaps can therefore consume more than one task per run. Exceptions and included features vary by product and plan, so check the current task-accounting documentation for the features you use.

n8n Cloud prices by workflow execution and includes unlimited steps within an execution under its current model. This billing unit differs from Zapier tasks, so compare the same workflow rather than headline quotas. Check both official pricing pages at purchase time.

Self-hosted n8n has no per-execution Community license fee for permitted internal use, but infrastructure, database, backups, upgrades, observability, and operator time remain. There is no universal cost crossover; model it from actual workflow runs and current plan rules.

Features

Zapier’s strength is catalog. The integration directory lists roughly 7,000 apps, and most mainstream SaaS ships a Zapier app on day one because it has become the default expectation. Trigger and action coverage on the long tail is consistently good, the field mapper is the cleanest in the category, and Tables, Interfaces, and Chatbots round out a product that has grown well beyond simple if-this-then-that.

n8n’s strength is composition. The editor exposes branching, merging, looping over arrays, sub-workflows that call other workflows, and a Code node that accepts JavaScript or Python with full access to upstream data. Around 400 native nodes cover the apps most teams actually use, and the generic HTTP Request node fills the long-tail gap for any REST API. Where Zapier requires Paths and Looping bolted onto a linear chain, n8n treats those as primitives on the canvas.

Debugging splits the same way. Zapier exposes run history and step data, while n8n lets builders pin sample data on nodes and inspect data through the graph. Which is faster to diagnose depends on the workflow and the operator.

Self-hosting

Self-hosting is the cleanest structural difference. n8n ships as a Docker image, a Docker Compose stack, and a Helm chart. SQLite works for small setups; Postgres is recommended for anything serious; Redis enables queue mode for multi-worker scaling. The license is the Sustainable Use License — free for internal use and modification, with restrictions on running a competing hosted n8n service. For internal automation this license is invisible in practice.

Zapier has no self-hosted edition. There is no community edition, no enterprise on-prem package, and no plan on the public roadmap to add one. Data leaves your network through Zapier’s cloud on every run, which is fine for most workloads and a hard stop for teams with strict data residency, air-gap, or HIPAA-style requirements that the vendor cannot satisfy under their standard BAA.

n8n queue mode distributes executions across workers using Redis and a supported database configuration. Capacity depends on execution shape, concurrency, worker resources, database performance, and external APIs. The trade is that you own backups, upgrades, monitoring, and incidents; n8n Cloud shifts more of that ownership to the vendor.

AI

Both products have shipped AI features, but the depth is uneven. n8n includes an AI Agent node, LangChain wrappers, a chat memory node, and direct integrations with the major vector stores (Pinecone, Qdrant, Supabase pgvector, Weaviate). You can build a retrieval-augmented chat flow, a tool-using agent, or a multi-step LLM chain inside the same canvas you use for SaaS glue, and the model nodes accept OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and self-hosted providers through Ollama.

Zapier ships AI Actions, Zapier Agents, and a growing set of OpenAI- and Anthropic-flavored steps you can drop into a Zap. For “summarize this email and post it to Slack” or “draft a reply with GPT-4o and queue it for approval” the experience is polished and fast. For retrieval over a private corpus, branching on classifier output into different downstream chains, or a tool-calling agent that loops until it succeeds, the building blocks are thinner and the visual model fights the use case.

A useful filter: when the AI logic needs loops, memory, or tool wiring on a visual graph, n8n exposes those primitives directly; when AI is one managed action inside a SaaS automation, Zapier may require less infrastructure and custom setup.

Migration

Neither product imports the other’s workflow format. Migration is a manual rebuild. Inventory the source, recreate and test the target against representative payloads, run a controlled parallel period where duplicate effects are prevented, then cut over after the target meets defined acceptance criteria.

Zapier triggers and actions may have n8n equivalents, while Filter, Formatter, and Paths map conceptually to conditions, transforms, and branches. Time varies with custom code, vendor-specific helpers, credential scopes, and side-effect safety; validate each workflow rather than applying a per-Zap estimate.

n8n to Zapier is rarer and harder. Workflows that use sub-workflows, the Code node, or AI Agent loops do not translate cleanly to Zapier’s linear model; the rebuild usually fragments one n8n workflow into two or three Zaps with a queue or webhook stitching them together. Teams that try this direction often discover the n8n workflow was doing more than the Zapier model can express, and the answer is to keep the workflow on n8n.

Who should choose n8n

n8n fits teams with technical ownership, workflows that benefit from explicit composition, and a preference for the option to self-host. Execution-based cloud billing can be favorable for some multi-step flows, but the result depends on current plans and usage. The Code node and AI nodes add flexibility, while self-hosting can support data-residency requirements the team is prepared to operate.

Who should choose Zapier

Zapier is the right choice for non-technical teams who need an integration into a long-tail SaaS, want the cleanest first-day onboarding in the category, and run mostly simple one- to three-step automations. The catalog is deeper for niche tools — industry-specific CRMs, regional payment processors, smaller marketing platforms — and the field mapper makes “new form submission goes to the CRM” a five-minute job. It is also the right choice when nobody on the team wants to think about infrastructure: Zapier handles the runtime, the secrets, the retries, and the alerting, and for a team that needs automations to just work, the premium over self-hosted n8n is worth paying.