Make VS n8n

Choosing between Make and n8n? We've broken down the key differences to help you decide which tool is right for your workflow.

Make
Make
n8n
n8n
Starting Price
$9
$20
Expert Rating
7.1 /10
7.1 /10
Target Audience
Anyone running an online store who needs orders automatically linked to shipping and invoicing Marketers who post the same content across several platforms at once Small sales teams who want a new lead's data updated the moment it arrives
Developers & Engineers Founders & Executives (technical) IT/Ops roles
Primary Use Case

The most common use is moving data between two or more apps the moment something specific happens, like a form submission turning instantly into a new record in Airtable or Notion.

Other common tasks built in Make: posting the same content across several social platforms at once, sending an automatic welcome message to every new newsletter subscriber, updating a sales spreadsheet every time a new order comes in from an online store, and summarizing a long document with AI before sending the summary straight to Slack or email.

What all of these have in common is that the same task repeats daily or weekly with steps that don't change. That's exactly what makes building one scenario worth the time: it pays back the same few hours every single month.

The most common use case is connecting apps and data sources that don't talk to each other by default, then automating what happens between them. n8n supports over 500 integrations, plus custom API and HTTP requests for anything it doesn't cover natively.

A technical solo founder builds an automation that pulls new leads from a form, enriches them with company data, and drops a summary into Slack, all without hiring a developer. Someone building an AI-powered support tool uses n8n's AI agent builder to connect a language model to their internal knowledge base with full visibility into what the agent decided and why.

n8n is also used for backend prototyping, letting a non-developer founder stand up a working API-driven process without writing a full application from scratch. That said, "without writing" is optimistic. Most real workflows eventually need a code step.

Dealmakers & Dealbreakers

Make

Make

Top Pros
  • The visual scenario builder shows the entire data path, so you're never guessing what's happening behind the scenes
  • 3,000+ ready-made app integrations, and the HTTP module covers any API that isn't listed
  • The free plan is generous enough to build and test a real scenario before paying anything
  • Routers and filters let a single scenario branch into multiple paths without writing any code
Main Cons
  • Credits are counted per step inside a scenario, not per run, so a 10-step scenario burns 10 credits every single time it fires
  • Since August 2025, the billing unit shifted from 'operations' to 'credits,' and the rename has confused people who were used to the old terminology
  • Buying extra credits after you run out costs roughly 25% more than the rate included in your plan
n8n

n8n

Top Pros
  • The free, self-hosted Community Edition is genuinely unlimited: no execution caps, no workflow caps
  • Bills per full workflow execution, not per step, a structurally different model than Zapier
  • Integration library covers hundreds of services, plus native JavaScript and Python code nodes
  • Cloud trials for Starter and Pro require no credit card
Main Cons
  • The learning curve is real, especially for non-developers trying to debug silent node failures or map JSON data
  • Self-hosting has a genuine time cost for Docker setup, SSL, backups, and ongoing maintenance
  • The jump from Pro (€50/month) to Business (roughly €667/month) is enormous

Feature Ratings

Ease of Learning
Make 8/10
n8n 5/10
Value for Money
Make 7/10
n8n 8/10
Time Saved
Make 8/10
n8n 8/10
Solo-Friendliness
Make 8/10
n8n 6/10
First-Week Value
Make 8/10
n8n 5/10

Feature Breakdown

Make

Make Features

Visual Scenario Builder

Shows the entire data path, which speeds up debugging noticeably

App Library (3,000+)

Covers most marketing and sales tools; the HTTP module fills any gap

Routers & Filters

Genuinely powerful, but every extra path means extra operations consumed

Make AI Agents

Solid for simple classification, but still in beta with variable operation costs

Precise Scheduling (down to 1 min)

A real difference over the Free plan for anything needing near-instant response

Execution Log & Monitoring

Shows exactly where a scenario stalled, genuinely useful for fast debugging

Shared Scenario Templates

Useful, but locked behind the Teams plan and above

n8n

n8n Features

Execution-Based Billing

Genuinely different pricing structure than task-based competitors. Complex workflows don't cost more than simple ones.

Self-Hosted Community Edition

Free, unlimited, full-featured. The best value in the category if you can handle your own server.

Visual Workflow Editor

Powerful and flexible, with code nodes for anything not natively supported. Genuinely steep learning curve for non-developers.

AI Agent Building

Combines deterministic logic with LLM reasoning in one workflow, a real differentiator versus pure chat-based agent tools.

Debugging and Error Messages

Consistently cited as the top user complaint. Silent node failures and unclear errors require real technical fluency to resolve.

Support (Starter/Pro/Business)

Forum support only, even on the roughly €667/month Business plan. Dedicated SLA support requires custom-priced Enterprise.

Integration Library

Hundreds of native integrations plus HTTP and code nodes for anything else, though behind Zapier and Make in raw integration count.