n8n vs Make vs Zapier: which automation tool should your business use?

If you want to automate a workflow, you'll hit three names fast: Zapier, Make and n8n. They overlap, but they're not the same. Here's how we choose on real projects.

Zapier — fastest to start

The easiest to pick up, with the most app integrations. Great for simple, linear automations. The trade-off: it gets expensive as volume grows, and complex logic is awkward.

Make — more power per euro

A visual builder with more control over branching, loops and data shaping, usually cheaper at volume than Zapier. A bit more of a learning curve, but a strong middle ground.

n8n — flexible and self-hostable

Open-source and self-hostable, so you can run it on your own infrastructure and avoid per-task pricing. The most flexible of the three, with room to drop in custom code — our usual choice when automations get serious or data-sensitive.

When custom code wins

• High volume, where per-task pricing becomes painful.
• Complex logic that fights against a no-code builder.
• Sensitive data you'd rather keep in your own environment.
• Anything that needs an AI/LLM step doing real reasoning.

The honest answer is: start with the simplest tool that fits, and move logic into custom code only when it makes the automation cheaper, faster or more reliable to run. We'll tell you which side of that line you're on.