n8n vs Make: which one should your business build on?

The short version

Both tools connect apps with visual flows and both have hundreds of integrations. The differences that decide the bill and the fit are how usage is counted, where the tool runs, and how deep the AI features go. We build most client automations on n8n (HeroStoryBook's WhatsApp support agent and its daily Pinterest publishing run on it) and work inside Make when a client already uses it.

Pricing side by side

Prices from n8n.io/pricing and make.com/pricing in September 2026; check the pages for current figures.

Why the counting rule decides the bill

Imagine a lead workflow with 40 steps: read the form, score it, write to the CRM, send a WhatsApp message, notify Slack, wait, follow up. If it runs 1,000 times a month, n8n counts 1,000 executions, which fits its 20-euro Starter plan. Make counts roughly 40,000 credits, which is above its 10,000-credit tiers and pushes you up the price list. The longer your workflows, the more n8n’s counting favours you. For short two-step automations the gap almost disappears, and Make’s lower entry price can win.

Self-hosting and data control

n8n can run on your own server with its free Community Edition, which the company describes as offering almost the complete feature set, free indefinitely. Your customer data then never leaves infrastructure you control, which matters for clinics, law firms and anyone with data-residency rules. Make is hosted only; convenient, but the data passes through its cloud. For a client who needs Canadian or European hosting, self-hosted n8n is the answer.

AI agents

n8n has native AI agent nodes: an agent with a model, memory and tools can sit inside a workflow, read a WhatsApp message with a voice note and a photo, decide, and act. That is how HeroStoryBook's support agent works. Make has AI modules and can call models, but building a full agent with tools and memory takes more assembly. If an AI agent is the point of the project, n8n is the shorter path.

Ease of use

Make's editor is the friendlier of the two for a first automation, and its templates get a non-technical person to a working scenario faster. n8n exposes more: expressions, code nodes, error handling, versioning, which is what an agency wants and what a beginner may not. If you will build and maintain it yourself, weigh that honestly. If someone builds it for you, the editor matters less than the bill and the data.

When to choose which

• Choose Make if you build automations yourself, they are short, they run a few thousand actions a month, and hosted is fine.
• Choose n8n if workflows are long or frequent, an AI agent is involved, data must stay on your server, or you want unlimited users without per-seat fees.
• Choose Zapier over both only for the smallest needs: it is the simplest and usually the most expensive at volume.
• Already on Make? Stay unless the bill or the AI needs say otherwise. We build inside Make in that case and migrate scenario by scenario only when it pays.

What we build on n8n, and what it costs, is on our n8n automation agency page. If you would rather run the agent yourself, on your own server and your own model keys, the open-source route is covered in the Hermes Agent guide.

Automating Instagram from either tool? If a post fails with "Container Publication failed", our fix for that error shows how we traced it to file size. For the CRM those automations feed, our Twenty CRM review covers the open-source option we installed ourselves.