If you need to automate something at work and you start googling, you’ll land on three names almost immediately: n8n, Make (formerly Integromat), and Zapier. All three can connect apps and automate workflows. The differences matter — and choosing wrong will cost you either money or flexibility.

Here’s how I actually think about them, based on building workflows for clients across all three platforms.

Zapier: the safe choice you’ll eventually outgrow

Zapier works. It’s well-documented, has 6,000+ integrations, and non-technical people can set up basic automations in an afternoon. If you need to send Slack notifications when someone fills a form, Zapier is fine.

The problem is pricing. Zapier charges per task (each action in a workflow). A workflow that runs 10,000 times per month with 5 steps = 50,000 tasks. At their Professional plan, that costs around $299/month. For a startup, that’s a lot for something that should be infrastructure.

Also, complex logic — branching, loops, multi-step data processing — is clunky in Zapier. You can do it, but you’re always fighting the interface.

Make: the middle ground

Make has a visual canvas that actually lets you see your workflow as a diagram. The pricing model is better — you pay per «operation» (each module execution), which works out cheaper than Zapier for complex workflows because Make counts differently.

The learning curve is real. Make has more power but also more concepts to understand — scenarios, modules, routes, filters. For someone who’s never automated anything, it can feel overwhelming at first. For someone who thinks in systems, it clicks quickly.

Make is probably the best choice for most growing companies: not the cheapest, not the most powerful, but the best combination of usability and capability.

n8n: what you use when you want full control

n8n is open source. You can self-host it on a $10/month VPS and run unlimited workflows. For high-volume automation, the economics are completely different from Zapier or Make.

It also has the most flexible data transformation of the three. You can write JavaScript directly in nodes. You can build custom integrations. You can connect to internal APIs that Zapier has never heard of.

The cost is complexity. Self-hosting means you’re responsible for uptime, updates, and backups. The interface is more technical. And some edge-case integrations require writing code.

n8n makes sense if: you have technical staff, you have high automation volume, or you need to connect to systems that other platforms don’t support.

How to choose

Start with your volume and complexity. If you need 5 simple automations that each run a few times per day — Zapier or Make, it doesn’t matter much. If you’re running hundreds of automations across your entire operations stack, the pricing difference becomes the deciding factor.

Do you have technical people who can maintain it? No → Make or Zapier. Yes → n8n is worth the setup cost.

Do you have unusual systems that need to integrate (legacy software, custom APIs, internal tools)? n8n with a developer is often the only realistic option.

If you’re unsure which fits your situation, we help companies map their automation needs and build the right stack — usually a combination of tools, not a single platform.