n8n vs Make

Which should you pick?

Both build branching workflows visually and neither is Zapier, which is usually why somebody is looking at them. Make is the easier start: three thousand apps, a visual builder that handles loops and error paths properly, and a free tier of a thousand operations a month, so you can find out whether it fits before paying anything. n8n is the technical answer. It is open source, the Community Edition self-hosts free forever, and its cloud plans include unlimited users rather than charging per seat, which is the thing that quietly makes the alternatives expensive once a team touches them. The trade is real. Self-hosting means a server and somebody to look after it, and n8n's cloud execution caps bite quickly on anything AI-heavy. Pick Make if you want it working this afternoon and you are willing to count operations. Pick n8n if you would rather run it yourself, need real code inside a workflow, or expect enough people using it that per-seat pricing becomes the deciding number.