n8n vs Make: Open-Source Flexibility or Cloud Speed

Direct Verdict

Both platforms automate the back-office work that drains staff time: invoices, lead routing, data reconciliation, approvals, and multi-system syncs. The choice hinges on three factors: whether you want to self-host, how many automations you run, and whether your team prefers visual simplicity over code flexibility.

n8n is built for teams that already have infrastructure, value data sovereignty, or scale beyond Make's pricing sweet spot. Make is built for teams that want to avoid server management and can live with cloud-only deployment.

Cost: The Decisive Factor

Make looks cheaper at first glance. A Core plan costs $9–10.59 per month (billed annually) for 10,000 operations. A single invoice entry, approval routing, and payment sync might consume 8–12 operations, so 1,000 invoices run you $9–15/month before you add other workflows.

n8n Pro costs €50–60 per month ($60 USD) for 10,000 workflow executions. But each execution is one full workflow run, no matter how many steps it contains. A 20-step invoice workflow costs one execution. A 20-step lead-qualification-to-CRM workflow also costs one execution. The difference becomes stark once you're running dozens of multi-step automations.

At 10,000 monthly operations on Make, you pay roughly €5–10 per 1,000 operations. n8n Pro pays €6 per 1,000 executions if you use all 10,000. But a team running 40 complex workflows (sales, invoicing, support, data sync) will burn through the 10,000 quickly on Make because every router, filter, and loop consumes credits. The same workflows on n8n stay within Pro because complexity is free.

For high volume, n8n self-hosted Community Edition eliminates execution limits entirely. Running it on a $8–20/month VPS with unlimited workflows and no per-execution fees becomes the lowest-cost option once you exceed roughly 80,000 operations per month on Make or need features locked behind n8n's €667/month Business plan.

Comparison Table

Invoice Processing: A Worked Example

You receive 500 invoices per month. Half are email attachments; half come via vendor portals. Each invoice requires: (1) OCR or file extraction, (2) enrichment with vendor master data, (3) 3-way PO matching, (4) approval routing based on amount, (5) ledger posting to your ERP.

On Make: Your scenario triggers on email or webhook. It extracts the attachment (2 ops), looks up the vendor (2 ops), queries the PO system (2 ops), branches by invoice amount (router is free, but let's say 1 branch averages 3 ops), routes to Slack for approval (1 op), posts to QuickBooks (1 op). Per invoice: 12 operations on average. 500 invoices × 12 = 6,000 operations per month. You'd fit in Core ($9/mo), but add other workflows and you'll exceed 10,000 quickly. At 15,000 operations, you'd need to buy an extra 5,000-operation pack (~$25/mo), landing at ~$35/mo.

On n8n Pro: The same workflow is one execution per invoice, regardless of steps. 500 executions per month leaves 9,500 unused. Cost: €60/mo, and you have room to add lead routing, reconciliation, and data syncs without overshooting. Once you self-host, that 500/mo costs only your server ($10–20/mo).

Lead Routing: Which Is Better

A lead arrives from your website form. You need to enrich it (company size, industry), score it with AI, assign it to the rep with the fewest leads this week, and notify them in Slack.

Make: The webhook trigger fires. You add a data lookup module (+1 op), call an AI module for scoring (+1–2 ops due to AI cost), add a Router to branch by score (+0 ops), write to your assignment sheet (+1 op), post to Slack (+1 op). Total: roughly 5–6 operations per lead. 100 leads per month = 500 ops, easily within Core.

n8n: Same workflow in the node editor: Webhook in, enrichment node, LLM node for scoring, Switch node for routing logic, Google Sheets write, Slack post. One execution. 100 leads = 100 executions. n8n's advantage emerges if you need multi-layer routing (territory-based, product-based, workload-balanced). Most workflow builders add a Postgres query to check round-robin status, add retry logic if assignment fails, and log unassigned leads to a dead-letter table. On Make, each of those additions costs extra operations. On n8n, they're part of the same execution.

Both platforms can do this. Make is faster to prototype (drag and drop takes hours instead of days). n8n gives you more precision and costs less once your routing logic grows beyond round-robin.

Data Synchronization Across Systems

You need to sync customers from your Shopify store to a Postgres database in real time, then sync invoices from QuickBooks back to Shopify for customer visibility. Deletions and updates must propagate both directions.

Make: One scenario triggers on new Shopify customer, another on Shopify delete, another on QB invoice created, etc. Each triggers a set of operations. If you need to avoid duplicate syncs, you track state in a Google Sheet (clunky) or Make's built-in data store. Bidirectional sync requires careful conflict handling. Cost rises quickly: maybe 8–10 operations per sync event × 2,000 monthly events = 16,000–20,000 operations, pushing you past $50/mo.

n8n: You write two workflows: one webhook listening for Shopify changes, one polling QB on a schedule. Both use n8n's built-in SQL nodes to write directly to your Postgres database and query for conflict detection. Sync state is stored as a table in your own database, not Make's proprietary store. Even with 2,000 monthly events, you're well inside Pro limits. If you self-host, the cost drops to server only.

Who Each Platform Is Right For

Choose n8n if:

• You have a technical team or access to developers who can write JavaScript/Python in nodes
• You run more than 5–10 active, multi-step automations concurrently
• You need data residency in your own infrastructure (HIPAA, GDPR, financial regulations)
• You require SSO, Git version control, and role-based access (features locked behind €667+/mo on Cloud)
• Your workflows are complex: multi-layer routing, AI agents, custom data transformation, or database-to-database sync
• You're already running a VPS or Kubernetes cluster

Choose Make if:

• Your team is non-technical and prefers a visual, module-based interface
• You need to automate 2–5 workflows with moderate complexity (fewer than 15 steps each)
• You want zero infrastructure management and can accept cloud-only deployment
• Your workflows fit neatly into Make's pre-built modules (Slack, Google Sheets, CRM, email)
• You're willing to pay a premium for support and handholding during setup
• You value Make's community and ecosystem of third-party templates and agencies

Total Cost of Ownership Beyond Price

n8n Cloud

• Setup: 1–3 days if workflows are straightforward; 1–2 weeks if multi-step with AI and data transformation. Internal cost: team time.
• Maintenance: n8n handles updates, hosting, and security. Your cost: occasional workflow tweaks when APIs change.
• Breakage: Third-party API changes break connectors. n8n usually updates nodes within weeks. Downtime typically minimal.
• Scaling: If you exceed Pro, Business tier (€800/mo self-hosted) has a large jump. Migration to self-hosted is possible but adds ops overhead.

n8n Self-Hosted

• Setup: 2–4 hours for Docker/Postgres setup on a VPS. 1–2 weeks if you need Kubernetes and backups.
• Maintenance: You handle Docker updates, Postgres backups, SSL certificate renewal, and security patches. Internal cost: DevOps time 1–4 hours/month depending on rigor.
• Breakage: You own recovery. If Postgres crashes and backups weren't automated, data is at risk. Mitigation: invest in monitoring and backup scripts upfront.
• Scaling: Scales infinitely with your infrastructure. No vendor pricing walls.

Make

• Setup: 1–3 days. Non-technical teams can build basic scenarios same-day.
• Maintenance: Make handles everything. Your cost: none, except reviewing monthly bills as automations grow.
• Breakage: Make's SLAs cover infrastructure failures. Third-party API changes sometimes require you to rebuild scenarios (not frequent, but happens). Make usually notifies users in advance.
• Scaling: Each increase in operation volume is a simple plan upgrade. No infrastructure shock, but pricing compounds quickly.

Custom-Built Alternative: When It Wins

A bespoke API or Ruby/Python script might win if: (1) Your workflows are one-of-a-kind and unlikely to change, (2) You have a full-time engineer who writes code faster than visual builders, (3) You're processing 500,000+ invoices per month where platform costs become significant, (4) You need real-time processing with zero latency tolerance.

A custom build typically costs $5,000–$20,000 upfront and $2,000–$5,000 per year in maintenance. That's competitive only if you're running extremely high volume or have unique constraints. For most teams with 50–5,000 monthly workflow runs, no-code platforms win on time-to-value.

Migration Notes

Moving from Make to n8n is possible but not effortless. Make scenarios export as JSON, but n8n's node model is different. You'll need to: (1) Map each Make module to an equivalent n8n node (not always 1:1), (2) Rewrite any custom JavaScript in Make's scripting language into n8n nodes, (3) Set up n8n's environment variables and secrets store differently, (4) Test all workflows end-to-end.

Plan for 2–4 hours per complex scenario to translate. A migration from Make to n8n self-hosted for a team running 20+ scenarios usually takes 1–2 weeks, plus 1–2 weeks to set up infrastructure and monitoring.

Moving from n8n to Make is easier if workflows are simple (fewer than 10 steps). Each n8n node becomes one or more Make modules. Expect 1–2 hours per workflow. If your n8n workflows use heavy custom code or database direct access, Make may not support the same functionality, and you'll need to redesign parts of the workflow.