Both tools connect your apps and automate the steps between them. They part ways on hosting, pricing model, and how far you can push custom logic before you hit a wall.
Clients ask us to pick between n8n and Make more often than any other tooling question. The honest answer: both move data between your apps on triggers, both offer a visual canvas instead of raw code, and both can run unattended for months. The differences show up at the edges, in what happens when your workflow needs something neither tool was built to do out of the box.
Each one connects to hundreds of apps through pre-built modules: a new row in a spreadsheet, a new deal in your CRM, a form submission. Each one lets you branch logic, loop over lists, and schedule runs on a timer instead of a trigger. For a standard integration, a Slack message when a Stripe payment fails, a CRM update when a form is submitted, either tool builds it in under an hour.
n8n is open source, and you can self-host it on your own server for the cost of the server alone. That matters once a workflow runs often: there's no per-execution fee stacking up in the background.
It also goes further on custom logic. Drop a JavaScript or Python function node anywhere in a workflow and write real code: parse a nested JSON response, apply a formula Make's modules don't support, call an API n8n doesn't have a module for yet by hitting the endpoint directly with an HTTP node. We reach for n8n when a client's process has a step that doesn't map cleanly onto "connect app A to app B."
Make's module library covers more apps with a pre-built connector, and its interface walks you toward the next field instead of asking you to know the API's shape already. For a team without an engineer on staff who wants to build and maintain their own scenarios, that guidance matters more than raw flexibility.
Make also handles its hosting and scaling for you. No server to patch, no uptime to monitor. For a business running a handful of workflows that don't need custom code, that trade is worth the subscription.
Make bills by "operations," roughly one operation per module your scenario touches on each run. A ten-step scenario running two hundred times a day adds up fast, and the next pricing tier arrives sooner than most teams expect.
Self-hosted n8n charges nothing per execution. You pay for a server, which for most small-business workloads costs less per month than a mid-tier Make plan, regardless of how many times your workflows fire. n8n Cloud sits in between: no server to manage, but a subscription tied to workflow executions rather than per-module operations.
The practical rule: low volume favors Make's simplicity. High volume favors n8n's flatter cost curve.
A quick way to decide: count how many times a day the workflow will run, and list every step that isn't a simple "move data from A to B." High run count or custom logic steps point to n8n. Low run count and standard app-to-app steps point to Make.
It depends on volume. Make bills per operation, so costs climb fast once a workflow runs thousands of times a month. Self-hosted n8n has no per-execution fee, only server cost, so it gets cheaper as volume grows. For low-volume workflows, Make's starting plans often cost less.
Make has a code module for short JavaScript snippets, but it's built for connecting apps through pre-made modules, not for arbitrary logic. n8n lets you drop in a full JavaScript or Python function node anywhere in a workflow, which handles cases Make's modules can't express.
Make. Its module library covers more apps out of the box and its interface guides you toward the next field to fill in. n8n assumes more comfort with how APIs and data structures work, even though its visual builder looks similar at first glance.
Tell us what you're automating and how often it runs. We'll recommend the tool, build the workflow, and document it so your team can maintain it after we hand it off.
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