What Is n8n? The Workflow Automation Tool Saving Small Businesses Hours Every Week
n8n is what Zapier wishes it was: open-source, self-hosted, and free of per-task pricing. Here's what it can do for your business in plain English.
Umer Khan
Full Stack Developer
If you've heard of Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat), you already understand the concept behind n8n: connect different apps and make them talk to each other automatically. But n8n has one key difference that matters enormously for growing businesses: you own it.
What exactly is n8n?
n8n (pronounced "n-eight-n") is an open-source workflow automation tool. You install it on your own server, and it runs forever at the cost of the server — typically €5–15 per month on a basic VPS. There are no per-task fees, no escalating pricing tiers, no surprise bills at the end of the month. You can read the project's technical documentation on the official n8n docs site.
Inside n8n, you build workflows using a drag-and-drop visual editor. Each workflow is a series of connected nodes — triggers, actions, conditions, loops. A simple example:
When a new lead fills in a contact form → add them to HubSpot CRM → send a personalised welcome email → notify the sales team in Slack → create a follow-up task in Notion.
That entire sequence runs automatically, every time, without anyone touching it.
What can n8n actually automate?
n8n has 400+ native integrations and can connect to any service with a REST API. Common workflows I build for clients include:
- Lead handling: Contact form → CRM entry → assigned to sales rep → welcome email sent → calendar invite created
- Client onboarding: Contract signed → project folder created in Google Drive → onboarding email sequence triggered → client added to Slack channel
- Reporting: Every Monday at 9am → pull last week's sales data from WooCommerce → format into a summary → send to management Slack channel
- Invoice processing: Invoice paid → update Airtable → mark project complete → request Google review from client
- Social media: New blog post published → auto-post to LinkedIn and Twitter with custom formatting
n8n vs Zapier: which one should you use?
n8n wins on
- Flat-rate self-hosted pricing
- Full data ownership & privacy
- Unlimited workflow complexity
- Custom code nodes (JS/Python)
Zapier wins on
- Zero setup, instant start
- No server to maintain
- Simpler for 1–2 step automations
- Larger pre-built template library
Zapier is excellent and the right choice for businesses running a handful of simple automations. But Zapier's pricing scales with task volume — at 50,000+ tasks per month you're looking at $100–500/month or more. n8n on a €10 VPS handles millions of tasks for the same flat cost.
Beyond price, n8n gives you something Zapier doesn't: full visibility and control over your data. Every automation runs on your own infrastructure. For businesses in regulated industries or with strict data policies, that's often a requirement, not a preference.
Is it hard to use?
n8n's visual editor is genuinely intuitive for anyone comfortable with basic software tools. The complexity comes in writing the business logic — conditional branches, error handling, data transformation. That's where most businesses benefit from having someone build the initial workflows, after which their own team can monitor and make minor edits.
If you have manual processes eating hours of your team's time every week, n8n is almost certainly worth investigating. Feel free to get in touch — I'm happy to look at your current process and tell you whether automation makes sense, and how it compares to options like a WordPress-based workflow if that's part of your stack.