n8n

One standout project I built with n8n  was for a distribution client using Odoo  ERP . They had a fully manual order fulfillment process where orders from their Shopify  and WooCommerce stores landed in Odoo , but the warehouse staff had to print pick lists, pack slips, and perform extensive manual work to create shipping labels in ShipStation and then re-enter all those details into Odoo. This process was very time-consuming and error-prone. I built an n8n  workflow that acts as the central system, triggering every 10 minutes on new confirmed sales orders in Odoo using the Odoo node. The workflow validates inventory levels, applies custom business logic for bundling and formats, creates the shipment request, receives the tracking number and label URL, and sends a personalized SMS to the customer via Twilio .

I have also implemented a wide range of workflows across different business functions using n8n. For example, in retail, I automated the synchronization of online orders from Shopify  to Odoo ERP , which automatically creates sales orders, checks inventory levels, sends confirmation emails to customers, and triggers notifications. I built complex multi-step workflows integrating CRM , marketing, and customer support systems. For instance, when a lead is marked as high priority in Salesforce , n8n triggers a workflow that notifies the account manager on Slack, adds the lead to a marketing nurture campaign, and schedules a follow-up call in Google Calendar.

My client absolutely wanted to get hands-on participation in the project, but had no technical background. Instead of coding the task itself, I walked him through some of n8n's features and gave him workshops and tutorials. Now he is able to configure some of the flows himself without relying on an external consultant.

n8n has positively impacted my organization, particularly in terms of saved time, reduced errors, and increased productivity. My recommendation is to start with n8n if you have any need for automation or integration, especially if you value control, cost predictability, and technical transparency. For technical users, developers, and IT professionals, n8n is more transformative. Unlike some black-box automation platforms, n8n empowers you and does not hide complexity; it visualizes it. You own the workflows and your data, and the cost structure is a major advantage. For a self-hosted scenario, n8n is free forever, which is phenomenal for small businesses or for prototyping. Even the very reasonable price in n8n Cloud plans is transparent, and in my team, it has made an impact on junior people because it gives them more hands-on experience with implementations, allowing them to transition to custom coding later.

n8n's strongest feature is its transparent execution model. Every step of the workflow execution is very transparent, and you can see the exact input and output data of every single node. There is also a debugger function, which is very valuable when building complex integrations or troubleshooting APIs. Additionally, the expressive power of the JavaScript and SQL nodes is another superpower. It allows me to drop into code for complex transformation while using pre-built nodes for the heavy lifting of API connections.

I use the JavaScript and SQL nodes in my workflows, particularly when importing data into a database. Data that comes from very old legacy systems or from a massive master sheet in Excel requires mastering SQL because mapping the fields sometimes cannot be done manually. Using the SQL function allows me to automatically map the columns and save considerable time for the customer.

I also appreciate that n8n is open source. This means I can inspect the code, customize it if necessary, and even contribute back to the community. This level of transparency is critical when working with clients who have strict IT policies. Additionally, the community around n8n is very active. I can usually find pre-built nodes, example workflows, or guidance on complex integrations. This accelerates the development time and reduces the need for custom coding while still giving me the flexibility to build very sophisticated workflows.

Regarding improvements for n8n, I would highlight two areas. First, while there is a growing community, the ecosystem of pre-built nodes for niche or proprietary systems still lags behind some commercial competitors. I often have to build custom HTTP request nodes or create my own node packages, which is doable but adds to project timelines. Second, features for team collaboration and lifecycle management are still evolving. Moving workflows from development to staging to production can be a manual export-import process, and native Git  integration and more robust user roles for larger client teams would be a game-changer.

Regarding needed improvements, I believe much of the existing documentation is not peer-reviewed. There is definitely a big community, but if the documentation or tutorials were approved or at least had a badge from n8n, customers would feel that this meets the standards of n8n editors themselves, which would give more confidence in the flows.

I have been using n8n since it became popular in 2023.

n8n is stable in my experience if you are an experienced implementer who knows how to fine-tune configurations for production and scalability. However, if you are a junior developer or preparing for a prototype, you might face challenges that could lead to failures in production.

My experience with n8n's scalability indicates that while you can scale up workflows or deployments, many of the prototypes and pre-built flows are not resilient enough for production when there is extensive manual error or manual processes. There is considerable fine-tuning that needs to be considered, and it often requires changing some features and flows. Therefore, it is crucial to have a technical team to support you with real experience in n8n and large-scale implementations.

Through n8n Cloud support, I have had a good experience. I received dedicated support via email with generally good and faster response times than the free tier. I describe the support team as knowledgeable, helpful, and responsive. They often address questions relevant to my scope, and at times they also recommend searching for technical documentation or specific forums. Ultimately, they always point me to the relevant solutions for any problem.

Previously, I used Zapier  and Make .com. The reason I switched is that those tools are still not complex enough to manage multi-flow processes and are better suited for simple use cases with basic automations and triggers, particularly for small companies that want to automate one or two processes.

The pricing experience was a bit of a learning curve. Working in an on-premise environment with no cost is great. For cloud environments, I noticed that depending on the number of nodes used and the number of executions, the basic plan might not be enough, and this is something I learned through experience. These days, when I recommend n8n, I always go with the tier one pricing system, opting for the premium option.

I have not seen a return on investment from my side because the impact is primarily on the customer side, where non-technical people can go through a learning curve and take over some of these tools, allowing them to save costs because they can reduce the hiring process for external developers for this type of automation that they can do themselves.

I have not seen a return on investment from my side because the impact is primarily on the customer side, where non-technical people can go through a learning curve and take over some of these tools, allowing them to save costs because they can reduce the hiring process for external developers for this type of automation that they can do themselves.

The pricing experience was a bit of a learning curve. Working in an on-premise environment with no cost is great. For cloud environments, I noticed that depending on the number of nodes used and the number of executions, the basic plan might not be enough, and this is something I learned through experience. These days, when I recommend n8n, I always go with the tier one pricing system, opting for the premium option.

Before choosing n8n, I evaluated Zapier , Make .com, and Workato . Among the three, I felt that n8n provides the most visual experience, the most powerful tool for execution and for production, and a very reasonable pricing system.

For those looking into using n8n, I advise that collaboration is key. I typically use Git  or version control repositories to maintain workflow definitions for larger projects. I also document each workflow extensively within n8n using node descriptions and comments, so anyone on the team can understand the logic. For cross-functional teams, I use screen share and workflow walkthroughs along with peer reviews, which I recommend to other users and junior implementers starting with n8n.

I advise testing first in staging. I suggest starting simple and then scaling. Begin with a simple workflow connecting Slack with Google Sheets before adding complexity. It is important to master the fundamentals, such as data structure and JSON data between the nodes, and then gradually work on optimization, rate limits, monitoring execution, and deploying additional nodes along the way.

I rate n8n an eight on a scale of one to ten because it is a very powerful tool. However, I feel that for very complex production environments, it still requires considerable fine-tuning and knowledge, and sometimes it might not be fully ready to support large-scale implementations in production. For prototyping and small use cases, as well as medium and small enterprises, n8n can be a great option. For larger implementations, it might still lag behind.

I worked on n8n , and Morgan messaged me on LinkedIn to review and provide feedback about the n8n  product.

I have used n8n for almost six months and built a personal project with it. My main goal was to move to this new technology, but due to the lack of jobs in my circle, I stopped working on this product.

I appreciated how n8n can be integrated with other services such as WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and the automation tasks it performs. I built a system in which n8n was fetching commits from GitHub  and passing those commits to an AI agent. The AI agent was building LinkedIn posts and Twitter posts along with visual graphics effects, and it was performing very well. I showed that product to many companies, but they said they were not interested, so I left working on it.

I appreciated how n8n can be integrated with other services such as WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and the automation tasks it performs. I built a system in which n8n was fetching commits from GitHub  and passing those commits to an AI agent. The AI agent was building LinkedIn posts and Twitter posts along with visual graphics effects, and it was performing very well. I showed that product to many companies, but they said they were not interested, so I left working on it. I really value this product, n8n.

I wrote a message to n8n regarding a problem I faced, but I cannot recall what it was. Currently, most products nowadays include walkthrough or guide videos, short videos of 20 to 30 seconds that inform about any particular button or action, which n8n product does not have. I believe it would be a positive addition to this product.

Tutorials are lacking in n8n, particularly short tutorials for specific buttons, explaining what each button does or what each node does.

It has been almost three to four months since I last used n8n.

I had no issues with the stability of n8n. I never worked on a complex project, so I cannot comment on that aspect.

Regarding scalability, n8n has versions, creating versions for every step, so scalability is not difficult. I first deployed it for LinkedIn, then moved to Twitter, and then to Facebook, and it was smooth.

I never contacted n8n's technical or customer support. I made a suggestion to them, but I do not recall what it was, and I did not receive a response from them.

As I am a full-stack developer, the initial deployment of n8n took me almost half a day, so it was not a difficult task for me. I had no issues with that and never faced problems.

I did not use any alternative to n8n. I never tried any similar solutions.

I do not know about the pricing of n8n because I simply downloaded it, deployed n8n on my WSL in Ubuntu  on my machine, and then on the VPS. I never had an issue with the pricing, which was a positive aspect of n8n.

n8n does not require any maintenance on my end. I deployed it on the VPS, and it worked for me almost three to four months continuously. I never needed to check it on the server and simply visited the LinkedIn posts or the Twitter posts. I never needed to visit the server.

My overall review rating for n8n is eight out of ten.

I perform pre-sales automations and post-sales automations, which involves CRM  management. This includes finding leads on the internet, reaching out to the leads, building interest, and scheduling meetings with the sales team. Another use case for me is scraping information off the internet periodically, which could include competitor information or business intelligence information that is then scraped and put into a Google Sheet. A third use case I'm currently working on is blog generation for SEO. Companies that want to get their name better represented on the internet hire me to write automations for them that write blogs and use keywords. With these keywords, they are posted to the company's page directly or to their LinkedIn page, which helps build interest and helps them rank higher on Google.

The features of n8n  that I have found the most valuable so far include the ability to deploy it myself and to build a workflow around what I need, and that it connects with a bunch of other services. It connects with Google Sheets, and it has APIs for CRMs such as Salesforce  or DatoCMS, which is pretty helpful because it connects to everything. It's also really helpful that I can store context for AI, so once I can store context for the AI, it makes the generation much more accurate.

One positive impact that n8n  has had on my customers' organizations is significantly less hassle over SEO or reaching out to clients and scheduling meetings. It helps them save a lot of time, and most of the time, it assures interest in the organization. If a pre-sales automation is done and someone has scheduled a meeting through n8n or the automation that I've built, the customer can be certain that the person who scheduled the meeting is interested in the product. This means a warm lead coming in instead of a cold outreach. I would say the main benefits are saving time, increasing efficiency, and reducing hassle.

n8n is a really developer-focused program right now. It's very good for people who are comfortable with programming, hosting things on their own, and with automations. However, it could definitely be made a lot more user-friendly because when I started out with automations, I was also using Zapier . n8n has a bit of a learning curve to it; you have to learn a lot. Once you learn the software properly, it's very good. If they can make it more user-friendly, that would be great.

I have been working with n8n for the past two years.

I would rate the stability and reliability of n8n as very stable. I've never had a crash, and I've never had it use too many resources. n8n deployments are some of the cheapest that I've come across; the monthly cost for n8n deployment self-hosted rarely exceeds five dollars. For five dollars, I can run an entire business's back end basically.

The scalability of n8n solution is pretty good, and that's where my expertise comes in. It's about how scalable you can make it. Suppose the customer has ten thousand data points that they need to run through n8n. One approach might take a day to go through all of it and another approach might take fifteen minutes to go through all of it. It just depends on how you format the thing and how you go through it, or how you organize the workflow and how the workflow carries over.

I don't often communicate with the technical support of n8n; the community support is really good. I can reach out to members of the community, ask questions, and usually within a week, they're answered.

When my customers start working with me, most of them are Indian right now, and they do not know these automations exist. If they were previously aware, they would be using Zapier , the American company. Once I make them aware of n8n and how it works, they're very eager to try it, and once they see the results in action, they just stick with n8n.

In my experience with the deployment and installation of n8n, initially, when I was learning the software, I had some challenges on how to store information and how to make sure that the information is persistent and doesn't reset all the time. Once you read the documentation posted online, it's pretty straightforward, and hosting it myself on the cloud is also pretty straightforward.

I'm a consultant for n8n; I copy the source code and I deploy it personally.

Comparing Zapier with n8n, I see that Zapier is kind of expensive; it charges per run. When I say per run, it means every run over the workflow, it charges you, plus the API costs on top of that. The other microservices that Zapier has are kind of expensive. I would say Zapier is more user-friendly; it's very no-code, and anyone who's never deployed something themselves or built an automation can easily use Zapier to make something, but it will end up being a lot more expensive. For example, per run on Zapier, I think is ten cents, and if you have one hundred runs of a workflow, that is easily one dollar. Workflows usually run for more than fifteen thousand to sixteen thousand runs.

My customers are usually not aware of n8n; they have to be made aware. They're more aware of Zapier, n8n's competition, and for Zapier, they purchase it directly from the website. n8n has to be deployed on a cloud usually.

I think my customers usually buy n8n from third-party marketplaces. I have not heard of a customer buying n8n directly from n8n's website. The third-party website would be me, basically. I would make them aware of the product and then they would start using it through me. Once they're aware of how n8n works, they usually leave the handling to someone else because it's a complex tool to use and it's kind of hard to master. Once I deploy it for them and I make a solution for them, it runs automatically. They don't need me to change the process anymore. If they do require me to change the process, that's when they reach out to me again or perhaps another consultant.

The materials, guides, and documentation on n8n available on the internet are pretty extensive. They basically walk you through everything, and the different APIs that n8n connects to have their own set of documentation. The documentation on the internet is very extensive; there is no way that if you read through the documentation, you won't find the solution to what you're looking for. I would rate this review a ten out of ten.