Updated October 2026 · hands-on opinion, not vendor copy
Quick verdict: Make: polished, hosted, zero-maintenance visual automation — pay per operation. n8n: source-available, self-hostable for free, deeper code-level control — pay in ops attention. If you have a server and a DevOps habit, n8n is absurdly good value. If you want someone else to run it, Make.
Make bills per operation, and loops multiply operations. n8n self-hosted has no per-run cost — your ceiling is your server. That inverts the decision: simple workflows are cheaper on Make (no server to run), high-volume ones get dramatically cheaper on n8n.
Both do branching, loops and error handling. n8n's nodes expose more raw API surface and it has a code node with real npm libraries; Make's modules are friendlier but occasionally hit a wall on APIs with odd auth. For complex data transforms, n8n wins.
Make's managed hosting never needs patching and has honest uptime. Self-hosted n8n on a small VPS needs updates, backups and monitoring — exactly the skills this site's fixes section teaches. It's a fair trade: reliability for control.
Small team, no server, first automations: Make (or Zapier if app coverage matters more than logic). Anyone comfortable running Docker: n8n on a $6 droplet — like these — beats most tools' paid tiers at zero per-run cost.