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Activepieces vs n8n

A side-by-side comparison of Activepieces and n8n, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.

Compared from listings verified as of

Activepieces

Automation

Open-source, AI-first workflow automation — a self-hostable Zapier alternative.

View Activepieces

n8n

Orchestration

Fair-code workflow automation with first-class AI nodes.

View n8n

At a glance

Feature comparison of Activepieces and n8n
AttributeActivepiecesn8n
Category (differs)AutomationOrchestration
PricingFREEMIUMFREEMIUM
License (differs)Open coreProprietary
DeploymentHybridHybrid
Platforms (differs)WebWeb, API
Model support (differs)Multi-modelModel-agnostic
Vendor (differs)Activepiecesn8n

The honest brief

Activepieces

MIT-licensed (true OSI open source, unlike n8n's fair-code) and exposes its 400+ pieces as MCP tools for agents.

  • Fully self-hostable
  • Native AI steps in the visual builder
  • Visual drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Smaller integration library than Zapier
  • Self-hosting adds ops overhead
  • Younger ecosystem and community

n8n

The self-hostable Zapier alternative with first-class AI/LangChain nodes and per-execution (not per-task) pricing.

  • Free Community Edition
  • 500+ integrations
  • Visual builder bridging APIs and databases
  • Per-execution pricing, not per-task
  • Code nodes for full control
  • Fair-code license, not OSI open-source
  • Self-host carries ops overhead
  • Steeper than Zapier for non-technical users
Activepieces detailsn8n details