Find your situation, get one tool. 1 pick and 4 head-to-heads, each with its price, runner-up and what we ruled out.
Head to head
Activepieces is MIT-licensed with a free cloud tier and a UI non-developers can actually use. n8n is source-available, more powerful, and demands more from you. Here's how to pick.
Depends on your case
Head to head
Zapier bills every action step. n8n bills the whole run as one execution. That single difference determines which tool costs you 5–10× more at scale.
Depends on your case
Head to head
Make wins for freelancers who want automation running today. n8n self-hosted wins when workflow complexity or data sovereignty makes the cloud cost unsustainable.
Depends on your case
Head to head
Make gives you 10,000 credits for $9/month. Zapier gives you 750 tasks for $19.99/month. Unless you need automation in the next hour, the math isn't close.
Make wins