7 Best n8n Alternatives in 2025 [Detailed Expert Comparison]

Over the next three years, 92% of companies plan to increase AI investments; many expect measurable gains from AI / automation in workflow contexts.

While open-source tools like n8n have gained traction for their flexibility, many small and medium businesses are looking for alternatives that are easier to manage, more cost-predictable, or better aligned with their existing tech stack.

This blog explores the top 7 n8n alternatives in 2025—from Zapier and Make to Activepieces and Workato—highlighting features, pricing, pros, and cons to help you choose the right platform for your growth journey.

7 Best n8n Alternatives for Businesses (Detailed Expert Comparison)

1. Zapier

Zapier is perhaps the most well-known no-/low-code automation platform. It’s widely used by SMBs because you can connect hundreds (in fact thousands) of apps, build workflows (“Zaps”) easily without coding, and get started quite fast. If your team wants simplicity and an extensive app ecosystem, Zapier is often the default choice.

Key Features

• Over 7,000 apps/integrations supported.
• Multi-step Zaps, branching logic (Paths), filters, formatters, scheduling.
• AI-powered features like agents, chatbots; built-in data tools (Tables, Interfaces, etc.) available in higher plans.

Pricing tiers (2025)

• Free: $0/month, includes ~100 tasks per month.
• Professional: ~ $19.99/month (billed annually), starting at ~750 tasks/month.
• Team: ~$69/month (billed annually) with higher task limits (~2,000+) and collaboration/team features.
• Enterprise: custom pricing with advanced features like SSO, audit logs, priority support.

2. Make (formerly Integromat)

Make is a visual, low-code/no-code automation platform that gives more control over data flows and conditional/branching logic. It tends to be more flexible than Zapier if you have more complex workflows, want more control over timing, execution intervals, and want to optimize cost vs operations.

Key Features

• Visual scenario/workflow builder with routers, filters, conditional logic.
• Large app ecosystem (~2,000+ apps) plus ability to use HTTP / API modules for custom integrations.
• The notion of “operations” or “credits” as the billing unit (each module action, or piece of workflow, costs an operation/credit).

Pricing (2025)

• Free plan: ~1,000 credits/operations per month.
• Core: starts around $9/month (annual payment) for more operations.
• Pro, Teams, Enterprise plans with higher quotas, more frequent run-intervals, team or enterprise features (SSO, priority support) as you scale.

3. Activepieces

Activepieces is an emerging open-source/cloud hybrid alternative. Its main appeal for affordability, predictability of cost (especially for higher volumes), and the ability to self-host if desired.

Key Features

• Open source core; can self-host or use cloud-hosted versions.
• AI agents, “steps”, and pieces; prebuilt flows; data tables; multiple flows/projects/users in higher plans.
• Very generous free tier: 1,000 tasks/mo, 2 active flows, 200 AI credits.

Pricing 2025

• Plus: US$25/month for small teams (cloud) – unlimited tasks, ~10 flows.
• Business: US$150/month – more flows, users, projects.
• Enterprise: custom pricing, more advanced controls, SSO, audit logs, etc

4. Apache Airflow

Apache Airflow is quite different from the others: this is a workflow orchestration tool used heavily in data engineering, ETL pipelines, batch jobs, etc. It’s open-source, powerful, flexible, but not built for non-technical users primarily. If your SMB has good developer or IT resources and you need heavy-lifting (data pipelines, complex dependencies, scheduling, large scale), Airflow can be a strong choice.

Key Features & Pricing

• DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) based workflows; scheduling, dependency management, retries, logging.
• Very flexible; powerful custom scripting (Python), custom operators, connectors.
• Open source, so no license fee for core; but you’ll incur hosting, infrastructure, maintenance, DevOps resources.
• Deployment: can be self-hosted, cloud managed, hybrid. Cost depends on your setup (cloud VM, compute, storage, monitoring).

5. Pipedream

Pipedream caters more to devs and technically inclined users who want a hybrid approach: combine no-code triggers/modules with code (JavaScript, etc.), serverless functions, real-time workflows. Good if your SMB has some technical skill and needs custom integrations or event-based workflows.

Key Features

• Support for building workflows that include custom code (serverless functions), API calls, event-based triggers.
• Many integrations / community components; ability to extend with code.
• Real-time execution; good for developers who want flexibility and lower latency/customization.

Pricing

• Free – $0/month, 100 credits, 3 workflows, 3 connected accounts.
• Basic – $29/month, 2,000 credits, 10 workflows, 5 accounts.
• Advanced – $49/month, unlimited workflows/accounts, premium features.
• Connect – $99/month, 10,000 credits + Connect features.
• Business – Custom pricing with enterprise support & SLAs.

6. Microsoft Power Automate

Power Automate is Microsoft’s automation/RPA/low-code platform. If your business already uses the Microsoft ecosystem (Office 365, Azure, Teams, Dynamics, etc.), this tool gives a strong integration advantage. It also supports both cloud flows and desktop/RPA flows, attended/unattended bots, process mining etc.

Key Features

• Standard connectors (Microsoft apps + many third-party), premium connectors, and RPA (robotic process automation) options.
• Add-ons like AI Builder service credits, process mining, virtual machine hosting etc

Pricing

• Premium: $15/user/month – cloud + attended RPA + AI credits.
• Process: $150/bot/month – unattended RPA bots.
• Hosted Process: $215/bot/month – unattended bots on MS-hosted VM.
• Add-ons: Process Mining ($5,000/tenant/month), AI Builder ($500/unit/month), Copilot Studio ($200/25k msgs).

7. Workato

Workato is positioned more toward enterprises / mid-market businesses that need both robust, scalable automations and strong governance/security/compliance. It offers “recipes” (its term for workflows), connectors, tools for embedded integration etc. If your business is approaching scale (many automations, many apps, cross-department), Workato becomes relevant.

Key Features

• Pre-built connectors & recipes for hundreds of apps.
• Low-code/no-code builder plus dev tools for custom needs.
• Enterprise security & governance (SSO, RBAC, audit logs).
• Advanced workflow orchestration with error handling.
• Hybrid integration (cloud + on-prem via secure agents).

Pricing

• Base workspace pricing starts at about US$10,000/year for standard usage.
• Minimum task package is typically 1 million tasks to start.
• Premium or add-on features (premium connectors, on-premise agents, high-volume recipes) cost extra.
• Custom/quote-based pricing: exact cost depends on connector types, recipe volume, workspace scale, user seats, etc.

How to Select the Best n8n Alternative For Your Business? - Intuz Expert Insights

Here are practical considerations intuz help you pick the right tool among the above, tailored to your business, budget and goals.

Over to You

Finding the right n8n alternative in 2025 depends on your business size, workflows, and budget. Whether you need Zapier’s simplicity, Make’s flexibility, or Activepieces’ cost efficiency, the right tool will unlock real productivity gains. The key is aligning the platform with your SMB’s growth goals.

Choosing the wrong automation tool can waste time and budget. Why take chances?

Book your free 45-minute consultation call with Intuz, and our specialists will walk you through options and suggest the most practical solution for your business.