Zapier Alternatives: Make.com and n8n Compared
Make.com and n8n are the two main Zapier alternatives - offering more power and lower cost for businesses that have outgrown Zapier's pricing or capabilities.
Why people look for Zapier alternatives
Zapier's per-task pricing scales poorly: a workflow that runs 5,000 times with 4 steps costs 20,000 tasks - that's $50-100+/month for one workflow. Add complex branching or loops and Zapier requires expensive workarounds. Most businesses hit this ceiling within a year of serious use.
Make.com as a Zapier alternative
Make is the most direct Zapier replacement: similar visual interface, much better pricing (5-10x cheaper at volume), and native support for branching, loops, and error handling. Most Zapier workflows can be rebuilt in Make in a few hours. It is our recommended alternative for most businesses.
n8n as a Zapier alternative
n8n is self-hostable, which means zero per-task cost at any volume. It gives you code-level control with JavaScript in every node, and full data sovereignty (nothing leaves your infrastructure). The tradeoff is a steeper learning curve and the need to manage your own server.
Which to choose
Make for most businesses: easier setup, strong visual builder, predictable low-cost pricing, and 1,500+ native connectors. n8n for technical teams or compliance-heavy industries (GDPR, healthcare, legal) that cannot send data to a third-party SaaS. If you are currently on Zapier and paying more than $50/month, Make will likely pay for itself in the first month.
Switching from Zapier
There is no automatic migration tool between Zapier and Make. You rebuild workflows manually, which typically takes 1-3 hours per workflow depending on complexity. The upside: you usually improve the workflow in the process, because Make handles edge cases that required Zapier workarounds. We have migrated dozens of Zapier stacks to Make.
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