Agentic Index
Make vs n8n (2026)
Make and n8n are the two power user automation platforms people graduate to from Zapier, and the split is managed value versus open control: Make is fully managed visual automation with operations based pricing from 9 dollars a month, while n8n is source available with free self hosting, per execution pricing, and native AI nodes, from 20 euros a month cloud (annual). That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Choose Make for the cheapest managed option with visual depth, n8n for self hosting freedom and AI native workflow building.
On the Agentic Index automation platform ranking, n8n clears the bar and Make does not. n8n documents all five unattended run loop capabilities in full; Make does not document testing, debugging and optimization in full, nor human oversight and guardrails. 11 of the 26 vendors in the lane clear it. See the automation platform ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Make and n8n are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 956 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Make if
- A managed platform with no servers to run is a requirement.
- Entry at 9 dollars a month with visual scenario depth fits your needs.
- Operations based pricing maps well to your moderate volumes.
Choose n8n if
- Self hosting for free (or cheap cloud) with full data ownership wins for you.
- Per execution pricing rewards long, complex workflows.
- Code steps, AI nodes, and LangChain integration fit your technical team.
| At a glance | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Agent builder | Agent builder |
| Entry price | Free plan · Core $12/mo · Pro $21/mo · Teams $38/mo (monthly, 10,000 credits each) · Enterprise custom | From €20/mo (annual) · free self-host |
| Free / trial | Free plan: up to 1,000 credits a month with no time limit, 2 active scenarios, a 15-minute minimum interval and a 5-minute maximum run time. | Free trial (no card required) |
| Pricing confidence | public partial | public partial |
| Feature | M Make |
n n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Full / Explicit
Agent tools are modules, whole scenarios, MCP server tools and other agents, drawn from the same app catalog as Make's automations and grouped with MCP toolboxes. |
Full / Explicit
Several hundred documented app nodes, HTTP, GraphQL, SSH and code nodes, community nodes and an MCP Client node give agents tools across every major system class. |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
Full / Explicit
Agents call other agents, scenarios and modules as tools inside scenarios that route, branch and handle errors. |
Full / Explicit
If, Switch, merge, loop, wait and error handling nodes control flow, and sub-workflows can be attached to agents as tools. |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
Full / Explicit
Agents start from chat, Slack, Telegram, email, form and webhook triggers or run on a schedule. |
Full / Explicit
Sixteen named trigger nodes cover schedules, webhooks, chat, email, RSS, forms, files and MCP, and a durable scheduler keeps scheduled runs through restarts. |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
Full / Explicit
Knowledge files are chunked and vectorized into a retrieval store that returns only the relevant chunks per request, managed at organization level and deleted after 180 days without a query. |
Full / Explicit
Vector stores, embeddings, retrievers and document loaders attach as sub-nodes, so the retrieval index can live in a customer-run database. |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
Partial
A Conversation ID keeps a user's interactions in one thread across runs, but no scope beyond the thread, retention or delete path is documented. |
Partial
Memory attaches as a sub-node with session IDs, but the vendor states it does not persist between sessions unless an external chat-memory backend is wired in. |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
Partial
Builders limit which modules, scenarios and MCP tools an agent may call, but no step where a person approves an agent action is documented. |
Full / Explicit
Tools can require human approval before an agent runs them, a Guardrails node enforces policy, and workflow reviews gate publishing. |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Full / Explicit
ISO 27001 certification and SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 audits, with a public SOC 3 report, sit beside own-SSO on Enterprise, role and team management and VPN-only hosting access. |
Full / Explicit
Annual independent SOC 2 audits, a public SOC 3 report and yearly penetration tests sit beside SSO, SAML and LDAP on Enterprise, role-based access on paid plans and a deep set of documented security controls. |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Full / Explicit
Each agent run returns its execution steps, token usage and a Reasoning tab, inside scenarios that keep the platform's run records. |
Full / Explicit
Every run is an execution the customer can open and filter, traced node by node to an OpenTelemetry collector, with Prometheus metrics and redaction for compliance. |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
Partial
Downloadable on-prem agents (beta) run an execution component on the customer's own Windows or Linux servers, while the platform itself stays in Make's AWS cloud with no region choice. |
Full / Explicit
Self-hosting is documented across Docker, npm and seven named cloud providers, with an isolate configuration that stops the instance contacting n8n's servers, beside managed n8n Cloud. |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
Full / Explicit
The AI Agents Library offers ready-made agents such as Account Researcher, Lead Qualification and Competitor Price Monitor as starting points. |
Full / Explicit
A template library, a custom templates library for self-hosted instances, the AI Starter Kit and portable .n8np packages give ready-made starting points. |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
Full / Explicit
Agents connect to OpenAI, Gemini or Anthropic Claude, or to Make's own provider with no provider account needed, and paid plans add custom provider connections. |
Full / Explicit
Agents require a Chat Model sub-node chosen from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Mistral, Perplexity, Qwen Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot Kimi or local models, and each step can use a different model. |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
Full / Explicit
The Make MCP server lets clients such as Claude and ChatGPT run scenarios and manage the account, with toolboxes to limit what is exposed, and the Developer Hub documents the API and custom apps. |
Full / Explicit
The MCP Server Trigger makes n8n an MCP server for outside clients, beside a public REST API, custom and community nodes, portable .n8np packages and a documented OEM embedding path. |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
Partial
Reasoning views, an error handling tree and output bundles support debugging, but no evaluation, scoring, test dataset or regression surface is documented. |
Full / Explicit
Dedicated Evaluation and Evaluation Trigger nodes run quick tests against known cases in development and metric-based scoring in production. |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
No / Not documented
Agents act only through modules, scenarios, MCP tools and other agents, and web content arrives through app modules and HTTP requests rather than a browser the agent drives. |
Partial
The Airtop app node wires in a third-party cloud browser that clicks, fills forms, types and scrolls; n8n ships no browser of its own. |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | M Make |
n n8n |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Free plan · Core $12/mo · Pro $21/mo · Teams $38/mo (monthly, 10,000 credits each) · Enterprise custom | From €20/mo (annual) · free self-host |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, partial | Public, partial |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
credits | runs |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
High variable cost | Medium variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tier
|
Free tierTrial
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Mixed |
Make has been owned by Celonis since its Integromat era acquisition; it operates as a standalone product within the Celonis portfolio.
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