n8n vs Zapier (2026)

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.

A catalog of 9,000+ apps, with 66,000+ triggers and actions exposed through Zapier MCP, is granted to each agent as named apps and actions that administrators can restrict per team.

If, Switch, merge, loop, wait and error handling nodes control flow, and sub-workflows can be attached to agents as tools.

Agents delegate work to each other, run as steps inside Zap workflows with deterministic steps around them, and keep version history on their instructions.

Sixteen named trigger nodes cover schedules, webhooks, chat, email, RSS, forms, files and MCP, and a durable scheduler keeps scheduled runs through restarts.

Agents start on demand, on a schedule, from a Zap or from another app's trigger across the catalog, and the Chrome extension invokes them from any browser tab.

Vector stores, embeddings, retrievers and document loaders attach as sub-nodes, so the retrieval index can live in a customer-run database.

Knowledge sources are a maintained index over uploaded files and connected apps, resynced every 24 hours and within an hour of new records, with up to 75,000 records.

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.

No first-party page documents agent memory or state retained across runs; agents draw context from knowledge sources, and Zapier states they may behave differently between runs.

Tools can require human approval before an agent runs them, a Guardrails node enforces policy, and workflow reviews gate publishing.

A Needs action state pauses an agent at decision points the builder specifies, and administrators restrict apps and individual actions per team.

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.

SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 are audited annually, beside SAML SSO and SCIM, app and action restrictions, audit trails with log streaming and automatic model training opt out for Enterprise.

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.

Every execution and connection is logged with streaming to existing monitoring tools, each agent keeps a full task history, and every MCP action is recorded in History.

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.

Zapier runs only on AWS in the United States with no region choice, and VPC Peering connects Zapier's cloud to private data sources rather than deploying Zapier into the customer's network.

A template library, a custom templates library for self-hosted instances, the AI Starter Kit and portable .n8np packages give ready-made starting points.

About a hundred ready made agent templates, from lead enrichment to a GitHub PR auto reviewer, are listed in the agent templates hub.

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.

Builders pick standard, advanced or premium model tiers or bring their own provider account, and AI model policies sit among the governance controls.

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.

The Workflow API creates and lists Zaps over OAuth and a Zapier SDK is documented, while Zapier MCP exposes 66,000+ triggers and actions to outside AI clients.

Dedicated Evaluation and Evaluation Trigger nodes run quick tests against known cases in development and metric-based scoring in production.

A test panel, instruction version control and task history support iteration, but no scoring, test cases or regression runs measure one agent version against another.

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.

Web browsing here means search over HTTP, and the Chrome extension invokes Zapier's API-backed actions from a browser tab, so the agent never operates a rendered interface.