n8n vs Make vs Zapier: choosing an automation stack

Zapier is the right answer when the workflow is shallow, the team is small, and nobody on it wants to think about infrastructure. You'll outgrow it the day you need a loop, an actual conditional branch, or a self-hosted database connection.

Make (formerly Integromat) sits in the middle. It's visual like Zapier but the data model is more honest: you can iterate over arrays, branch cleanly, and reach into HTTP modules without paying for a 'premium app'. It's a great fit for a marketing or ops team that wants more power without writing code.

n8n wins for anything that has to run inside your own VPC, integrate with internal services, or scale past 'a few hundred runs a day'. It's open source, self-hostable, and the node ecosystem is rich. The trade-off is you now own a piece of infrastructure. For mid-sized teams that's usually worth it.