Short answer
Choose Make if your team wants to build and own scenarios visually, your workflows are short, and hosting is not a constraint. Choose n8n if your workflows do a lot per run, if you want custom code inside the flow, or if the data has to stay on infrastructure you control — n8n can be self-hosted, Make cannot. The billing unit is the other half of the answer: Make meters every module that runs, n8n meters the run itself.
Credits vs executions: the whole cost story
Comparing these two on their entry tiers tells you almost nothing, because they do not count the same thing.
Make meters credits. In Make's own words, "each module action in your scenario […] counts as one credit". A scenario that watches a form, enriches the record, branches on a condition, writes to a CRM, posts to Slack and sends a confirmation email has consumed six credits on a single trigger. (Checked on Make's pricing page in August 2026 — the unit is now named credits, so older comparisons describe something that no longer exists under that name.)
n8n meters workflow executions. That same six-step flow consumes one. The consequence is not subtle: the more work each run performs, the further the two models diverge. Teams that compare monthly tiers side by side and pick the cheaper one routinely discover the gap three months later, when volume arrives.
The number that actually predicts your bill: module actions per scenario × runs per month. Compute it for your three busiest workflows before you look at any pricing page. Current tiers: Make pricing and n8n pricing — we do not reprint figures here, because they move and a stale price in a comparison is worse than no price.
The self-hosting question
Make is a cloud product. There is no self-hosted edition, and your data transits Make’s infrastructure under Make’s terms. For most automation work — marketing operations, internal notifications, CRM hygiene — that is a perfectly reasonable arrangement.
n8n publishes a source-available version you can run on your own server or inside your own cloud account, alongside its hosted offering. When a client tells us that customer records cannot leave infrastructure they control, the comparison stops there. It is not a preference; it is a requirement one product satisfies and the other structurally cannot.
Worth being honest about the trade: self-hosting is not free. Someone has to run the server, apply updates, monitor failures and restore backups. You are not removing the cost, you are moving it from a subscription line to an infrastructure line — and taking on the responsibility that comes with it.
What building in each one feels like
Make’s canvas is the better first experience, and it is not close. Modules snap together, the visual metaphor holds as the scenario grows, and a non-developer can ship something useful the same day. That matters more than technical people usually admit: automations owned by the person who needs them get fixed, automations that require a ticket quietly rot.
n8n shows you the data. You see the JSON moving between nodes, you can drop in a JavaScript or Python node when the built-in ones do not fit, and you can express logic that a purely visual tool has to approximate. That is what raises the ceiling, and it is exactly what makes the first afternoon harder.
The useful question is not which is more capable. It is: who owns this automation in six months, and can that person fix it themselves at 6pm on a Friday?
Where each one runs out of road
Make starts to hurt when scenarios become long and high-volume, because every added module is metered on every run, and when you need logic the visual builder cannot express cleanly. Complex error handling and deeply nested branching are where teams typically start looking elsewhere.
n8n starts to hurt when the people who need the automations cannot maintain them. A self-hosted instance with nobody responsible for it is a liability, not an asset — we have inherited enough of them to say that plainly. It also asks more of you on day one, which is a real cost for a small team without technical support.
Side by side
| Criterion | Make | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per credit (each module action) | Per workflow execution |
| Cost of long workflows | Scales with number of modules | Flat per run |
| Self-hosting | Not available | Source-available, run it yourself |
| Data residency control | Make’s infrastructure | Yours, if self-hosted |
| First-day experience | Excellent visual canvas | Steeper — exposes the data |
| Custom code in the flow | Limited | First-class (JavaScript / Python) |
| Integration catalog | Larger | Mainstream stack + HTTP node |
| Best fit | Business teams owning their own scenarios | Heavy workflows, sensitive data, technical owner |
The verdict, by situation
Pick Make if the people who need the automation will also build it, if scenarios stay short, and if nothing about the data would make a compliance officer pause. Getting something live this week, maintained by the team that uses it, beats a technically superior platform nobody touches.
Pick n8n if workflows are long or high-volume, if you need real code inside the flow, or if hosting on your own infrastructure is a requirement rather than a preference. Budget for a technical owner — that is the actual price of admission, not the subscription.
Run both if you are big enough for the split to make sense: Make for the long tail of business-owned scenarios, n8n for the handful of heavy or sensitive workflows engineering owns. That is not indecision, it is matching the tool to who maintains it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the real difference between n8n and Make?
Two differences decide almost every project. First, the billing unit: Make meters credits, where each module action inside a scenario counts as one credit, while n8n meters workflow executions, so a run counts once no matter how many nodes it passes through. Second, hosting: Make is a cloud product only, while n8n can be run on your own server. Everything else — the visual builder, the integration list, the error handling — is close enough that it rarely settles the decision on its own.
Is Make easier to use than n8n?
For most people, yes. Make’s canvas is genuinely pleasant, the modules are self-explanatory, and someone in operations can build a working scenario in an afternoon. n8n asks you to think about the shape of your data, which is more honest and slower. The gap narrows fast for anyone comfortable with an API response, and it never closes for someone who is not.
Can I self-host Make?
No. Make runs on Make’s infrastructure and there is no self-hosted edition. n8n publishes a source-available version you can deploy on your own server or in your own cloud account. If a contract or a regulator requires that customer data stay on infrastructure you control, that single requirement ends this comparison before any feature is compared.
Which is cheaper at high volume?
It depends on the shape of your workflows far more than on the tier you pick. Make charges credits, and each module action costs one — so a scenario with fifteen modules consumes fifteen credits every time it runs. n8n charges per execution, so the same scenario consumes one. The more your automations do per run, the more that difference compounds. Self-hosted n8n removes the per-execution charge entirely and replaces it with server and maintenance cost, which is real cost, just paid to someone else. Do the arithmetic on your three busiest workflows before comparing tiers.
Does n8n have as many integrations as Make?
Make’s catalog is larger. n8n covers the mainstream stack and ships an HTTP request node that reaches anything with a public API, at the cost of some setup work. As with any integration comparison, the total is close to meaningless: list the six tools you actually need and check them by name on both sides. One missing connector on your critical tool outweighs a thousand you will never open.
Which one does LYVIA deploy?
Both, decided per project. Make when the client’s team wants to own and edit the scenarios themselves and the data is unremarkable. n8n when workflows are heavy, when credit consumption starts to show in the budget, or when the data has to live on the client’s own infrastructure. Choosing the platform before understanding the workflow is the most reliable way to rebuild the whole thing a year later.
If you would rather have the workflow built than the comparison read, that is our job — we deploy both, and we choose per project rather than by preference. Book a call and we will tell you which one your case actually calls for.
