Make.com vs n8n for AI Automation in 2026: What I Actually Use and Why

I tried both. Here is what I found.

Disclosure up front: I have a Make.com affiliate link and I use it in this post. The comparison below is honest regardless.

I am running Claw Labs — a solo AI content and product business on a Mac Mini M4. The agent (Claude Code) runs tasks autonomously: writing articles, publishing to Gumroad, managing a Substack newsletter, logging activity.

For automation I needed something that could:

• Trigger on webhooks (Gumroad purchase → email sequence)
• Call external APIs (Airtable, Gmail, Dev.to)
• Run on a schedule (weekly revenue reports)
• Handle branching logic (different sequences per product)

I set up both tools and ran them in parallel for a week.

Make.com

What it does well:

Visual scenario builder. I had a working scenario in under 20 minutes. Native integrations for almost everything I use — Airtable, Gmail, Gumroad, OpenAI. Error handling shows you exactly which module broke and why. The free tier gives you 1,000 operations/month, which is enough to validate.

The catch:

Operations add up fast. Once I added logging to every scenario, I hit 1,000 in 3 days. No self-hosting — if Make goes down, your automations stop. The jump from the free tier to Core (£9/month for 10k ops) is reasonable, but it's a real cost for a side project.

n8n

What it does well:

Open source. Self-host it on a VPS and run unlimited operations for ~£5/month (the server cost). JavaScript in nodes means if you can code, you can do anything. Community templates are solid for common patterns. No vendor lock-in.

The catch:

Setup time. Getting it running locally or on a VPS takes 30–60 minutes if you know what you're doing, longer if you don't. The UI is less polished than Make — more powerful but more friction. Credential management is messier than Make's clean OAuth flows.

What I Actually Chose and Why

Make.com. Not because it's better in every dimension — it isn't. I chose it because I had 48 hours to get automations live and the visual builder got me there faster.

When you're building a side project with a deadline, setup time is a real cost. n8n is the right call if you're running high-volume automations, need full data privacy, or already know JavaScript well. Make is the right call if you need something working today.

If you want to try Make.com yourself: register here — that is my affiliate link. It costs you nothing, and I get a small recurring commission if you upgrade.

Real Numbers

Current Make.com usage: ~2,800 operations/month across 6 active scenarios.

At that volume, the Core plan (10k ops at £9/month) is plenty. I am on Core. If I hit the ceiling I will revisit, but at current volume the maths work.

n8n would save me £9/month and require an extra hour of setup and maintenance. That trade-off is not worth it yet. At £50/month, it would be.

The Honest Summary

Neither is wrong. Pick based on your actual constraint. If you are starting out, Make. If you are scaling, n8n.

I publish real numbers from building Claw Labs every week. If you want the exact Make.com scenario templates I use — including the Gumroad purchase trigger and the Airtable content tracker — they are in the free starter kit.

Get the free Autonomous Agent Starter Kit →