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I self-host n8n and get a ton of mileage out of it. Doesn't cost me a dime.

Do you use APIs with n8n? Just curious. If you do, then you might want to factor in the cost of using those as well, including privacy implications.

In my limited testing, I found n8n to be heavily focused on cloud API use, from their onboarding quick tutorial to the collection of provided nodes, I found adapting them to strictly local use something of a chore.

There are a lot of nodes that are pre-built to interact with cloud APIs, but you effectively have an HTTP client available that can reach out to any endpoint. In my case, yes, I make use of cloud APIs and realize the trade-offs wrt privacy. You can hit any internal services you like assuming they're reachable from your n8n server

Doesn't cost a dime to host n8n? Or is this only for personal use?

It doesn't cost a dime to host n8n. They even have a docker image prebuilt that you can just pull and play.

It doesn’t cost a dime to host n8n as long as you are only using it internally. If you offer it commercially, then you will have to negotiate a commercial license.

https://docs.n8n.io/sustainable-use-license/#what-is-and-isn...

Oh, play. Yes, of course.

For production use, it will cost money one way or another.

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