The best n8n alternatives
Hosted, self-hosted or ready-made.

Looking for n8n alternatives? n8n is a workflow automation platform for building AI agents and automations, visually or in code, on its cloud or on your own servers. Here are six alternatives ranked for a business whose main use is customer conversations, from a ready-made agent to hosted builders and an open-source platform you can run yourself.

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Every channel wired into one agent and out to the tools behind it: email, SMS, phone, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, Slack, Discord, X, Reddit, Bluesky, website chat, campaign sequences and follow-ups on one side; HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, Calendly, HubSpot Meetings, Zoho Bookings, Acuity Scheduling, Cal.com, Square Appointments, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace on the other.

Why people look for n8n alternatives

n8n is a workflow automation platform for technical teams. You build AI agents and automations on a canvas or in code, connect them to more than 500 integrations or to any API, and run them on n8n's cloud or on your own infrastructure, including on-premises and air-gapped. Its Agent Builder sets a model, instructions, tools, skills, knowledge, memory and sub-agents, and the decisions an agent makes can be inspected on the canvas. Its source code is public on GitHub under what it calls a fair-code licence, and the self-hosted Community Edition is free.

That combination of control, self-hosting and pricing per workflow run is what n8n offers, and it is also why some people keep looking. Self-hosting means somebody runs the server: n8n's own guide says technical expertise is required to install and configure it, and points people without that expertise to n8n Cloud. Its licence, the Sustainable Use License, permits use for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and features such as SSO, environments, projects and sharing sit in the paid Business and Enterprise editions rather than in Community.

The people searching for an n8n alternative usually want one of three things. Some want the same kind of builder without running a server, which points to hosted platforms such as Zapier and Make. Some want a builder they can self-host under a different licence, which points to open-source platforms such as Activepieces. And some came to n8n for one specific job, an agent that answers customers, and found themselves building the channels, the memory, the booking and the follow-up rules node by node.

This page is ordered for that third group, a buyer whose main use is customer-facing conversations, and it is honest that most of the alternatives are other general builders. Bold Agent Kit, the ready-made option for sales and service conversations on the channels a business already uses, comes first. The builders follow, each with a fair account of when it is the better choice, including when n8n's way of working is right and only the hosting or the licence needs to change.

Start 7-day free trial Bold Agent Kit vs n8n

Self-hosted or hostedn8n runs on your servers or its cloud. Decide whether you want to run a server at all.

The licencen8n is fair-code under its Sustainable Use License. Activepieces says its core is MIT-licensed.

Per run, per step or flatn8n counts workflow executions. Others count tasks, credits, actions, seats, or nothing.

Built or ready-madeBuilders give you nodes. A ready-made agent arrives with the channels and rules in place.

The customer channelsEmail, texts, calls, website chat and DMs are where enquiries arrive. Check each one.

Your own modeln8n connects cloud or local models. Some alternatives also run on a model you host.

Four reasons teams move on from n8n

None of these is a fault in n8n. Each follows from what its own site and documentation say about hosting, licensing and pricing, and from what building a customer desk out of nodes involves.

Somebody has to run the server

n8n's self-hosted editions run on your own infrastructure, set up with Docker Compose or a one-line install on your own machines or at a cloud provider, and its documentation notes that npm installation is deprecated from version 3.0. Its guide to choosing a deployment says technical expertise is required for installation and configuration. For a team with a developer, that is ordinary work. For a business without one, the server, the upgrades and the backups become a job nobody applied for.

The licence and the editions

n8n describes itself as fair-code, with its source public on GitHub. The Sustainable Use License permits use for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use. The free Community Edition has, in n8n's words, almost the complete feature set; custom variables, environments, external secrets, projects, SSO and workflow sharing are on the paid self-hosted Business and Enterprise plans. Some teams would rather have a builder with a different licence, or everything in one plan.

Executions add up with conversations

On n8n Cloud an execution is one run of an entire workflow, however many steps it has, and plans are sized by monthly executions; at the time of writing they start at €20 a month, billed annually, and each plan sets a limit on concurrent executions. That suits long workflows well. A chat agent behaves differently: n8n's Chat Trigger documentation says every message runs the workflow, so a busy conversation uses a run for each message it receives.

A customer desk is many workflows

n8n gives you the pieces for a customer agent: a Chat Trigger with a hosted or embedded chat, an Agent Builder with memory and knowledge, channels such as Slack and Telegram, and nodes for the rest. Turning them into a desk means building a workflow for each channel your customers use, the booking logic, follow-up that stops everywhere on a reply or an opt-out, one record per person across channels and an inbox where someone can step in. That is a real project, and it has to be maintained.

What to look for in an n8n alternative

Three questions separate the options below. The right answer depends less on features than on who will run the thing, and what it is for.

01 / Hosting

Who runs it

If keeping workflows on your own servers is the point, look at alternatives you can self-host, and at the terms their licence sets. If it is not the point, a hosted builder takes the server, the upgrades and the backups off your list. And if the real need is customer conversations, ask which accounts stay yours: the mailbox, the number, the social apps and the model key.

02 / Unit

What the bill counts

n8n Cloud counts a whole workflow run as one execution. Make counts each module action as a credit, Zapier counts each successful action as a task, Relevance AI counts each tool run as an Action, Activepieces counts credits, and Lindy counts seats with pooled credits. A flat fee counts nothing. Model your busiest month in each unit before you compare prices, and check each vendor's current page.

03 / Job

Whether the customer side is built

A builder can be made into many things, and a customer desk is a lot of things at once: every channel, the booking, the stop rules, one contact per person and an inbox for takeover. If that desk is the main job, weigh the hours to build and maintain it against a product where those parts already exist, and keep the builder for the work it suits.

The best n8n alternatives, ranked for customer conversations

This ranking assumes your main use is customer-facing conversations: answering enquiries, booking appointments and following up. Bold Agent Kit is the ready-made option for that job. Relevance AI comes next for its ready sales agent and outbound phone agents, then the hosted builders Zapier and Make, then Activepieces, an open-source builder you can self-host much as you would n8n, and finally Lindy, an assistant for your own team.

We make Bold Agent Kit, which is why it is first on this list. Every other entry is described from its own website, including when it is the better choice.

01 / Best for customer conversations without a workflow to build or run

Bold Agent Kit

Bold Agent Kit is the customer-facing agent already built. Where an n8n customer desk is a set of workflows you design, host and maintain, here it is one agent with the channels, the booking, the follow-up and the stop rules already in place. You give it a knowledge base of your documents, Q&A pairs, prices and hours and the pages of your own site it may link to, write its instructions, and switch auto-reply on for each channel you connect.

It works fifteen channels from that one knowledge base: email from your own mailboxes, texts through nine carriers, phone calls on your own Twilio number in real time, a website chat widget from one line of script, and eleven DM platforms. It books real open slots from eight calendars, reads a connected CRM such as HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Jobber or ServiceTitan before it answers, and puts every thread in one inbox, where every handle for a person is merged into one contact. The accounts stay yours, and the model runs on your own key with one of sixteen providers, including Ollama or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host yourself.

Choose it if the reason you opened n8n was customer conversations, and you would rather run a business than a server. Keep n8n, or another builder, for internal automation: Bold Agent Kit does not automate back-office work and does not connect to n8n. What you can host yourself here is the model.

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Best forcustomer conversations without a workflow to build or run

Pricing$25 a month or $200 a year for the account, with a 7-day free trial. Your own AI key and carrier at cost; nothing counted per execution, message or seat.

ChannelsEmail, texts on nine carriers, calls on Twilio, website chat and eleven DM platforms

No workflow to maintainChannels, booking, follow-up and stop rules come with the agent.

Nothing counted per message$25 a month for the account, however many conversations it has.

A model you host, if you likeOllama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint you run, among sixteen options on your own key.

Customer side onlyIt does not replace n8n for internal automation, and does not connect to it.

02 / Best for specialised sales and operations agents, with a ready BDR agent

Relevance AI

Relevance AI is a platform for building and deploying specialised AI agents and linking them into workforces. It pairs a no-code builder with orchestration, routing across model providers, evaluation and tracing, and agents can be started from more than 1,000 integrations, on a schedule, by webhook or through its API. Its site lists sales, support, operations and marketing uses, and it offers Bosh, an AI BDR agent that its site says researches prospects, handles replies over email and LinkedIn and books meetings.

Compared with n8n, Relevance AI starts from the agent rather than the workflow. You still design what each agent does, but some customer-facing work comes as a ready agent: alongside Bosh, its documentation describes phone agents that make outbound calls and run tools while the call is live. It bills in Actions, where each tool run counts as one, and Vendor Credits for the model, which you can skip by bringing your own keys.

Choose Relevance AI if you think in agents rather than workflows, particularly for B2B sales and operations, and have someone to design and test them. For inbound enquiries across texts, website chat and social DMs, those are channels you would connect and build around.

Bold Agent Kit vs Relevance AI

Best forspecialised sales and operations agents, with a ready BDR agent

PricingActions, counted each time an agent runs a tool, plus Vendor Credits for model and tool usage, or your own API keys instead. Its main pricing page shows an Enterprise plan arranged through sales.

ChannelsRelevance Chat on web and mobile; 1,000+ integrations including Gmail, Outlook and Slack; outbound phone agents

Agents firstSpecialised agents and workforces, with a no-code builder and evaluations.

A ready BDR agentBosh handles replies and books meetings over email and LinkedIn, by its site.

Outbound phone agentsIts docs describe agents that place calls and use tools during them.

Two units to watchActions per tool run, and Vendor Credits unless you bring your own keys.

03 / Best for hosted automation across 9,000+ apps, with no server to run

Zapier

Zapier is a hosted automation platform, and its homepage counts more than 9,000 apps it connects. Zaps are workflows of a trigger and one or more actions; Zapier Agents work from instructions, triggers, actions and knowledge sources; Chatbots take FAQs, documents and public links and can collect leads; and Forms, Tables, Canvas and an MCP server round it out.

For an n8n user, Zapier is the move away from running anything yourself: you sign in and build, with no server of your own to keep up. The trade is the pricing unit. Where n8n Cloud counts a whole workflow run as one execution, Zapier counts every successful action as a task, and bills Agents by activities on a separate allowance. There is a free plan with 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps.

Choose Zapier if the draw of n8n was connecting apps and you would rather not maintain the platform, or if the apps you rely on are in Zapier's catalogue. For a customer desk across texts, calls and DMs, you would still assemble the channel apps, the booking and the stop rules from Zaps.

Bold Agent Kit vs Zapier

Best forhosted automation across 9,000+ apps, with no server to run

PricingTasks for Zaps and activities for Agents, on separate allowances. A free plan with 100 tasks a month; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $19.99 a month, billed annually.

Channels9,000+ apps, plus Zapier Agents, Chatbots, Forms and Tables

Nothing to hostA hosted service, so there is no server of your own to keep running.

9,000+ appsBy its homepage's count, where n8n's homepage lists more than 500.

A free plan100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps before you pay.

Counted per actionEach successful action is a task, where n8n Cloud counts a whole run once.

04 / Best for a hosted visual canvas for scenarios and agents

Make

Make, formerly Integromat, is a visual automation platform whose canvas works in a way an n8n user will recognise: scenarios are drawn as a series of modules, with routers and filters in view, and its homepage counts more than 3,000 pre-built apps. Make AI Agents are built on the same canvas, on Make's own AI provider or your own model key, and Maia by Make builds automations and agents from a conversation.

The main differences for someone coming from n8n are hosting and counting. Make, now part of Celonis, runs the platform for you, and it bills in credits, one per module action, so a long scenario uses more than a short one, where n8n Cloud counts a whole workflow run once. Scenarios run on a schedule, every 15 minutes by default and adjustable, or immediately from a webhook or an instant trigger. A free plan offers up to 1,000 credits a month.

Choose Make if you like building on a canvas but want someone else to run the platform. For customer conversations it gives you modules and agents, and the channel apps, the booking logic and the memory of who is who remain yours to design.

Bold Agent Kit vs Make

Best fora hosted visual canvas for scenarios and agents

PricingCredits, one per module action, with token-based credits for AI on Make's own provider. A free plan with up to 1,000 credits a month; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $12 a month.

Channels3,000+ pre-built apps, webhooks and the Make MCP server

A canvas you will recogniseModules, routers and filters drawn visually, much as in n8n.

Run for youNo server of your own, with a free plan to start on.

Own key or Make's AIAgents on Make's AI provider on every plan, or on your own LLM key.

Credits per moduleEach module action counts, where n8n Cloud counts the whole run.

05 / Best for an open-source builder you can self-host, with AI agents

Activepieces

Activepieces is an automation platform with AI agents, flows and tables, and it is the alternative on this list you can run on your own servers much as you would run n8n. Its homepage says the core is MIT-licensed and that every one of its 760+ pieces, its word for integrations, is MIT-licensed too, built in the open by contributors. It runs on its cloud, on your servers or fully air-gapped, and its documentation recommends Docker Compose with PostgreSQL and Redis, with a Helm chart for teams that already run Kubernetes.

Its agents are set up in plain words: you describe a job and an agent carries it across your tools, asking for approval on sensitive steps. Flows can call any REST or GraphQL API where a piece does not exist, and MCP and API access are included from the free plan. It bills in credits, with a free cloud plan, paid plans that cost the same on its cloud or your own servers, and your own AI keys from the Plus plan upwards.

Choose Activepieces if you want to stay self-hosted and would prefer an MIT-licensed core, or if you like the idea of agents described in words sitting next to your flows. As with n8n, the customer side, the channels, the booking, the stop rules and one inbox, is yours to build.

Visit Activepieces

Best foran open-source builder you can self-host, with AI agents

PricingCredits. A free cloud plan with 100 credits a day; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $16 a month, billed yearly, at the same price on its cloud or your own servers. The Community edition is free to self-host.

Channels760+ open-source pieces, any REST or GraphQL API, and MCP

MIT-licensed coreThe core and every piece are MIT-licensed, by its own site.

Self-host or cloudIts cloud, your servers or air-gapped, at the same plan price.

Free to startA free cloud plan with 100 credits a day, and a free Community edition.

Still a builderFlows and agents are yours to design and maintain.

06 / Best for an AI assistant for your team, taught in plain English

Lindy

Lindy is an AI teammate that works across a company's tools. Rather than building workflows, you teach it skills and routines in plain English, and it works in Slack, the inbox, the calendar and meetings, with more than 1,000 integrations and MCP support listed on its site. Its documentation covers email drafting and labelling, follow-up bumps, meeting preparation and recording, scheduling and a daily brief.

For an n8n user, Lindy is the other end of the scale: no canvas, no nodes and no server to run, and instead an assistant you describe work to. It is priced per user, and each seat adds credits to a shared workspace pool that refreshes monthly and does not roll over, with top-ups when it runs low. Teammates who join through Slack get their first week free.

Choose Lindy if the automations you built in n8n were mostly your team's own work, inboxes, meetings, research and updates, and you would rather describe that work than wire it. It sits last here because it is set up around your team rather than your customers.

Bold Agent Kit vs Lindy

Best foran AI assistant for your team, taught in plain English

PricingPer user per month, with credits pooled across the workspace; at the time of writing, published plans start at $29.99 a month per user.

ChannelsSlack, email, calendar and meetings, iMessage and SMS to your own Lindy; 1,000+ integrations and MCP

No workflows to drawSkills and routines taught in plain English.

Where the team already isSlack, email, the calendar and meetings.

1,000+ integrationsPlus MCP servers, by its site and documentation.

Per-seat pricingCredits pooled across users, reset each month.

n8n alternatives at a glance

Who each tool suits, what it connects to and how it charges, as its own website described it when we checked. For reference, n8n Cloud counts workflow executions, and its Community Edition is free to self-host.

Tool	Best for	Channels	How it charges
Bold Agent Kit	customer conversations without a workflow to build or run	Email, texts on nine carriers, calls on Twilio, website chat and eleven DM platforms	$25 a month or $200 a year for the account, with a 7-day free trial. Your own AI key and carrier at cost; nothing counted per execution, message or seat.
Relevance AI	specialised sales and operations agents, with a ready BDR agent	Relevance Chat on web and mobile; 1,000+ integrations including Gmail, Outlook and Slack; outbound phone agents	Actions, counted each time an agent runs a tool, plus Vendor Credits for model and tool usage, or your own API keys instead. Its main pricing page shows an Enterprise plan arranged through sales.
Zapier	hosted automation across 9,000+ apps, with no server to run	9,000+ apps, plus Zapier Agents, Chatbots, Forms and Tables	Tasks for Zaps and activities for Agents, on separate allowances. A free plan with 100 tasks a month; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $19.99 a month, billed annually.
Make	a hosted visual canvas for scenarios and agents	3,000+ pre-built apps, webhooks and the Make MCP server	Credits, one per module action, with token-based credits for AI on Make's own provider. A free plan with up to 1,000 credits a month; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $12 a month.
Activepieces	an open-source builder you can self-host, with AI agents	760+ open-source pieces, any REST or GraphQL API, and MCP	Credits. A free cloud plan with 100 credits a day; at the time of writing, paid plans start at $16 a month, billed yearly, at the same price on its cloud or your own servers. The Community edition is free to self-host.
Lindy	an AI assistant for your team, taught in plain English	Slack, email, calendar and meetings, iMessage and SMS to your own Lindy; 1,000+ integrations and MCP	Per user per month, with credits pooled across the workspace; at the time of writing, published plans start at $29.99 a month per user.

n8n and the builders on this list can automate far more kinds of work than Bold Agent Kit, and for internal operations, data moving between apps or agents on back-office tasks they may be the right home. Bold Agent Kit does one job, customer conversations on fifteen channels with booking and follow-up, at $25 a month or $200 a year for the account, with your AI provider and your carrier billing you directly at cost. Pricing units differ, so model your own busiest month in each.

We checked each tool’s public website on 11 September 2026 for this page. Plans and features change, so check each vendor’s own site for the current detail. Product names are trademarks of their owners, and Bold Agent Kit is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

Which n8n alternative should you choose?

If you came to n8n to build an agent that answers customers, choose the tool where that agent already exists. Bold Agent Kit answers email, texts, calls, website chat and eleven DM platforms from your own material, books real calendar slots and follows up until the customer books, buys or opts out, for $25 a month for the account, with no workflow to host and the model on your own key, or on one you run yourself. If you want a ready sales agent and outbound phone agents inside a wider agent platform, Relevance AI is built for that.

If n8n's way of working is right and only the hosting or the licence is the problem, stay with a builder. Zapier and Make take the server away: Zapier with its 9,000+ apps and a free plan, Make with a visual canvas you will recognise. Activepieces keeps self-hosting on the table, with an MIT-licensed core. And if what you automated was mostly your team's own work, Lindy lets you describe it in plain English instead.

If you have a developer who enjoys the work, n8n itself may still be the right tool for internal automation. Plenty of businesses will keep it for that and put a ready-made agent on the customer side, each doing its own job.

Start 7-day free trial Bold Agent Kit vs n8n

Powered by your own keys

Each agent uses a model on your own API key, in the same way it sends from your own mailbox and your own phone number. Sixteen providers are supported: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI and Mistral; DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, Qwen and MiniMax; Groq, Together, Fireworks and OpenRouter; and Ollama or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host yourself.

Bring your own credentials and you own the whole stack: your model provider, your mailboxes, your carrier, your CRM. We charge for the software and nothing else — no token markup, no metering, no credit packs — so your provider bills you direct at their rates, usually a few dollars a month per agent.

Your key, sixteen providersOpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI, Mistral, DeepSeek, Groq, OpenRouter and more.

Or a model you hostOllama, vLLM, or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint of your own.

The fast model on callsIt switches automatically, because a phone call cannot wait for a sentence.

No metering from usNo markup, no credit packs, no per-message billing. A busy month costs no more.

Keys stored encryptedYour credentials are yours; we never send them anywhere but your provider.

Sixteen model providers, on your own key

OpenAI
Anthropic
Gemini
xAI
Mistral
DeepSeek
GLM
Kimi
Qwen
MiniMax
Groq
Together
Fireworks
OpenRouter
Ollama
Any OpenAI API

One plan. Everything in it. Monthly or yearly.

No seat tiers, no credit packs, no per-agent or per-channel pricing, and nothing held back behind an enterprise call.

Agents
How many	Unlimited — one per business, brand or job
Shared brain	The same identity, instructions and knowledge on every channel
Knowledge base	Documents, Q&A pairs, data points and pages of your own site
Isolation	One agent's content is never used to reply for another
Client seats	Invite a client into one agent, with their own login
Channels
Email	As many mailboxes per agent as you connect, rotated by campaigns
Text messages	Nine providers — Twilio, Telnyx, SimpleTexting, Plivo, Vonage, Sinch, Bandwidth, MessageBird, ClickSend
Phone calls	Answering and dialling, with recordings and transcripts
Transcription	Google, or Deepgram nova-3 on your own key
Voices	Google, Amazon Polly and ElevenLabs, or your own ElevenLabs / Fish Audio account
Voice cloning	Record a voice in the browser and clone it on your ElevenLabs or Fish Audio key
Website chat	A widget on your site with your colour, image and greeting
Social DMs	Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, Viber, Slack, Discord, Bluesky, Reddit, X
Inbox
One list	Every channel's conversations together, newest first, tagged by channel
Filters	By channel, by mailbox or number, or by agent
Takeover	Reply yourself and the agent stands down on that thread
Hand back	Return the thread to the agent when you are done
Campaigns
Multichannel sequences	Email, text and call steps in one campaign, each with its own timing
Send conditions	Send a step only if they opened, did not open, clicked or did not click
Schedule	The days, hours and time zone anything may be sent
Stop rules	A reply, a booking or an opt-out on any channel ends the sequence
Pacing	Per-mailbox and per-number hourly limits, pausable and resumable
Review before start	The full plan is shown; a campaign sends nothing until you start it
Templates	Email, text and call scripts, saved once and reused
Analytics
Funnel	Reached, replied, visited, converted, plus value won and time to convert
By channel	Where each person started, and the channel they converted on
Pages	Which pages known people read, and how many of them converted
Journeys	One row per person: every message, visit, call and booking in order
Goals	A page rule or a manual "won", each with a dollar value
Triggers	A known person returns to a page — notify you, or send a follow-up
Open and click tracking	Recorded per campaign and added to that person's history
Integrations
Calendars	Google, Microsoft 365, Calendly, Cal.com, Acuity, Zoho, Square, HubSpot Meetings
CRMs and commerce	HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace
Booking	Real open slots offered, and only an offered slot can be booked
CRM import	Import a segment of customers into a contact list
Deliverability and compliance
Mailbox warm-up	Ramped sending across the network, with spam rescue and replies
Health score	SPF, DKIM, DMARC, bounce rate and inbox placement, with reasons
Auto-rest	A failing address is removed from rotation automatically
Unsubscribes	One click, honoured automatically, including on queued mail
Reply limits	One reply per thread, per-sender daily and per-channel hourly caps
Filtering	Bounces, out-of-office and no-reply addresses ignored
List building
Contact extraction	Emails, phone numbers and social profiles, on any site. Unlimited.
Deep scan	Follows the pages of a domain most likely to carry contact details
Domain queue	Load a CSV of sites and work through them one at a time
Contacts and lists	Unlimited, by email or phone, with CSV import and export
AI
Your own key	Sixteen providers, including any OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host
What we charge for AI	Nothing — no markup, no metering, no credit packs
On calls	Uses your provider's fastest model automatically
Account
Platforms	Chrome side panel and web dashboard on one login
Members' forum	Six boards, visible only once you are signed in
Referral program	$50 a year per referral ($5 a month), recurring for the life of the account
Support	support@boldagents.co

Monthly Annual save 33%

$25/ month

$200/ year

Billed monthly. No add-ons, no seat tiers. Cancel anytime.

$16.67 a month, billed once a year. No add-ons, no seat tiers. Cancel anytime.

Start 7-day free trial Start 7-day free trial

Before you switch

What is the best n8n alternative?

It depends on why you are leaving. For customer conversations on email, texts, calls, website chat and social DMs, with booking and follow-up, Bold Agent Kit is the ready-made option at $25 a month for the account. For specialised sales and operations agents, Relevance AI. For hosted automation across 9,000+ apps with a free plan, Zapier. For a hosted visual canvas, Make. To keep self-hosting with an MIT-licensed core, Activepieces. For an assistant your team teaches in plain English, Lindy. If you have a developer and want full control, n8n may still be the right fit.

Why do people switch from n8n?

Usually for one of three reasons. Some do not want to run a server: n8n's own guide says self-hosting needs technical expertise to install and configure. Some want different terms or everything in one plan: n8n is fair-code under its Sustainable Use License, which permits use for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and some features are reserved for its paid editions. And some came to build a customer-facing agent and found that the channels, booking, follow-up rules and inbox all had to be built and maintained as workflows.

How is Bold Agent Kit different from n8n?

n8n is a platform for building workflows and agents, visually or in code, which you run on its cloud or on your own servers and pay for by executions, or not at all on the Community Edition. Bold Agent Kit is a ready-made sales and service agent: it answers customers on fifteen channels from your own material, books real calendar slots and follows up until they book, buy or opt out, for $25 a month for the account on your own AI key. The full side-by-side is on our Bold Agent Kit vs n8n comparison page.

Does Bold Agent Kit connect to n8n?

No. Bold Agent Kit has no n8n integration, and nothing passes between the two. It connects directly to the channels it works on, your mailboxes, nine SMS carriers, Twilio, the website widget and eleven DM platforms, and to eighteen CRMs, calendars and stores, including HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Google Calendar, Calendly, Stripe and Shopify. If you keep n8n for internal automation, run the two side by side for different jobs, each with its own records.

Is there a free n8n alternative?

Yes, several have a free way in. Activepieces has a free cloud plan with 100 credits a day and a free Community edition you can self-host, and its site says the core is MIT-licensed. Zapier has a free plan with 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps, and Make has a free plan with up to 1,000 credits a month. Each is a general builder, so a customer desk is yours to assemble. Bold Agent Kit is not free, but it has a 7-day free trial and then costs $25 a month for the whole account.

Is there an open-source alternative to n8n?

Activepieces is the one on this list. Its site says its core is MIT-licensed and that every one of its 760+ pieces is MIT-licensed too, and it runs on its cloud, on your own servers or fully air-gapped, with Docker Compose recommended for self-hosting and a free Community edition. n8n describes its own licence as fair-code: its source is public on GitHub, and its Sustainable Use License permits use for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use. The other tools here are used as services.

Can I keep control of my data and AI model with Bold Agent Kit?

The accounts that matter stay yours. Email goes out through your own mailbox and your own server, texts and calls through your own carrier account, social DMs through your own app credentials, and the model runs on your own API key with one of sixteen providers, including Ollama or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host yourself. Keys are stored encrypted and sent nowhere but your provider. Each agent's knowledge base belongs to that agent only, and content from one agent is never used to reply for another.

How do I move a customer-facing workflow from n8n to Bold Agent Kit?

Rebuild it as an agent rather than importing it, since there is no workflow to carry across. Put the system prompt and knowledge files your n8n agent used into the knowledge base as documents, Q&A pairs, data points and instructions. Connect the mailbox, number, chat widget and DM accounts your trigger nodes were listening to, then your calendar and CRM, and bring contacts in as a CSV or a CRM segment. Switch one channel on, check the inbox, and deactivate the matching workflow when you are happy with the answers.

Other roundups

The best alternatives to the other tools people shortlist for the same jobs.

The customer side, without a workflow.

Build one agent from your own material, connect one channel and watch it answer, book and follow up. $25 a month for the account, with a 7-day free trial and your own model key at cost. Keep n8n for everything else it runs.

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