As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates n8n 2.5/5 and Zapier 2.5/5 in Workflow Management. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 5 of the 6 judges pick n8n and 1 picks Zapier. n8n scores higher on 5 of 7 criteria (Hosting options & portability, Process design, forms & approvals, Governance, credentials & audit trail, plus 2 more). Zapier scores higher on 2 of 7 criteria (Connectors, API & on-premise reach and Execution, error handling & monitoring). Provenance — n8n: EU-Made; Zapier: Rest of world, United States. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
n8n holds the higher mean on hosting and portability (6.5 to Zapier's 3.3), governance and audit (5.8 to 5.5), sovereignty (3.3 to 3.0), pricing transparency (5.5 to 5.3) and process design (4.7 to 4.0); Zapier holds it on integrations and connectors (5.8 to 5.2) and run reliability (6.0 to 5.8). On the leans, 5 of 6 judges pick n8n for run reliability, governance and audit, hosting and portability, sovereignty and pricing transparency; process design goes 4 n8n, 1 Zapier, 1 tie; integrations go 2 n8n, 1 Zapier, 3 ties. So run reliability's mean and leans point opposite ways. Weighted totals favor Zapier for the integrator (5.3 to 0) and n8n for the ops analyst (6.8 to 5.2), head of IT (6.6 to 4.6), data protection officer (6.1 to 4.1) and skeptic (6.4 to 5); the process owner's total is not listed. No overall winner — these splits are the answer.
Choose n8n if
You need to self-host, run workflows air-gapped, or keep automation under Git version control — hosting and portability leans n8n 5 judges to 1, means 6.5 to 3.3.
Your governance requirements name SAML SSO, audit logging, or SOC reports in a public trust center — governance and audit leans n8n 5 judges to 1, means 5.8 to 5.5.
You are buying as head of IT — the weighted total reads 6.6 for n8n versus 4.6 for Zapier.
Your data protection officer signs off on the purchase — the weighted total reads 6.1 for n8n versus 4.1 for Zapier.
You need pricing detail published across plans — pricing transparency leans n8n 5 judges to 1, means 5.5 to 5.3, while Zapier's captured pricing publishes the task allowance only for the Free tier's 100 tasks per month, with Professional shown as "Starting from $19.99 /month" and Team as "Starting from $69 /month" without task allowances.
Choose Zapier if
Your work depends on connector breadth — integrations and connectors means read 5.8 for Zapier versus 5.2, on a 9,000-plus app catalogue with webhooks to any API; note the leans split 2 for n8n, 1 for Zapier, 3 ties.
You are buying as the integrator — the weighted total reads 5.3 for Zapier versus 0 for n8n.
Your setup accepts US-default data residency and a US legal entity — Zapier's attributes list legal entity jurisdiction as US and data residency as US default.
You prioritize the higher run reliability mean (6.0 to 5.8), on documented automatic retries and step-level observability — noting that 5 of 6 judges lean n8n on that criterion.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Process Owner
Runs purchase approvals and invoice release for a 400-person Mittelstand company. Wants approvers set by role rather than by name, a substitute when someone is on holiday, deadlines that escalate, and a process change that does not break the forty requests already in flight.
n8n
This judge's pick
Zapier
Criterion by criterion
Process design, forms & approvals
n8n
The templates show a visual builder with switch-node branching by department and role, approval steps via Gmail and ClickUp with poll interval, max attempts and a reminder setting to match an approval SLA, plus timeout handling; paid plans add dev and prod instances, Git version control and workflow diff. We found no public information on substitutes for absent approvers, four-eyes multi-stage approvals, or how requests already in flight are treated when a process version changes.
Zapier
A visual no-code builder with unlimited branching paths, loops, scheduling and forms with conditional logic is well documented, but the pages show nothing on approval steps assigned to roles, substitutes, deadlines or escalation for open tasks, and nothing on versioning a process while requests are in flight. For my approvals that is the decisive gap.
Connectors, API & on-premise reach
n8n
Named connectors including the Google Workspace set and Microsoft Excel 365, a documented Webhook and HTTP Request node, a public API reachable with a key for workflows and credentials, JavaScript and Python steps, and custom nodes on self-hosted; a Docker self-hosted edition reaches internal databases such as Postgres and MySQL. We found no public information on connectors to SAP, DATEV or other DACH ERP and accounting systems, on SOAP steps, or on connector maintenance ownership, and the captured pages give different figures for the connector count (over 500 integrations against 772 and 799 listed).
Zapier
More than 9,000 apps, webhooks to any API without code, a documented API to create and configure workflows, and private integrations buildable in code via the developer platform give strong reach. I found no public information on DACH ERP or accounting connectors, an on-premise agent, or connector maintenance ownership.
Execution, error handling & monitoring
n8n
Automatic retries, inputs and outputs visible per step, re-running single steps instead of the whole workflow, and reusable error workflows emailing the workflow id, name, error source and message in machine-readable JSON; limits are stated per plan (7 to 30 days log retention, 5 to 200+ concurrent executions, 5 to 40 minutes maximum duration) with log streaming to services like Datadog and OpenTelemetry tracing for self-hosted. We found no public information on a public status page with incident history, an uptime commitment, or retry back-off configuration.
Zapier
Retries on throttled responses, automatic authentication refresh, error messages in run history with email alerts, a monitoring view with logs by timeframe and user, and documented task limits are all shown. I found no public information on replay from the failing step, queueing controls, a public status page or an uptime commitment.
Governance, credentials & audit trail
n8n
The business plans list SSO with SAML and LDAP, custom project roles, an encrypted credential store, external secret store integration, execution data redaction, enforced two-factor authentication and audit logging, and a trust center publishes SOC reports; a template routes approvals by role from an employee data table, and the privacy pages state that session recording never captures credential values. We found no public information on SCIM provisioning, an exportable audit trail describing the user fields it records, or a publishing approval gate between the dev and prod instances.
Zapier
SAML single sign-on with SCIM, granular permissions, an admin view naming the owner of every workflow run, and configurable data retention on Company and Enterprise plans are evidenced, plus credential guardrails that the pages themselves describe as not an organisation-wide policy system. I found no public information on separate environments for workflows, published certifications, or what the audit trail records about individual users.
Hosting options & portability
n8n
A self-hosted edition deployable with Docker, an air-gapped option, the source code on GitHub and Git-based version control put the engine on our own infrastructure. Workflows export from the cloud through the Admin Panel and import from file into a self-hosted instance, though the move is manual and credentials have to be re-entered because they cannot be exported from the cloud. We found no public information on a migration path from self-hosted back to cloud or on documented system requirements for self-hosting.
Zapier
The service runs from a cloud located in the United States and workflows, account data and run history can be exported. I found no public information on a self-hosted edition, an EU region, an engine licence, or a documented import path.
European sovereignty
n8n
The contracting entity is n8n GmbH in Berlin with a commercial register entry and a German VAT number, a pre-signed data processing agreement is available to download, and the privacy policy names Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework as transfer safeguards; a self-hosted or air-gapped deployment can keep workflow data on our servers. We found no public information on where cloud workflows and their execution logs with payload copies are stored, or on a published subprocessor list with locations.
Zapier
A Delaware corporation operates the service from the United States, with a data processing agreement and an EU-US Data Privacy Framework certification published. No EU contracting entity and no EU execution are shown on the captured pages.
Pricing transparency
n8n
Starter, Pro and Business are publicly priced at 20€ /mo, 50€ /mo and 667€ /mo billed annually, with the billing unit defined as a full workflow execution regardless of steps, allowances of 2.5k, 10k and 40k executions, unlimited users and all integrations included; fees are stated exclusive of taxes on 12-month advance payment. Enterprise is contact sales, and we found no public information on overage prices per execution or on the prices of the custom execution tiers above the included amounts.
Zapier
Prices are public for Free at $0/month with 100 tasks, Professional from $19.99/month and Team from $69/month, and the task unit is defined precisely, including that polling and internal steps do not count and one MCP tool call uses two tasks. The allowance per paid tier, the exact overage rate and Enterprise pricing are not published, and the terms put taxes on the customer.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
n8n
Zapier
Legal entity
Not determined
Incorporated in US
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 5 of the 6 judges pick n8n and 1 picks Zapier. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is n8n or Zapier European?
n8n is European (EU-Made). Zapier is not European by provenance (Rest of world, United States). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do n8n and Zapier have a free plan?
As of 28 Oct 2026, Zapier’s own pages state a free plan; n8n’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.