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Workflow Management

n8n

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by n8n GmbH · n8n.io

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n8n: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai n8n: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

n8n at a glance

Vendor
n8n GmbH
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Starting price
“Starter Build and run your first workflows and agents. 20€ /mo, billed annually 2.5k workflow executions with unlimited steps Start free tri...” (vendor’s words) source, captured 1 Oct 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates n8n 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. n8n is a fair-code workflow automation platform from n8n GmbH of Berlin, with a self-hosted edition next to a managed cloud. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 1 Oct 2026 to 13 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 15 Oct 2026. all sources

n8n alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Process Owner

Weighted verdict

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.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Process Owner

Panel median The Process Owner This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The Process Owner
Process design, forms & approvals 2.5 of 5 2 of 5
Connectors, API & on-premise reach 3 of 5 3 of 5
Execution, error handling & monitoring 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Governance, credentials & audit trail 3.5 of 5 3 of 5
Hosting options & portability 4 of 5 3.5 of 5
European sovereignty 1.5 of 5 2 of 5
Pricing transparency 1.5 of 5 1 of 5

Process design, forms & approvals

How this is scored

Modelling the process people take part in: a visual designer or BPMN, forms, approval steps with roles and substitutes, deadlines and escalation, and versioning of a process that is already running — judged on whether a business owner can change a process without breaking the instances in flight.

0 — Linear trigger-action chains only; no human steps, no forms and no statement on approvals or roles.

3 — A visual builder with branching and a simple approval step, but approvers are named individuals rather than roles, there are no deadlines or escalation, and changing a process has no versioning.

5 — A visual designer with conditions and parallel paths, built-in forms, approval steps assigned to roles or groups, deadlines with reminders, and versions of a process kept with the running instances on their original version.

8 — BPMN 2.0 modelling or an equivalent documented notation, substitutes and escalation chains, multi-stage approvals with four-eyes rules, forms in German with validation and file upload, a task inbox for participants, and a test or simulation mode before publishing.

10 — The process is a governed asset: version history with diff and rollback, migration of running instances to a new version documented, process analytics on cycle time and bottlenecks per step, and the design documented well enough that a business team can maintain it without the vendor.

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The Process Owner

The approval patterns I can see are assembled from templates — a Gmail send-and-wait to an approver, and a ClickUp task with configurable poll interval, max attempts, a reminder limit and a timeout outcome — so deadlines, reminders and escalation-on-timeout do exist, and role routing is built from an employee data table. Git version control, a dev and production environment, workflow history and diff are evidenced on the pricing pages. I found no public information on substitutes for an approver on holiday, on built-in forms rather than external Google Forms, or on whether editing a process leaves the requests already in flight on their original version. 1 2 6 7 2 12

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Connectors, API & on-premise reach

How this is scored

Reaching the systems a European company actually runs: maintained connectors judged by name rather than count, a generic HTTP and webhook step, custom connectors, and a way to reach systems behind the firewall without opening it.

0 — No connectors beyond email, and no API or webhook step.

3 — A large connector count on a logo wall, with no statement of which actions each supports or who maintains them, and no generic HTTP step.

5 — Named connectors with their triggers and actions documented, including Microsoft 365 and at least one ERP or accounting system common in DACH (e.g. SAP, DATEV, Microsoft Dynamics), a generic HTTP/REST step, inbound webhooks, and a documented API to start and query workflows.

8 — Custom connectors buildable from an OpenAPI description or code, an on-premise agent or self-hosted runner reaching internal databases and file shares, SOAP and database steps, OAuth handled per connection, and connector maintenance ownership (vendor, partner or community) stated.

10 — Integration is engineered: a versioned public API with a deprecation policy, connector changelogs, rate limits per connector published, event-driven triggers rather than polling where the source allows it, and the vendor maintaining the German-market connectors (DATEV, SAP, ELO or d.velop) itself.

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The Process Owner

Named connectors are documented — Google Sheets, Gmail, Microsoft Excel 365, Postgres and MySQL among them — alongside a documented HTTP Request node, inbound webhooks, a public REST API to list workflows and credentials, and JavaScript or Python code plus self-hosted custom nodes for everything else; the self-hosted edition itself runs inside our infrastructure, which reaches internal databases. I found no public information on SAP, DATEV or any other ERP common in DACH, on SOAP steps, or on who maintains each connector. 1 2 9 13 2 8 9

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Execution, error handling & monitoring

How this is scored

What happens when a step fails at 3 a.m.: retries, error paths, alerting, an execution history someone can search, limits on runtime and throughput, and a status page that admits incidents.

0 — Nothing stated about failed runs; an error stops the workflow silently.

3 — Failed runs are marked and an email is sent, but retries are manual, execution history is short or undocumented, and runtime and throughput limits are unstated.

5 — Automatic retries with configurable back-off, an error path or error workflow, a searchable execution log with input and output per step, failure alerts by email or chat, and runtime, payload and rate limits documented.

8 — Replay of a failed run from the failing step, idempotency guidance, queueing and concurrency controls, execution history retention stated per plan, monitoring exportable to the customer's own tools, and a public status page with incident history and an uptime commitment.

10 — Operations are designed for production: an SLA with service credits, horizontal scaling or high-availability setup documented for self-hosted installs, dead-letter handling, end-to-end tracing across workflows, and post-incident reports published.

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The Process Owner

A dedicated, reusable error workflow emails the failed workflow id, name and error message plus a machine-readable JSON, single steps can be re-run without re-running the whole process, executions are searchable by the data they contain, and execution duration, storage, concurrency and log retention are documented per plan. Logs can be streamed to our own tools such as Datadog. I found no public information on automatic retries with back-off, a public status page, or an uptime commitment with service credits. 1 2 11 2

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Governance, credentials & audit trail

How this is scored

Keeping automation from becoming shadow IT: roles and permissions, SSO, where connection credentials are stored, separate environments with controlled publishing, an audit trail of changes and approvals, and what the execution log retains of the payload. An approval record is also a record of employees' behaviour, so what the trail captures matters to a works council.

0 — Single-user accounts or one shared login; no roles, no audit log and no statement on credential storage.

3 — Admin and member roles and shared team folders, but credentials are visible to anyone who can edit a workflow, there is no audit log, and execution payloads are kept without a stated period.

5 — Role-based permissions per workflow or folder, SSO via SAML or OIDC, credentials stored encrypted and usable without being revealed, an audit log of workflow changes, and the retention period of execution data stated.

8 — Separate development, test and production environments with a publishing approval, SCIM provisioning, external secret stores supported, payload redaction or log-off per workflow, configurable execution data retention, and the audit trail exportable — with the fields it records about users described.

10 — Governance a works council and an auditor can both sign off: field-level masking of personal data in logs, delegated administration per department, a central inventory of every workflow and connection with its owner, certifications published (ISO 27001 or SOC 2), and documentation of what the platform records about individual users.

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The Process Owner

SSO via SAML and LDAP, enforced two-factor authentication, an encrypted credential store that blocks credential export from the cloud edition, external secret stores and execution data redaction are documented, with audit logging and execution-log retention stated per plan, and the privacy policy describes what is collected about users on a self-hosted instance including a telemetry opt-out. I found no public information on SCIM provisioning, a publishing approval between the dev and production environments, an exportable audit trail naming the user fields it records, or published certifications. 2 3 15 2

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Hosting options & portability

How this is scored

Where the engine runs and whether the workflows can leave: cloud regions, self-hosted or on-premise editions, the licence of the engine, and export of workflow definitions in a format another tool or a later version can read.

0 — Cloud-only with no stated region, and no export of workflow definitions.

3 — Cloud-only with a region named, and an export that produces a proprietary file only the same product can import.

5 — An EU cloud region selectable, workflow definitions exportable as documented JSON or BPMN 2.0, and an API to read definitions and execution history for backup.

8 — A self-hosted or on-premise edition with its system requirements documented, workflow definitions versionable in Git, the engine's licence published, and a documented migration path between cloud and self-hosted in both directions.

10 — The customer owns its automation: an open-source or source-available engine, definitions in an open standard executable elsewhere, air-gapped installation supported, and a stated exit process that hands back definitions, credentials metadata and execution history in documented formats.

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The Process Owner

The engine deploys on our own infrastructure — on-prem and air-gapped, via Docker — with the source code on GitHub, published licence terms that reference a community licence, and workflow definitions versionable in Git. Moving from the n8n cloud to self-hosted is documented as manual only, and credentials cannot be exported from the cloud. I found no public information on a migration path back into the cloud or on documented system requirements for self-hosting. 1 2 14 15 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity is, where workflows execute and where execution logs with their payload copies are stored, and who the subprocessors are — including the AI model providers behind any AI steps. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline. A self-hosted edition counts only for the data that actually stays on the customer's servers.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, execution location unstated, and subprocessors unnamed.

3 — An EU region offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent, or AI steps send data to model providers of unstated location.

5 — EU execution and log storage as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — AI steps, support access, telemetry — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU execution on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published with locations including AI providers, a DPA covering execution payloads, and a self-hosted option that sends no workflow data to the vendor.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, AI steps runnable on European or self-hosted models, certification published, and a self-hosted edition that works without any call home.

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The Process Owner

Cloud workflows are "hosted by n8n" with no region named, and I found no public information on the contracting entity's jurisdiction, on where execution logs and their payload copies are stored, or on any subprocessor list — including where the Groq, Mistral or OpenRouter model calls behind AI steps run. What keeps workflow data on our own servers is the self-hosted, air-gapped edition with a documented telemetry opt-out, and offline models can be swapped in without rebuilding workflows. 1 2 3 6 1

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the monthly cost of their own processes from public pages alone: what the billing unit is (task, operation, execution, run, user or flow) and what counts as one, the allowance per tier, overage prices, and the cost of premium connectors, self-hosting, environments and AI steps.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A starting price exists, but the billing unit is undefined or what counts as one task or execution is unstated — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Tier prices public with the billing unit defined and the monthly allowance given, but at least one commonly needed piece (overage, premium connectors, extra environments, self-hosted licence, AI steps) is unpriced.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its unit, allowance and limits, overage priced per unit, premium connector and add-on prices listed, self-hosted licensing stated, minimum term and VAT treatment given.

10 — Complete price computability: the monthly cost derivable for a given number of workflows, runs and steps per run, with a published calculator or worked examples, every add-on and overage on a public page, and the effect of loops and retries on the count explained.

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The Process Owner

The captured pricing pages list what each plan includes — concurrent executions, insights days, assistant credits, unlimited users and workflows and every integration — and a free trial without credit card, but no price figures for any tier. Monthly executions appear as the counted unit through the execution-count reset article, and procurement is sales-assisted with payment by invoice. I found no public information on tier prices, overage pricing or the cost of a self-hosted licence. 2 10 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about n8n

Is n8n European?

Yes. whats-best.ai classifies n8n as EU-Made.

Where does n8n store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

Does n8n have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to n8n?

As of 15 Oct 2026, the panel rates Tray.ai (3/5), Camunda (2.5/5) and Frends (2.5/5) highest among the other 16 Workflow Management products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Camunda (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: n8n alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (15)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Legal notice n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Legal hub with terms of service n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Process design, forms & approvals — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Process design, forms & approvals — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Connectors, API & on-premise reach — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Connectors, API & on-premise reach — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Execution, error handling & monitoring — found from sitemap support.n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Execution, error handling & monitoring — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Governance, credentials & audit trail — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Governance, credentials & audit trail — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Hosting options & portability — found from sitemap n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  15. 15 Hosting options & portability — found from sitemap support.n8n.io Checked 13 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →