Latenode vs n8n: An Honest Comparison for 2026
Both Latenode and n8n target technical users who want more flexibility than Zapier or Make can offer. But they take fundamentally different approaches to getting there. n8n, founded in 2019, is a source-available platform built around self-hosting and community contributions — it reached a $2.5 billion valuation after a $180M Series C in October 2025. Latenode, launched in 2024, is a cloud-native platform that bundles AI models, a headless browser, and execution-time billing into a fully managed experience.
This comparison is based on real user reviews, published pricing, documented platform capabilities, and community discussions. We'll cover what each tool does well, where it falls short, and which one is the better fit depending on your needs.
At a Glance
| Latenode | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 (public launch 2024) | 2019 |
| Approach | Cloud-native, AI-first | Source-available, self-host-first |
| Pricing Model | Execution time (credits) | Per execution (cloud) / Free (self-hosted Community) |
| Starting Price | Free / $5 mo | Free self-hosted / €20 mo cloud (~$22) |
| Native Integrations | 1,000+ | 400+ built-in + ~5,800 community nodes |
| AI Models Built-in | 400+ (OpenAI, Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, etc.) | None bundled — bring your own API keys |
| Code Support | Full JavaScript with NPM packages | JavaScript + Python (WASM-based) |
| Visual Builder | Drag-and-drop canvas | Drag-and-drop canvas |
| Self-hosting | Yes (Enterprise) | Yes (free Community Edition) |
| MCP Support | Yes | Not specified |
| Headless Browser | Built-in (Puppeteer) | Not available |
| Built-in Database | Yes | No (uses external PostgreSQL) |
| Native RAG | Yes (AI Knowledge Storage) | No (must build custom pipeline) |
| Trustpilot Rating | 4.6/5 (48 reviews) | 3.3/5 (36 reviews) |
| Product Hunt Rating | 4.9/5 (55+ reviews) | 4.9/5 (79 reviews) |
| G2 Rating | — | 4.8/5 (57 reviews) |
Pricing: How Each Platform Bills You
Pricing works differently on these platforms — and the differences matter more than you'd expect.
How n8n Charges
n8n has two pricing tracks: cloud and self-hosted. n8n Cloud charges per workflow execution. One execution = one complete workflow run from start to finish, regardless of how many steps it has.
| Plan | Price (annual) | Executions/mo | Concurrent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | €20/mo (~$22) | 2,500 | 5 |
| Pro | €50/mo (~$55) | 10,000 | 20 |
| Business | €667/mo (~$730) | 40,000 | 30 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom |
All cloud plans include unlimited users, unlimited workflows, and unlimited steps per workflow.
Note: There is no free cloud plan. The free tier only exists for self-hosted deployments. The gap between Pro (€50/mo) and Business (€667/mo) is significant — a 13x price jump.
How Latenode Charges
Latenode uses execution-time credits. One credit equals 30 seconds of execution time. A workflow that runs for 30 seconds costs 1 credit — regardless of how many nodes it contains.
| Plan | Price | Credits/mo | Executions/mo | Trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 300 | 300 | 15 min |
| Mini | $5/mo | 1,000 | 1,000 | 10 min |
| Start | $19/mo | 5,000 | 25,000 | 1 min |
| Team | $59/mo | 25,000 | 25,000 | 1 min |
| Prime | $297/mo | 100,000 | 250,000 | 30 sec |
All plans include the visual workflow builder, all app integrations, webhook triggers, AI Agent node, AI Knowledge Storage (RAG), headless browser, and database access.
The Real Cost of “Free” Self-Hosting
n8n's free Community Edition is genuinely powerful — unlimited executions, unlimited workflows. But running it in production requires:
| Cost Category | Monthly Estimate |
|---|---|
| VPS (4 vCPU recommended) | $15–80 |
| Managed PostgreSQL database | $15–50 |
| SSL/Domain | $5–15 |
| Monitoring & logging | $10–30 |
| Backup & disaster recovery | $10–25 |
| DevOps labor (maintenance, updates, security) | $100–300+ |
| Total estimated | $300–500/mo |
n8n's own documentation recommends cloud hosting for teams without dedicated DevOps experience, citing risks of data loss, security issues, and downtime from misconfiguration.
This makes the total cost of ownership comparable to — or higher than — Latenode's Team plan ($59/mo), which includes full managed infrastructure, automatic updates, and zero DevOps overhead.
Cloud-to-Cloud Pricing Comparison
At equivalent execution volumes, Latenode is consistently cheaper:
| Scenario | Latenode | n8n Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 executions/mo | $5/mo (Mini) | €20/mo (~$22) |
| 25,000 executions/mo | $19/mo (Start) | €50/mo (~$55) |
| 100,000+ executions/mo | $297/mo (Prime) | €667/mo+ (~$730+) |
| Cost per execution | $0.002–0.005 | $0.006–0.010 |
Latenode is approximately 2.5–5x cheaper per execution than n8n Cloud.
Features Compared
Workflow Builder
Both platforms use a visual drag-and-drop canvas — a significant shared advantage over Zapier's linear step-by-step editor. You can see your entire workflow as a flowchart, making complex automations with branches, conditions, and loops easier to build and debug.
n8n
n8n's canvas is mature, with support for sub-workflows, sticky notes, and a well-established node ecosystem. It's been refined over six years and feels polished for technical users.
Latenode
Latenode's canvas offers a similar visual experience with the addition of switching between no-code visual mode and full-code mode within the same interface. The AI Copilot can generate entire workflows from natural language descriptions.
Code Capabilities
| Latenode | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Languages | JavaScript (with full NPM) | JavaScript, Python (WASM-based) |
| NPM packages | Yes | Limited (custom nodes only) |
| Execution time limit | 3–15 min (by plan) | Not strictly limited (self-hosted) / Cloud limits apply |
| Python support | No | Yes (WASM — no C-compiled libraries) |
| AI code assistant | Yes (AI Copilot) | Yes (AI Builder) |
n8n supports both JavaScript and Python, which is an advantage for Python-heavy teams. However, Python runs in a WASM environment, so libraries requiring C compilation (NumPy, Pandas, etc.) won't work.
Latenode offers full JavaScript with NPM package support — install any NPM library directly in your code nodes. For teams that need external JavaScript libraries, this eliminates the workarounds required on n8n.
AI Integration
This is where the platforms diverge most significantly.
n8n
n8n has 70+ AI-specific nodes covering LLMs, embeddings, vector databases, speech-to-text, image generation, and more. It supports AI agent workflows with memory and tool use. However, you must bring your own API keys for every AI provider — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, each requiring separate accounts, billing, and key management.
Latenode
Latenode includes 400+ AI models in every paid plan — OpenAI, Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, LLaMA, and more — accessible through native nodes with no separate API keys needed. It also offers:
- Native RAG (AI Knowledge Storage) — Upload documents (PDFs, text, images), and Latenode handles chunking, embedding, and indexing automatically
- Multi-agent workflows — A “CEO” agent routes tasks to specialist agents, each with their own logic and data access
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) — Context retention across different models and servers
For teams building AI-powered automations, Latenode's bundled approach eliminates the overhead of managing multiple AI provider accounts and unpredictable per-token billing across providers.
Self-Hosting
This is n8n's biggest differentiator — and it's a genuine advantage for specific use cases.
n8n
n8n can be self-hosted on Docker, Kubernetes, or cloud VMs. The Community Edition is free with unlimited executions. This gives you:
- Full data sovereignty — your data never leaves your infrastructure
- No execution limits on the free tier
- Complete control over updates, scaling, and security
- Source code visibility (Fair Source license)
The trade-off: you need DevOps expertise, you're responsible for security (n8n had two critical CVEs in the last 3 months — CVSS 9.9 and 9.4), and infrastructure costs add up.
Latenode
Latenode is primarily cloud-managed, but offers self-hosted deployment for Enterprise clients. For teams that need data residency or air-gapped environments, the Enterprise plan provides that option with full platform support.
For the majority of teams, managed cloud eliminates significant operational overhead — no servers to patch, no databases to back up, no security vulnerabilities to track and remediate.
Unique to Each Platform
Only Latenode has:
- 400+ AI models included — no separate API keys needed
- Native RAG (AI Knowledge Storage) — built-in document processing and retrieval
- Headless browser automation (Puppeteer) — automate websites without APIs
- WhatsApp personal account integration (no 24-hour window restrictions)
- White-label/embedded automation SDK for SaaS products
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) support
- Custom integration development — any missing integration built within 10 days for $499
- Free cloud plan (300 executions/month)
- Lifetime deal option ($497 one-time for 3K monthly credits)
Only n8n has:
- Self-hosting (free Community Edition with unlimited executions)
- Python support (WASM-based)
- 5,800+ community-built nodes on npm
- Mature enterprise features (SSO/SAML/LDAP, RBAC with custom roles, audit logs)
- Git version control for workflows
- Source code visibility (Fair Source license)
- Massive open-source community (173K+ GitHub stars)
- Secret management (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault)
Both platforms offer:
- Visual drag-and-drop workflow canvas
- JavaScript code nodes
- AI agent workflows
- Webhooks and HTTP Request nodes
- Sub-workflows
- Team collaboration features
Integration Ecosystem
n8n has 400+ built-in integrations maintained by the core team, plus approximately 5,800 community-built nodes available on npm. The community ecosystem is massive — 100M+ Docker pulls and an active community forum — which means niche integrations often already exist as community contributions.
However, community nodes come with trade-offs: variable quality, potential security risks, and no guaranteed maintenance. Some community nodes lack documentation or stop working after platform updates.
Latenode offers 1,000+ native integrations, all maintained by the platform team. For apps without a native connector, users can use HTTP Request nodes or JavaScript code nodes to connect to any API. And for critical missing integrations, Latenode's team will build custom integrations within 10 days for a flat $499 fee — with a guarantee or refund.
Both platforms support: Google Workspace, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe, Notion, GitHub, Jira, Asana, and hundreds more.
Latenode's unique integrations include: WhatsApp (personal accounts), LinkedIn (personal), and deep AI model access without separate API accounts.
What Real Users Say
Latenode Reviews
“As a seasoned Make user (and a die-hard JavaScript developer that’s spent several years immersed in AI workflows), I took this leap reluctantly. But boy — Latenode really performs. I initially set out looking for something less expensive than Make, anticipating sacrifices in features or flexibility. What I got was better. After weeks of field use, I’ve officially abandoned Make and never glanced back.”
— Trustpilot, April 2025
“Much better than Make. It has better logic handling of nodes and loops, AI steps, and Javascript code running nodes that are really game changers. Plus, its price is better.”
— Trustpilot, January 2025
“I am coming after spending time among Zapier, IFTTT, Make, n8n. I like Latenode visual style, clear and better pricing for all us, small users. If everything goes well through the trial and couple months I will end up in lifetime deal as it is the best you can get currently on the market.”
— Trustpilot, April 2025
“Latenode has been a fantastic solution for automating tasks in my SaaS project. The platform is super easy to use, with a clean drag-and-drop interface and great API integration. The AI Copilot is a big help — it makes debugging and workflow ideas so much easier!”
Dominik Herceg — Trustpilot (verified), March 2025
“I’m new, so this may not be as easy as Zapier, however, they have customer service (real humans) to answer your questions. And this is a lot cheaper than Zapier. I like it — it’s better than Make to me. And the customer service is good, I feel like I always have my personal IT support.”
— Trustpilot, April 2025
“In my experience, building an automation in Latenode with the help of the code editor took less than half the time and was far less frustrating than building a similar one with Make and n8n.”
Charles S., Founder — Capterra, March 2025
Common criticism of Latenode:
“The documentation and training videos are not on the same level as the competition. Make for example has a great training program to really help a beginner get started.”
Germaine H. — Capterra, November 2024
n8n Reviews
“n8n is a Powerhouse for Advanced Automation. I’m an experienced Make developer, but in December I got a request to build an executive agent with voice AI capabilities — and that project led me to try n8n for the first time. I was blown away. The customizability and control you gain is on another level. You can write JavaScript functions directly in your workflows, create custom nodes, and implement highly complex logic without friction.”
Max Gibson — Trustpilot, April 2025
“We use the self-hosted version of n8n and it’s amazing. The functionalities it offers is incredible, and it helps us daily to automate our business and to save time.”
— Trustpilot, November 2025
“n8n in my experience using it for 2 years now, compared to similar solutions: it is just a very good product. It’s stable. It has a gazillion integrations out of the box and is architectured as a module system so it’s easy to create your own. It is very community centric.”
hirako2000 — Hacker News, November 2025
“You start out with Zapier, then graduate to Make, before ending up at n8n. It’s not the easiest to get started with, but once you arrive here, you won’t want to leave.”
Common criticism of n8n:
“Good product with nasty traps. You will lose your unlimited workflow executions as soon as you buy a business or enterprise license. You will then be limited to 480K executions, and that for paying eight thousand dollars for the smallest self-hosted license.”
Orgoth Dorngree — Trustpilot, June 2025
“Product Good; Everything Else Bad. The platform itself is generally quite good. However, the support experience leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve been actively trying to give them more money for weeks and haven’t been able to get anyone to follow up.”
Daniel Ray — Trustpilot, June 2025
“VERY POOR support for paying customers. Chat bot tells you that only admins can fix this issue but you cannot really talk to them. You have to get to the forum to get help but you could not post anything.”
Ted Seballos — Trustpilot, December 2025
“As a software engineer I find it cumbersome and frustrating to use. When something doesn’t work it can be difficult to see the true cause of the error. That said, those who are slightly less technical like analysts or PMs are able to put together reasonable POC solutions relatively quickly.”
tomwhipple — Hacker News, November 2025
“The AI build doesn’t do as it says and solely wastes credits, questioning each prompt even though it’s thorough. I have spent 2 days building a workflow which works on other platforms for this to cost me time and money.”
Connor Rogers — Trustpilot, December 2025
Customer Support: A Notable Difference
Support quality deserves its own section because the contrast is striking.
n8n
n8n directs non-enterprise customers to its community forum. Email support is only available for Enterprise/Power plan users. On Trustpilot, poor support is the most frequent complaint — multiple reviews mention unreachable sales teams, ignored emails, and locked accounts. Notably, n8n has not publicly responded to negative Trustpilot reviews.
Latenode
Latenode offers responsive support across chat and Discord, and multiple reviews specifically praise the “real human” support experience. On Trustpilot, Latenode has responded to 100% of negative reviews, typically within 48 hours. For teams without dedicated DevOps resources, accessible support can be the difference between a workflow running smoothly and days of debugging.
Security Considerations
n8n
n8n experienced two critical security vulnerabilities in a three-month span:
CVE-2025-68613 (CVSS 9.9)
Critical remote code execution vulnerability, December 2025
CVE-2026-25049 (CVSS 9.4)
Bypass of the first fix, February 2026
Both exploited inadequate sanitization in n8n's expression evaluation sandbox, allowing authenticated users to execute arbitrary system commands on the host. For self-hosted deployments, this puts the responsibility for patching squarely on the user.
Latenode
Latenode is cloud-managed, meaning security patches and infrastructure updates are handled by the platform team. It holds SOC 2 readiness and GDPR compliance certifications.
Neither platform is inherently more secure — but the operational burden of maintaining security is significantly different. Self-hosting gives you control; managed cloud gives you less to worry about.
Strengths & Weaknesses Summary
Latenode
Strengths
- 400+ AI models included — no API key management
- Execution-time pricing (2.5–5x cheaper than n8n Cloud)
- Native RAG with built-in AI Knowledge Storage
- Built-in headless browser (Puppeteer)
- Free cloud plan available
- White-label/embedded automation SDK
- Responsive human customer support
- Visual + code hybrid in same interface
- Custom integrations built in 10 days for $499
Weaknesses
- Self-hosting only available on Enterprise plan
- Smaller community and fewer templates
- Documentation still maturing
- No Python support
- Younger platform, less enterprise track record
- Fewer built-in integrations than n8n + community
- Closed source
n8n
Strengths
- Free self-hosted Community Edition
- 173K+ GitHub stars, massive community
- 5,800+ community-built nodes
- Python support (WASM-based)
- Mature enterprise features (SSO, RBAC, audit logs)
- Source code visibility
- Git version control for workflows
- Active community forum
Weaknesses
- Cloud plans expensive (€667/mo for Business)
- Steep learning curve (60% initial abandonment rate)
- Customer support widely criticized
- No bundled AI models — BYOK for each provider
- Self-hosting requires $300–500/mo infrastructure + DevOps
- Two critical CVEs (9.9 and 9.4 CVSS) in 3 months
- No native RAG support
- No headless browser built-in
- 13x price jump between Pro (€50/mo) and Business (€667/mo)
The “Open Source” Question
n8n is often described as “open source,” but this requires clarification. n8n uses a Fair Source / Sustainable Use License — the source code is publicly available on GitHub, but the license restricts use to “internal business purposes or non-commercial use.” You cannot sell products built on n8n's codebase, and the license is not OSI-approved.
As one Hacker News commenter put it: “It is absolutely NOT open source.”
This matters if you're evaluating n8n specifically for its open-source credentials. The source code visibility is real and valuable — you can inspect how the platform works, contribute to it, and build custom nodes. But it's not open source in the traditional sense, and the licensing terms have caused confusion in the developer community.
Latenode is proprietary SaaS — closed source, fully managed. There's no pretense of open-source licensing, which some teams actually prefer for clarity.
Who Should Choose Which?
Choose Latenode
- AI-first automation builders who want 400+ models, native RAG, and multi-agent workflows without managing separate API keys
- Cost-conscious teams who want cloud convenience at 2.5–5x less than n8n Cloud
- Non-DevOps teams who don’t want to manage servers, databases, or security patches
- Web scraping and browser automation use cases (built-in Puppeteer)
- SaaS builders who need white-label/embedded automation
- Teams who value responsive support — real humans, fast response times
- Users coming from Make or Zapier who want more code power with a gentle learning curve
Choose n8n
- Teams with dedicated DevOps who want self-hosted data sovereignty
- Organizations with strict data residency requirements where cloud isn’t an option
- Python-heavy teams who need Python code nodes alongside JavaScript
- Users who value source code visibility and want to inspect/modify the platform
- Enterprise organizations needing mature SSO, RBAC, and audit log capabilities today
- Community-driven builders who want access to 5,800+ community nodes
- Teams already invested in the n8n ecosystem where migration cost outweighs benefits
The Bottom Line
n8n and Latenode are both strong platforms for technical users who've outgrown Zapier and Make. They share a visual canvas-based approach and respect for code-capable users. But they serve different priorities.
n8n is for teams that want maximum control. Self-hosting, source code access, a massive community ecosystem, and mature enterprise features make it the right choice when data sovereignty or deep customization is non-negotiable. The trade-off is real: infrastructure costs, a steep learning curve, support limitations outside enterprise tiers, and the responsibility of keeping your deployment secure and up to date.
Latenode is for teams that want maximum capability per dollar with minimum operational overhead. Bundled AI models, native RAG, built-in headless browser, execution-time pricing, and responsive support deliver a faster path from idea to running automation. The trade-off: self-hosting is limited to the Enterprise plan, a smaller community, and a younger platform still building out its enterprise feature set.
For AI-powered automation workflows specifically, Latenode has a clear edge — 400+ models under one subscription versus managing separate API keys and billing for each provider on n8n. For teams that need self-hosted deployments, n8n is the only choice between the two.
The best way to decide? Build the same workflow on each. Latenode has a free cloud plan (300 executions). n8n has a free self-hosted Community Edition. Test them side by side and see which fits your team's workflow.
Full Feature Comparison Table
| Feature | Latenode | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Execution time (credits) | Per execution (cloud) / Free (self-hosted) |
| Free plan | Yes — 300 credits, 300 executions | Cloud: No / Self-hosted: Yes (unlimited) |
| Starting paid plan | $5/mo (1,000 executions) | €20/mo (~$22, 2,500 executions) |
| Mid-tier plan | $19/mo (25,000 executions) | €50/mo (~$55, 10,000 executions) |
| Team/Business plan | $59/mo (25,000 executions) | €667/mo (~$730, 40,000 executions) |
| Visual builder | Drag-and-drop canvas | Drag-and-drop canvas |
| Self-hosting | Yes (Enterprise) | Yes (free Community Edition) |
| JavaScript support | Full JS + NPM packages | Yes (Code node) |
| Python support | No | Yes (WASM-based, limited libraries) |
| AI models included | 400+ (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, etc.) | None — bring your own API keys |
| AI code assistant | Yes (AI Copilot) | Yes (AI Builder) |
| AI Agents | Yes (all plans) | Yes |
| Native RAG | Yes (AI Knowledge Storage) | No (build custom pipeline) |
| MCP support | Yes | Not specified |
| Built-in integrations | 1,000+ | 400+ built-in |
| Community integrations | N/A | ~5,800 on npm |
| Custom integration build | Yes — 10 days, $499 | Not offered |
| Headless browser | Yes (Puppeteer) | No |
| WhatsApp (personal) | Yes | No |
| White-label/embed | Yes (SDK) | No |
| Built-in database | Yes | No |
| Webhooks | All plans | All plans |
| Sub-workflows | Yes | Yes |
| SSO/SAML | Not specified | Yes (Enterprise) |
| RBAC | Not specified | Yes (Enterprise, custom roles) |
| Audit logs | Not specified | Yes (Enterprise) |
| Git version control | Not specified | Yes (Business+) |
| Secret management | Not specified | Yes (Vault, AWS, Azure) |
| Dev/prod environments | Team plan+ | Yes (Business+) |
| Source code visible | No (proprietary SaaS) | Yes (Fair Source license) |
| License | Proprietary | Fair Source (not OSI open source) |
| GitHub stars | N/A | 173,000+ |
| GDPR compliant | Yes | Via self-hosting / cloud data processing |
| SOC 2 | Ready | Not specified (self-host gives data control) |
| Trustpilot rating | 4.6/5 (48 reviews) | 3.3/5 (36 reviews) |
| Product Hunt rating | 4.9/5 (55+ reviews) | 4.9/5 (79 reviews) |
| G2 rating | — | 4.8/5 (57 reviews) |
Try Both. Build the Same Workflow. Compare.
Latenode has a free cloud plan (300 executions). n8n has a free self-hosted Community Edition. See which one fits your team's workflow.
Start Building FreeLast updated: February 2026. Pricing and features may change. Always verify current details on latenode.com and n8n.io.