n8n is a tool for building automations and AI agents by linking steps on a screen: an email arrives, an AI reads it, it lands in a spreadsheet. You can use it in n8n's cloud or install it yourself. It uses the Sustainable Use License and is distributed as fair-code, not "open source".
A question from the app. Pick an answer.
To sort emails into "urgent" or "not urgent", which model do you pick?
You would overpay if a small one does just as well on your emails. On a simple task, size does not guarantee more right answers.
A simple task rarely needs the biggest model. You test with real emails and keep the cheapest one that does the job.
Being new says nothing about your task or its price. What decides is how it does on your emails and what it costs.
You draw boxes and link them: a trigger (a form comes in), middle steps (an AI summarizes the message) and a destination (a row in your spreadsheet and a note to the team). Some steps connect apps through their API and others organize data or decide where to go next, so you write almost no code. It is a concrete way to do AI automation.
According to its README, it also builds agents: you can connect models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or open ones. An agent step inside a workflow does not change the basics: you drew the path, and only that step decides. On that difference, see workflow vs. agent.
Two paths: the cloud hosted by n8n (you pay by executions per month; each execution can have as many steps as you want) or the Community Edition, free, which you install on your own server. Installing it gives you control of your data, but the server, backups and updates become yours.
It uses the Sustainable Use License and is distributed as "fair-code"; n8n explains that is why it does not say "open source": the code can be read and used for your business, but with limits. Offering n8n to your customers so they build their own workflows, for example, needs a different agreement. If your case is unclear, ask n8n.
All three build workflows. Zapier and Make have free plans; n8n offers the Community Edition free for you to install. Zapier charges by tasks and Make by credits, which grow with each action; n8n charges by complete execution and also lets you install it yourself. For a first simple workflow, any of them works: choose by what it costs as you grow, which apps it connects and whether you need the data on your own server.
"It is free." The Community Edition costs nothing, but the server does, and the cost of AI depends on the model and how you connect it, for example with your API key (see cost). "It is open source." They say it is fair-code themselves. "With AI, I no longer check." A workflow that emails customers needs a person to approve, at least at first.