n8n alternatives

2 tools to consider instead of n8n, shown against it.

n8n Windmill Retool
Vendor n8n GmbH Windmill Labs Retool, Inc.
Pricing model Free tier + paid plans Free tier + paid plans Free tier + paid plans
Free tier Yes Yes Yes
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted
Open source No (Sustainable Use License (source-available, fair-code; not OSI-approved open source)) Yes (AGPL-3.0 (Community Edition, without enterprise features)) No
Best for Data and ops teams automating pipeline triggers, alerts and cross-system syncs — not analytics or dashboarding. Engineering teams wanting a code-first, self-hostable alternative to Retool plus a workflow/orchestration engine. Engineering teams building internal CRUD tools and ops dashboards on top of a warehouse or operational database.
Pricing

Free self-hosted Community edition; cloud plans priced on monthly workflow executions (Starter, Pro, Business), plus custom Enterprise.

Starter €20/month, billed annually
Pro €50/month, billed annually
Business €667/month, billed annually
Enterprise custom

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Free, unlimited-execution open-source self-hosted edition; Enterprise adds per-developer seats, per-worker compute and SSO, from a monthly minimum.

Free / Open-source $0/month
Enterprise from $120/month

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Per-builder plus per-internal-user pricing across Free, Team, Business and Enterprise tiers, on cloud or self-hosted.

Free $0
Team $10/builder/month (annual) + $5/internal user/month
Business $50/builder/month (annual) + $15/internal user/month
Enterprise custom

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Features
  • Visual, node-based workflow canvas
  • 400+ prebuilt app/service integrations
  • Custom JavaScript/Python code nodes
  • Free, self-hostable Community edition
  • Scheduled, webhook and event-based triggers
  • AI agent and LLM workflow nodes
  • Version control and environments (paid tiers)
  • Turns Python/TypeScript/Go/Bash/SQL scripts into APIs and workflows
  • Visual workflow/flow editor alongside code-first scripts
  • Auto-generated UIs and internal apps from scripts
  • Free, unlimited-execution open-source self-hosting
  • Distributed worker architecture for scaling execution
  • Scheduling, webhooks and event triggers
  • Audit logs and SAML/SCIM (Enterprise)
  • Drag-and-drop UI builder with 100+ prebuilt components
  • Direct connections to SQL/NoSQL databases and REST/GraphQL APIs
  • JavaScript and Python scripting inside the builder
  • Retool Workflows for backend automation
  • Role-based access control and audit logging
  • Self-hosted or cloud deployment
  • Mobile app builder

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