n8n is a workflow automation platform, founded in Berlin in 2019 by Jan Oberhauser. Workflows are built on a visual canvas from nodes, and n8n connects to more than 500 apps out of the box, with over 10,000 community templates to start from.
It has grown fast. A $180 million round in October 2025 valued it at $2.5 billion, and SAP’s investment in May 2026 valued it at $5.2 billion. By then n8n counted 1.7 million monthly active builders and more than 1,400 enterprise customers.
Fair-code licensing
n8n describes itself as fair-code. Its source code is public on GitHub, and the Sustainable Use License lets a business use and change it freely for its own internal purposes.
How workflows run
A workflow starts from a trigger: an event in a connected app, a schedule, or a webhook that another system calls. From there, IF and Switch nodes branch the flow and Merge nodes join it back up. Loops work through lists item by item.
When a step needs more than the built-in nodes, the Code node takes JavaScript or Python. Failures can be routed to a separate error workflow, which can alert someone or tidy up.
That error workflow runs only when a run fails. A run whose order search comes back empty hasn’t failed, so it ends green with nothing done. The Stop And Error node fails a run on purpose under conditions the workflow sets, which hands it to the error workflow like any other failure.
Billing counts executions: one run of a workflow is one execution, however many steps it has. Manual test runs and error workflows don’t count.
Claude, ChatGPT and local models
n8n’s AI nodes are built on LangChain, and the model behind them can be swapped between providers, from Anthropic and OpenAI to a model run locally through Ollama. An MCP server trigger makes workflows available as tools to AI assistants, and agents arrived in preview on every plan in September 2026.
Each instance also has a built-in MCP server. Someone describes a workflow in Claude or ChatGPT, and the assistant builds it in n8n and can run it from the same conversation.
A Shopify order into Xero and a sheet
The Google Sheets node’s Append or Update Row operation updates the row that matches an order number and adds a new one when nothing matches. A status change lands on the order’s existing line instead of starting another.
The Xero node works with contacts and invoices. Anything else in Xero goes through the HTTP Request node, using the same saved Xero login.
Shopify can send the same order webhook twice, after a timeout or a retry. The Remove Duplicates node can drop items already seen in earlier executions, which keeps one order to one invoice.
Cloud or your own servers
n8n Cloud stores its data in the EU, on servers in Frankfurt, and n8n handles maintenance. The other route is self-hosting with Docker, where the data never leaves the business’s own infrastructure and the business looks after the server.
Self-hosted installs can grow with queue mode, which hands executions to a pool of workers. Paid plans add single sign-on and separate environments, with version control through Git.
Version 2.0, released in December 2025, separated saving a workflow from publishing it and tightened security defaults.
What running n8n yourself involves
n8n’s own advice for a self-hosted instance is to update at least once a month, reading the release notes for breaking changes and testing on a copy of the instance first. Out of the box, everything from workflows to past runs lives in a SQLite database file, and n8n also supports PostgreSQL.
Backups need more than the workflows. n8n stores saved logins encrypted, and the key sits in a config file in the instance’s own folder. A restored database without that key comes back with every credential unreadable.
Keeping credentials connected
Connections to Google and Xero are OAuth logins, which stay signed in by trading a long-lived refresh token for short-lived access. Each provider decides how long that refresh token lasts. Google ends one after six months unused, or when the user changes their password if it holds Gmail access.
Self-hosted instances meet a stricter rule. n8n Cloud can sign in to Gmail and Sheets through n8n’s own app, but a self-hosted instance needs its own Google Cloud app. Set up for outside accounts, that app starts in Testing mode, and Google’s refresh tokens from a Testing app last 7 days. Until it’s published, an order flow that reads Gmail or writes to Sheets needs signing in again every week.
Workflows worth building in n8n
n8n’s code nodes and self-hosting make it flexible enough for a wide range of workflows. A Shopify order can reach Xero and a sheet with duplicates removed, an inbox can be triaged by a local model without the data leaving the business, and a failed run can alert someone through its own error workflow.
A comparison of visual automation tools rates n8n’s error handling the strongest of the builders it covers, and notes that self-hosting keeps credentials and data off a third party’s servers while bringing the upkeep in-house. However a workflow is built, it needs a named owner after launch.