n8n vs Make: Which is better in 2026?

Both are canvas-based automation tools for technical builders; the question is whether you want to run the infrastructure. Make is hosted, polished and priced per operation — you build, they operate, and at moderate volume the bill is very reasonable. n8n gives you the same class of builder plus code steps in any node, and its self-hosted community edition removes per-execution cost entirely. Above roughly a million operations a month, or under any data-residency requirement, that becomes decisive: reviewers running high volume describe self-hosted n8n turning automation from a growing variable cost into a fixed one. The catch is that somebody owns upgrades, uptime and scaling, and our reviewers without a platform team consistently found that burden outweighed the savings. n8n's own cloud tier removes the operational load but prices close enough to Make that the advantage narrows to the code steps. Simple rule: no platform team and no residency requirement, choose Make. Either of those, choose n8n.