The honest 30-second answer

Use Zapier if your business runs in spreadsheets and your team can't read code. Use Make when you've outgrown Zapier and want visual flows with stable pricing. Use n8n when you need self-hosting, custom code, or AI agent capabilities at scale. Use Lindy when you want an "AI employee" wrapper and don't care about the plumbing.

Everything else is detail. But the details matter once you're at volume.

Where each one actually wins

Zapier

  • Best fit: 5–500 zaps, mostly SaaS-to-SaaS, no developer in the loop
  • Wins on: app coverage (6000+ integrations), reliability, debugging UX
  • Loses on: cost at scale ($600+/mo gets steep), complex branching, AI agent flows
  • Don't pick if: you're moving more than 100k tasks/month

Make (formerly Integromat)

  • Best fit: visual thinkers who outgrew Zapier; scenarios with branching
  • Wins on: price/performance, conditional flows, the visual canvas
  • Loses on: error messages (cryptic), AI/agentic patterns (bolt-ons, not native)
  • Don't pick if: you need self-hosted or custom Node modules

n8n

  • Best fit: technical teams, AI agent workflows, self-hosted or n8n Cloud
  • Wins on: code nodes (JS/Python), self-hostable, native AI agent nodes, latest models
  • Loses on: learning curve, app coverage (1000+, fewer than Zapier)
  • Don't pick if: nobody on the team can write a function

Lindy

  • Best fit: ops teams who want "employees" not workflows
  • Wins on: AI-native UX (chat to build), pre-built agent templates
  • Loses on: lock-in, less flexibility for custom integrations
  • Don't pick if: you want to own your stack

The decision tree we use with clients

  1. Do you have at least one engineer who can read JavaScript? → If no, Zapier or Lindy.
  2. Are you doing >100k tasks/month? → If yes, n8n (cost crosses over).
  3. Do you need self-hosting (compliance, data residency)? → n8n.
  4. Are you building AI agents (multi-step, tool use, memory)? → n8n (native nodes).
  5. Default: Make for visual flows, Zapier for max compatibility.

What we use internally

For our own ops at Sancto: n8n Cloud as the spine, with Zapier as a fallback for niche SaaS we couldn't be bothered to integrate manually. We've shipped 30+ client workflows on n8n in the last 18 months — it's not the easiest, but it's the one we'd bet our own pipeline on.

The hidden cost nobody talks about

It's not the platform. It's the migration cost when you switch. We've seen Zapier-to-n8n migrations take 3–6 weeks for ~50 zaps. Pick the right one once, and the platform tax disappears. Pick wrong twice and you've spent a quarter on plumbing.

If you're starting today and you have any engineering capacity at all, start on n8n. The runway is longer.

If you don't have engineering capacity yet but you'll have it within a year — start on Make. The Zapier-to-anything migration is more painful than Make-to-anything.