n8n

n8n is a tool for automating tasks by linking apps together through workflows: little boxes connected on screen where each one does a step, for example "an email arrives", "save it to a spreadsheet" and "notify me on Telegram". You can use it in the cloud or install it on your own server, and its code is public. It's very popular with people who want to automate without depending on a monthly paid service.

It's sold as no-code automation, and largely it is: workflows are built by dragging and connecting pieces. But as soon as the workflow gets more complex, expressions and JSON data appear (a standard way of organising the information programs pass to each other), and that's where a bit of know-how helps. It also comes with pieces for putting AI inside workflows. What usually confuses people is the self-hosting part: you don't pay to use it, but you pay for the server and, above all, for the time it takes to keep it running and up to date.

For a while, what I now ask the AI to do I used to solve with workflows. What I did with n8n, what it cost me to maintain and why I stopped needing it, I explain in "Why I no longer need n8n". No caricatures: in that article I also go through the cases where n8n still makes sense, so don't take it as an invitation to uninstall it just like that.