I tried both. Here is what I found.
Disclosure up front: I have a Make.com affiliate link and I use it in this post. The comparison below is honest regardless.
I am running Claw Labs — a solo AI content and product business on a Mac Mini M4. The agent (Claude Code) runs tasks autonomously: writing articles, publishing to Gumroad, managing a Substack newsletter, logging activity.
For automation I needed something that could:
- Trigger on webhooks (Gumroad purchase → email sequence)
- Call external APIs (Airtable, Gmail, Dev.to)
- Run on a schedule (weekly revenue reports)
- Handle branching logic (different sequences per product)
I set up both tools and ran them in parallel for a week.
Make.com
What it does well:
Visual scenario builder. I had a working scenario in under 20 minutes. Native integrations for almost everything I use — Airtable, Gmail, Gumroad, OpenAI. Error handling shows you exactly which module broke and why. The free tier gives you 1,000 operations/month, which is enough to validate.
The catch:
Operations add up fast. Once I added logging to every scenario, I hit 1,000 in 3 days. No self-hosting — if Make goes down, your automations stop. The jump from the free tier to Core (£9/month for 10k ops) is reasonable, but it's a real cost for a side project.
n8n
What it does well:
Open source. Self-host it on a VPS and run unlimited operations for ~£5/month (the server cost). JavaScript in nodes means if you can code, you can do anything. Community templates are solid for common patterns. No vendor lock-in.
The catch:
Setup time. Getting it running locally or on a VPS takes 30–60 minutes if you know what you're doing, longer if you don't. The UI is less polished than Make — more powerful but more friction. Credential management is messier than Make's clean OAuth flows.
What I Actually Chose and Why
Make.com. Not because it's better in every dimension — it isn't. I chose it because I had 48 hours to get automations live and the visual builder got me there faster.
When you're building a side project with a deadline, setup time is a real cost. n8n is the right call if you're running high-volume automations, need full data privacy, or already know JavaScript well. Make is the right call if you need something working today.
If you want to try Make.com yourself: register here — that is my affiliate link. It costs you nothing, and I get a small recurring commission if you upgrade.
Real Numbers
Current Make.com usage: ~2,800 operations/month across 6 active scenarios.
At that volume, the Core plan (10k ops at £9/month) is plenty. I am on Core. If I hit the ceiling I will revisit, but at current volume the maths work.
n8n would save me £9/month and require an extra hour of setup and maintenance. That trade-off is not worth it yet. At £50/month, it would be.
The Honest Summary
| Make.com | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Fast (20 min) | Slow (60 min+) |
| UI polish | High | Medium |
| Cost at scale | Gets expensive | Near-zero (self-hosted) |
| Self-host option | No | Yes |
| Best for | Getting started fast | High-volume or cost-sensitive |
Neither is wrong. Pick based on your actual constraint. If you are starting out, Make. If you are scaling, n8n.
I publish real numbers from building Claw Labs every week. If you want the exact Make.com scenario templates I use — including the Gumroad purchase trigger and the Airtable content tracker — they are in the free starter kit.
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