I Built an Open-Source n8n Alternative with AI Agents — Here's What I Learned

Mustafa YILMAZ — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 19:29:42 +0000

I've been working on workflow automation tools for a while, and I always felt something was missing — the ability to combine visual workflow building with real AI agent capabilities. So I built SiberCron, and today I'm open-sourcing it.

What is SiberCron?

SiberCron is an open-source, self-hosted workflow automation platform. Think of it as n8n meets AI Agents — you get a visual drag-and-drop workflow editor combined with powerful AI capabilities from 9+ LLM providers.

GitHub: https://github.com/SiberCoder/SiberCron

Why I Built This

I love n8n and similar tools, but I wanted something that could:

Use AI natively within workflows (not just as an HTTP call to an API)
Support multiple AI providers out of the box (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Groq, Ollama, and more)
Include a built-in AI "brain" that can manage workflows through natural language
Handle multi-channel messaging (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp) in one place
Be fully self-hosted with no vendor lock-in

Key Features

Visual Workflow Editor

Built with React Flow, the drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create complex workflows visually. You connect nodes together, configure them, and watch your automation run in real-time.

9+ AI Providers

One of the things I'm most proud of is the AI integration. SiberCron supports:

OpenAI — GPT-4, GPT-4o, o3-mini
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet, Haiku, Opus
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash, 2.5 Pro
Ollama — Run local models completely offline
Groq — Ultra-fast inference
Custom — Any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint

17+ Built-in Nodes

Triggers (Manual, Cron, Webhook, WhatsApp Receive), AI nodes (AI Agent, Autonomous Dev), Core nodes (HTTP Request, Code, Conditional, Transform, Merge, Delay, Log), and Messaging nodes (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp).

AI Brain & Chat

This is where it gets interesting. You can tell SiberCron things like:

"Create a workflow that checks my API every 5 minutes and sends a Telegram alert if it's down"

The AI brain has 14+ tool-calling capabilities including workflow CRUD operations, execution management, messaging across platforms, file operations, and shell commands.

Multi-Channel Messaging

Send messages to Telegram, Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp from a single workflow. WhatsApp integration includes Cloud API with QR code pairing and incoming message triggers.

Tech Stack

Frontend: React 18, TypeScript, Vite, TailwindCSS, React Flow
Backend: Node.js, Fastify, TypeScript
Queue: BullMQ + Redis
Real-time: Socket.io
Database: SQLite (zero config)

Quick Start

Getting started is simple:

git clone https://github.com/SiberCoder/SiberCron.git
cd SiberCron
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env
pnpm dev

Docker is also supported:

docker compose up -d

What's Next?

I'm actively working on this project and would love community feedback. Some things on the roadmap:

More AI provider integrations
Workflow marketplace/templates
Enhanced monitoring dashboard
Plugin ecosystem growth

Try It Out

The project is MIT licensed and fully open-source. Give it a try and let me know what you think!