Automation has become one of the most valuable skills for any technical team. It helps eliminate repetitive work, speeds up business operations, and lets you focus on creative or strategic tasks.
Whether it’s moving data between apps, triggering actions when something changes, or building smart systems that run on their own, automation can save hours every week.
The problem is that most automation platforms make you choose between flexibility and simplicity.
Tools like Zapier are easy to use but limited when you need customisation. Writing your own scripts in Python or JavaScript gives you full control but takes more time to build and maintain.
n8n changes that balance. It is an open-source workflow automation platform that provides both control and simplicity.
n8n lets you automate anything from simple tasks to complex systems using a visual interface. You can drag and connect nodes to create workflows or write code when needed. It’s built for technical teams who want freedom without losing ease of use.
In this article, we’ll learn how to build and deploy your own automation workflows using n8n. By the end, you’ll have a working automation server and the knowledge to create smart, self-running workflows for any use case.
What n8n Does
n8n connects the apps and systems you already use.
Each connection is called a node, and every node performs an action. You can combine multiple nodes into a workflow that runs automatically.
For example, you could create a workflow where a new form submission in Typeform triggers a Slack message and stores the data in Google Sheets. You can then add logic to send an email only if certain conditions are met.
This approach allows anyone to build automation visually, yet it stays developer-friendly. You can use JavaScript or Python inside the workflow for custom logic, import npm packages, or connect to any API that doesn’t have a prebuilt node yet.
The platform supports over four hundred integrations out of the box, from GitHub and AWS to OpenAI and Telegram. This large library of ready-to-use nodes means you can connect most tools you use every day without needing to write any code at all.
n8n is Open Source
The open source nature of n8n is what makes it stand out.
Most automation tools like Zapier are closed systems that hide their inner workings. With n8n, the source code is publicly available. You can host it on your own server, modify it, and inspect how everything works.
This matters for both privacy and flexibility.
When you self-host n8n, your data never leaves your environment. This is especially useful for industries like finance, healthcare, and security where sensitive data must stay private. Teams can build automations without sending information through third-party servers.
Being open source also means you are never locked into one vendor. You can add your own nodes, extend the platform, or even contribute back to the community.
The fair-code license ensures that while the project stays sustainable for the developers who maintain it, it remains accessible to anyone who wants to use or modify it.
How to Get Started with n8n
Getting started with n8n takes only a few minutes. If you already have Node.js installed, you can launch it right from your terminal using the command:
npx n8n
This will start n8n locally and open the visual editor at http://localhost:5678.
You can also deploy n8n with Docker using a few simple commands. Docker is often the easiest option if you want a persistent setup where your data and workflows are saved automatically.
Once the editor is open, you’ll see an empty canvas where you can drag and drop nodes. For beginners, the best way to learn is by building small workflows.
Building a n8n Workflow
Let’s build a simple n8n workflow.
Step 1: After logging in, click on “Create Workflow” at the top. This will open a blank workspace. Give your workflow a name such as “RSS to Email”. You’ll be building a simple chain of steps, where one action leads to another.
Step 2: Every workflow in n8n starts with a trigger, which decides when the workflow should run. In this example, we’ll use the Schedule Trigger so the workflow runs once a day.
Click the plus icon to add a new node and search for “On a Schedule”. Select it and choose the option that says “Every Day”. You can set the exact time you want it to run, for example, every morning at 9am. This means that once your workflow is activated, n8n will automatically start it daily at that time.
Step 3: Now that the workflow knows when to run, it needs to know what to do. The next step is to fetch the latest articles from a blog’s RSS feed. Click the plus icon again to add another node and search for “RSS Read”.
In the URL field, type the link to a blog’s feed such as https://blog.cloudflare.com/rss/. Click “Execute Node” to test it. You should now see a list of recent blog posts with their titles, descriptions, and links. This confirms that the feed is working correctly.
Step 4: Sometimes you may not want all the items from the RSS feed. For instance, you might only want the top three posts. To do this, you can add a Function node between the RSS and email steps. In that node, enter a short JavaScript snippet like return items.slice(0, 3);. This will trim the list and only keep the first three results. You can also choose to skip this step if you want to send all the posts in the email.
Step 5: The next step is to send the RSS feed items to your email inbox. Add another node and search for “Email”. You can use your preferred email service such as Gmail or Outlook, or configure it manually using SMTP settings.
For Gmail, choose “Send an email”. For the settings, get your oauth keys from Google. In the subject field, write something like “Daily Blog Updates”. In the message field, you can include the data from the RSS feed using expressions such as {{ $json["title"] }} - {{ $json["link"] }}.
This will automatically replace those variables with the actual titles and links when the workflow runs. You can test the email by clicking “Execute Node” and checking your inbox.
Step 6: Once you have added all three nodes, Schedule Trigger, RSS Feed Read, and Email, you need to connect them in that order. The arrows show the flow of data.
Click “Execute Workflow” to test everything. If the setup is correct, you should receive an email with the latest blog posts. When you’re satisfied with the result, turn on the workflow by clicking the toggle switch in the top right corner. It will now run automatically every day without you having to open n8n again.
As you get comfortable, you can start chaining multiple services together, add conditional logic, or include custom code nodes for specific cases. The live execution view helps you see how data moves between nodes in real time.
Running n8n in Production using Sevalla
When you are ready to move beyond testing, n8n gives you two main options. You can self-host it using your own infrastructure or use their managed cloud version at n8n.io.
Self-hosting gives you full control and is usually preferred by technical teams who want to integrate with private APIs or keep sensitive data in-house.
You can choose any cloud provider, like AWS, DigitalOcean, or others to set up N8N. But I will be using Sevalla.
Sevalla is a PaaS provider designed for developers and dev teams shipping features and updates constantly in the most efficient way. It offers application hosting, database, object storage, and static site hosting for your projects.
I am using Sevalla for two reasons:
Every platform will charge you for creating a cloud resource. Sevalla comes with a $50 credit for us to use, so we won’t incur any costs for this example.
Sevalla has a template for n8n, so it simplifies the manual installation and setup for each resource you will need for installation.
Log in to Sevalla and click on Templates. You can see n8n as one of the templates.
Click on the “N8N” template. You will see the resources needed to provision the application. Click on “Deploy Template”.
You can see the resource being provisioned. Once the resources are provisioned, go to your n8n application and click on the current deployment.
Wait for a few minutes. Once the deployment is complete, you will see a green checkmark.
Click on “Visit app”. You will get a cloud url eg. https://n8n-9u6kc.sevalla.app/.
You now have a production-grade n8n server running on the cloud. You can use this to build your automations in your self hosted cloud environment.
Where n8n Becomes Powerful
Most users begin with simple automations. But n8n’s true power shows up when you start building complex, multi-step workflows. You can create sequences that involve APIs, data transformation, and logic-based decision making.
For example, a marketing team could build a system that monitors mentions on Twitter, classifies them with an AI model, adds potential leads to a CRM, and sends a Slack alert for high-priority mentions.
A developer could build a workflow that triggers deployment pipelines automatically when code is merged into a branch.
Because n8n supports both no-code and full-code modes, you never outgrow it. As your automations become more advanced, you can still use the same platform to handle them.
AI-Driven Automations
n8n is also built for the era of AI. It comes with native support for connecting large language models and tools like LangChain. This means you can build AI workflows that use your own data and logic.
Imagine setting up a workflow that reads new support tickets, summarizes them with an AI model, and routes them to the right team. Or one that takes blog posts, generates summaries, and posts them automatically to your social channels.
You can design these workflows visually while letting the AI handle the heavy lifting.
Because n8n allows you to control how and where AI models are called, it gives teams flexibility without sacrificing data security. You can integrate your own OpenAI key, run local models, or use third-party APIs in the same environment.
The real value of n8n lies in how it combines flexibility, transparency, and control. It doesn’t hide complexity from you but gives you tools to manage it better. You can start small with visual automation and grow into advanced logic and AI-driven workflows.
Because it’s open source, you never risk losing access to your automations. You can run it anywhere, connect it with anything, and inspect everything that happens under the hood. This level of freedom is rare among modern automation platforms.
For beginners, n8n is an opportunity to understand how automation works without needing to learn full-stack programming. For developers, it’s a scalable system that can power serious production workflows.
Conclusion
Automation is becoming an essential part of every technical process. The challenge is finding a tool that balances simplicity with power. n8n achieves that balance by being open source, extensible, and flexible enough for both no-code users and developers.
n8n is not just another automation app. It is a complete, open, and developer-friendly platform built to make automation accessible to everyone.
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