Your users can connect third-party apps directly to your SaaS product through customer-facing integrations. For instance, a customer can connect their Salesforce, HubSpot, or Slack account to an AI agent in your product. The agent can then retrieve customer data, respond to events, or perform actions on their behalf.
Zapier and Make are well-established and popular automation platforms. Zapier provides APIs and embeddable components to bring its automation ecosystem to SaaS products. Make focuses on visual workflow automation across thousands of applications. It also supports custom apps, code, and AI agents. I’ve used both Zapier and Make for internal workflow automation, and I’m a fan of both platforms.
But from experience, I know customer-facing integrations require more than connecting a few workflow steps. Your product has to manage a separate authenticated connection for each customer. It needs to run continuous data syncs, react to webhooks, and execute actions reliably. SaaS products should also support custom API behavior and keep integration logic in your existing development and deployment workflow.
That is why you should consider Zapier and Make alternatives built specifically for agents and product integrations.
TL;DR
The right Zapier or Make alternative depends on how you want to build and expose integrations:
- Nango: Best suited to teams building customer-facing products and AI agent integrations that need broad API coverage. Nango supports every integration type, including authentication, tool calls, triggers, syncs, API proxying, and execution, in one platform. Teams can start quickly with pre-approved OAuth apps and prebuilt functions, then extend integrations as needed.
- Pipedream Connect: This platform suits products and AI agents that want access to a catalog of ready-made API actions and tools, with managed authentication and an API proxy.
- Paragon: This platform suits SaaS products that need embedded integration workflows, managed authentication, sync pipelines, actions, and webhooks.
- Prismatic: Prismatic suits B2B SaaS teams that want to build integrations using a visual designer.
- Merge: Merge suits teams that prefer a unified API for SaaS use cases in categories such as CRM, HRIS, ATS, accounting, ticketing, and file storage and do not have agent-related integration needs.
These platforms solve different parts of the integration problem. Common approaches include prebuilt actions, broader API catalogs, custom integration logic, and embedded workflows. Platforms like Nango cover a wider range of these requirements. The sections below compare these approaches so you can choose based on what your product actually needs.
Zapier and Make alternatives compared
These five platforms take different approaches to product and agent integrations. Nango covers the full integration lifecycle across 1,000+ APIs, while the other platforms focus more specifically on prebuilt actions, embedded workflows, or normalized APIs.
| Platform | Best for | How you build | Integration capabilities | Deployment and control | AI / agent support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nango | Customer-facing products and AI agents that need broad API coverage and quick access to tools, triggers, syncs, and execution | Start with pre-approved OAuth apps and prebuilt functions, then extend in TypeScript when needed | Authentication, tool calls, triggers, syncs, webhooks, API proxy, retries, rate-limit handling, and execution | Nango Cloud, BYOC, or self-hosted; direct API access and control over integration logic | Built for agent integrations with 7,000+ prebuilt tools, MCP, custom tools, and agent SDK support |
| Pipedream Connect | Products and AI agents that need ready-made API actions and tools | SDKs and APIs using prebuilt actions, triggers, and an API proxy | Managed authentication, actions, triggers, workflows, and API proxying | Managed Pipedream runtime with access to underlying APIs through its proxy | Strong focus on MCP and prebuilt tools for agent actions |
| Paragon | SaaS products that need embedded workflow automation | Visual workflows with JavaScript, custom connectors, and direct API calls when needed | Managed authentication, workflows, actions, sync pipelines, webhooks, and polling | Managed cloud with self-hosted and forward-deployed options on higher tiers | ActionKit, MCP, and agent-oriented actions |
| Prismatic | B2B SaaS teams that want visual integration development | Low-code designer or code-native TypeScript SDK | OAuth connections, multi-flow integrations, triggers, sync workflows, monitoring, and custom connectors | Managed cloud with private and on-prem deployment options on higher tiers | Agentic flows and MCP tooling |
| Merge | SaaS teams that want one normalized API across providers in supported categories | Build against Merge's Unified API and Common Models | Managed authentication, normalized data models, recurring syncs, webhooks, and Authenticated Passthrough | Primarily Merge-hosted, with additional deployment options on higher tiers | Supports MCP and agent tool execution, but its core model is the Unified API |
Zapier/Make vs customer-facing integration platforms
Zapier and Make are primarily automation platforms. They work well for internal workflows, such as sending a Slack message when a lead is added to HubSpot. In those cases, the platform usually manages a small number of connections owned by your team.
Customer-facing integrations are different. Your product or AI agent may need to manage authentication, tokens, webhooks, API calls, syncs, and tool execution across hundreds or thousands of customer accounts. That introduces different requirements around reliability, monitoring, permissions, and embedded UX.
Agent integration platforms
Agent integration platforms are designed for AI agents inside your product that need to act and learn across external APIs on behalf of your users.
Instead of handling only authentication or individual API actions, these platforms can support the broader integration lifecycle, including authentication, tool calls, triggers, syncs, API proxying, webhooks, and execution.
For instance, Nango supports quick integrations across 1,000+ APIs and lets teams start with pre-approved OAuth apps and prebuilt functions. Later, you can extend to lower-level API access and custom logic when needed. It also supports Nango Cloud, BYOC, and self-hosting for teams with additional deployment requirements.
Learn more about how Nango is different from embedded iPaaS or other unified APIs.
The platforms compared below take different approaches to solving parts of this problem, from prebuilt actions and embedded workflows to unified APIs.
What to look for in a customer-facing agent integration platform
When integrations are part of your product, the integration platform needs to handle more than authentication and API calls. It should support the full lifecycle of building, running, and maintaining integrations for many customers.
You need to look for the following in your agent integration platform:
- Authentication and credential management: The platform should support OAuth, API keys, token refresh, and secure credential storage for each customer connection.
- API coverage and direct API access: Providing a broad catalog is useful. But the platform should also let you call unsupported endpoints or work directly with the underlying API when needed.
- Custom business logic: You may need provider-specific transformations, mappings, validation, or workflows that go beyond prebuilt actions. So your integration platform should support that.
- Syncs, webhooks, retries, and rate limits: The platform should handle background syncs, event-driven updates, transient failures, and provider limits reliably.
- Testing and local development: Developers should be able to test integrations before deployment and reproduce failures without debugging directly in production.
- Observability and debugging: Logs, execution history, error details, and monitoring are essential when integrations fail for individual customers.
- Deployment options: Depending on your security and compliance requirements, you may need managed cloud, BYOC, private networking, or self-hosting. Check whether these features are available in the platform you choose.
- Customer onboarding: The platform should let your users connect and configure integrations without leaving your product or requiring manual setup from your team.
- Agent-specific controls: For AI agents, consider how tools and actions are exposed, how permissions are scoped per user, and whether the agent can safely access only the APIs and operations it needs.
The best platform gives your engineering team enough control without forcing you to rebuild authentication, execution, and reliability infrastructure yourself.
5 best Zapier and Make alternatives for customer-facing integrations
I tested more than 25 Zapier and Make alternatives and compared what each does well. Based on that research and my experience with customer-facing integrations, I narrowed the list down to five platforms.
Let’s look at where each one fits best, how development works, what the customer-facing experience looks like, and the main pros and cons to help you choose the right fit for your project.
1. Nango: Best for AI agent integrations
Overview
Nango is an integration platform for AI agents and customer-facing products that need to connect with external APIs. It provides authentication, tool calls, triggers, syncs, webhooks, API proxying, and execution across 1,000+ APIs, with a catalog of 7,000+ prebuilt tools.
Best for
Teams building AI agent integrations and customer-facing products that need broad API coverage and support for authentication, tools, triggers, syncs, and execution, with deeper API and deployment control available when needed.
How development works
Teams can get started quickly using pre-approved OAuth apps and prebuilt functions. Nango handles infrastructure such as authentication, token refresh, retries, rate limits, sync state, and execution.
When more control is needed, developers can extend integrations with TypeScript and keep that logic in their existing Git and CI/CD workflows. Coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex can also help research APIs, build integrations, test them against real connections, and deploy them.
Customer-facing experience
Customers can authorize their third-party accounts without leaving your product. Nango’s embedded auth UI can be customized and white-labeled to match your branding.
Pros
- Broad API and tool coverage: Nango supports 1,000+ APIs and 7,000+ prebuilt tools. AI agents can use these integrations to retrieve data, call tools, and perform actions without teams building every integration from scratch.
- Direct access when prebuilt functionality is not enough: Developers can work with underlying APIs and add provider-specific logic for custom endpoints, mappings, or workflows.
- Covers the broader integration lifecycle: Authentication, tools, triggers, syncs, webhooks, retries, rate-limit handling, observability, and execution are available within the same platform.
- Flexible deployment options: Nango supports Nango Cloud, BYOC, and self-hosting for teams with security, compliance, or data residency requirements.
- Designed for agent integration use cases: Agents can authenticate to user accounts, retrieve and sync data, react to external events, and perform actions across connected APIs. Nango also supports MCP for exposing integrations to agents. Learn more about building AI agent integrations using the Nango Management MCP.
Cons
- Built primarily for engineering teams: Teams without development resources may prefer a platform centered more heavily on visual integration building.
- No drag-and-drop workflow builder: Nango does not provide a visual workflow-building experience.
2. Pipedream Connect: Best for prebuilt API actions
Overview
Pipedream Connect is a developer toolkit to add third-party integrations to your SaaS products and AI agents. It also provides managed authentication, prebuilt actions and triggers, an API proxy, and access to 10,000+ tools through its MCP server.
Best for
Teams that primarily want to expose ready-made API actions and tools to their SaaS product or AI agent through managed authentication and MCP.
How development works
Developers can use Pipedream’s SDKs and APIs to authenticate users and execute prebuilt actions on their behalf. You can also send custom requests through the Connect proxy when a prebuilt action does not cover your use case.
Pipedream also supports developing and deploying multi-step workflows with its visual builder.
Customer-facing experience
Each end user can connect their own third-party accounts through the Client SDK or Connect Link. Pipedream associates those connections with your application’s users through an external user ID.
Pros
- 10,000+ tools available for AI agents through MCP: You can expose a large number of app actions to AI agents through Pipedream’s MCP server. You don’t have to define every tool yourself manually.
- Managed authentication for end-user accounts: Pipedream handles OAuth and other credential flows for customer connections. So your application does not need to build and maintain those authentication flows independently.
- SDKs make it relatively quick to expose integrations inside a product: Pipedream’s SDKs and APIs let teams add authentication, actions, and triggers to customer-facing applications. They don’t have to build the entire integration layer themselves.
Cons
- Less deployment flexibility for enterprise requirements: Pipedream Connect runs on Pipedream’s managed infrastructure. Teams that require BYOC or self-hosting for security, compliance, or data residency may need a platform with more deployment options.
- Continuous syncs may require additional orchestration: If your product needs long-running data syncs, you may need additional logic for pagination, checkpoints, retries, and sync state.
- Prebuilt actions may not cover every provider-specific requirement: When a use case goes beyond the available actions, teams may need to use the API proxy or add more custom logic around the integration.
See our comparison of Pipedream Connect vs. Nango.
3. Paragon: Best for embedded workflow automation
Overview
Paragon is an embedded integration platform for B2B SaaS products. It combines managed authentication, 130+ prebuilt connectors, workflows, real-time actions, sync pipelines, webhooks, and embedded integration UX.
Best for
B2B SaaS teams that want customers to configure embedded integrations and workflows directly inside their product.
How development works
Teams can build event-driven workflows using Paragon’s workflow tooling and extend them with custom logic. Paragon also supports custom connectors and direct requests to third-party API endpoints when its prebuilt connectors do not cover a requirement.
For agent use cases, Paragon provides ActionKit for exposing third-party actions to AI agents.
Customer-facing experience
You can embed and white-label Paragon’s Connect Portal inside your application. So your customers can authenticate and configure integrations without leaving your product. It also offers a headless implementation option.
Pros
- Embedded and white-labeled integration experience: Paragon lets SaaS teams place the connection and configuration flow inside their own product. So your customers can set up integrations without openning a separate third-party interface.
- Visual workflows with support for custom logic: Teams can build multi-step integration workflows visually. They can also extend them with custom connectors, direct API calls, and JavaScript when the prebuilt components are not enough.
- Managed syncs, actions, and agent tooling: Paragon supports recurring data syncs, real-time actions, and agent-facing integrations through ActionKit. This makes it suitable for both traditional SaaS integrations and AI agent use cases.
Cons
- Smaller prebuilt connector catalog than broader integration platforms: Paragon currently lists 130+ prebuilt connectors. Teams that need coverage across a much wider range of APIs may have to build more custom connectors themselves.
- Self-hosting and forward deployment are enterprise features: Paragon’s self-hosting and forward deployment options are listed under its Enterprise plan. Teams with strict infrastructure or data-residency requirements may need a higher-tier contract.
- Its capabilities are split across several product primitives: Paragon separates real-time actions, data syncs, and orchestration across ActionKit, Managed Sync, and Workflows. You may need to work across multiple Paragon products when an integration combines agent actions, syncs, and long-running workflows.
- Workflow-centric development may not suit every engineering team: This platform doesn’t suit for the teams that prefer most integration logic to live directly in application code.
4. Prismatic: Best for configurable B2B integrations
Overview
Prismatic is an embedded iPaaS designed for B2B SaaS companies. It supports product integrations built with either a low-code designer or a code-native TypeScript SDK. This platform also provides the infrastructure required to deploy and operate them.
Best for
B2B SaaS teams that want a configurable integration marketplace with visual development options.
How development works
Developers can build integrations entirely in TypeScript using Prismatic’s code-native SDK or assemble them visually using its low-code designer. Both approaches support OAuth connections, configuration, multiple flows, logging, monitoring, and deployment on the same platform.
Prismatic also supports agentic flows that can be exposed to AI agents as MCP tools.
Customer-facing experience
Prismatic’s embedded marketplace lets customers browse, configure, deploy, and manage integrations inside your application. Teams can customize the marketplace branding or build their own integration UI using Prismatic’s APIs.
Pros
- Choice between TypeScript and low-code development: Engineering teams can build integrations in code, while other team members can use the visual designer for simpler workflows.
- Embedded and customizable integration marketplace: Prismatic lets customers discover, configure, and manage integrations inside your product. You can also customize the experience to match your branding.
- Strong extensibility for complex integrations: Developers can create custom connectors, use npm packages, and expose agentic flows as MCP tools when the built-in components are not enough.
Cons
- The platform introduces several concepts to manage: Teams need to understand integrations, instances, configuration, marketplaces, and deployment models. It adds complexity compared with simpler integration platforms.
- It may be too advanced and complex for basic use cases: If you only need managed authentication and a few API actions, Prismatic may provide more functionality than you actually need.
- Pricing can be harder to estimate as usage grows: Prismatic pricing can depend on factors such as deployed integration instances and plan limits. Teams with many customers or integrations may need to model expected usage carefully to understand how costs scale.
5. Merge: Best for unified API integrations
Overview
Merge takes a different approach from the other platforms in this list. Its Unified API provides you with normalized data models across categories such as CRM, HRIS, ATS, accounting, ticketing, and file storage.
Instead of implementing each provider independently, you can build against Merge’s Common Models.
Best for
Teams that prefer integrating once against a normalized API instead of building and maintaining separate integrations for every provider.
How development works
Your application calls the Merge Unified API using the same endpoints and data models regardless of the underlying provider. Merge manages the provider integrations, authentication, recurring data syncs, and normalization.
When you need functionality outside the normalized API, Merge’s Authenticated Passthrough can provide access to provider-specific endpoints.
Customer-facing experience
Your customers can connect their accounts through Merge Link, an embeddable authentication UI. Each connection becomes a Linked Account that your application can access through the Unified API.
Pros
- One API can cover many providers within a supported category: Instead of building and maintaining separate integrations for every CRM, HRIS, ATS, or accounting platform, your application can work through a single Unified API.
- Common Models reduce provider-specific integration work: Merge normalizes similar objects and fields across providers. This simplifies your application logic and reduces the amount of custom mapping you need to maintain.
Cons
- Common Models do not expose every provider-specific feature: If you need functionality that falls outside the normalized schema, you may need to use Authenticated Passthrough or another provider-specific approach.
- Coverage is organized around specific integration categories: Merge is a strong fit for areas such as CRM, HRIS, ATS, accounting, ticketing, and file storage. But it isn’t designed to provide the same kind of broad API coverage as a general integration platform.
- Some advanced use cases still require provider-specific logic: When customers rely on unique fields, endpoints, or workflows, the Unified API may not support them.
- Direct provider API access is gated to higher-tier plans: Authenticated Passthrough is available only on Professional and Enterprise plans. If you need provider-specific endpoints that are not represented by Common Models, accessing them may require moving beyond the Launch plan.
Which type of integration platform do you actually need?
You can’t choose the best integration platform based only on how many integrations it offers. The right choice depends on what your product or AI agent needs to do across external APIs and how much of the integration lifecycle the platform should handle for you.
When your AI agent needs broad integration support to start quickly:
Choose a platform like Nango when your AI agent or customer-facing product needs to work across many APIs and handle more than individual actions. Nango supports authentication, tool calls, triggers, syncs, API proxying, webhooks, and execution across 1,000+ APIs. Teams can start quickly with pre-approved OAuth apps and prebuilt functions, then extend to lower-level API access when needed. It also supports BYOC and self-hosting for teams with additional enterprise requirements.
If your team prefers visual embedded workflows:
An embedded iPaaS such as Paragon or Prismatic can be a good fit when your team wants to design workflows visually and let users configure integrations inside your product. These platforms are useful for embedded marketplaces, multi-step workflows, and low-code integration development.
When you mainly need ready-made actions:
An action or connect platform such as Pipedream Connect can work well when your main requirement is to expose prebuilt API actions and tools to a SaaS product or AI agent.
When you want one schema across multiple providers:
A unified API such as Merge is useful when the providers you support expose similar data models and you want to integrate once instead of maintaining separate implementations for each vendor.
For AI agents, also consider whether you need tool calls, event triggers, background syncs, customer-scoped authentication, direct API access, or control over where integration workloads run. These requirements can quickly narrow down which platform is the best fit.
FAQ
Can Zapier be embedded in a SaaS product?
Yes. Zapier provides embed tools and a Workflow API that let SaaS companies bring Zapier-powered automation into their own products. Users can discover, create, and manage workflows without leaving the application, and Zapier can also handle authentication for connected apps.
Is Make suitable for customer-facing integrations?
Make can support customer-facing automation scenarios, especially if your product has a public Make app that customers use to build their own workflows. However, its core model still centers on scenarios and automation inside Make. It doesn’t provide the same embedded integration infrastructure as platforms such as Paragon, Prismatic, or Nango.
What is the difference between embedded iPaaS and unified APIs?
An embedded iPaaS helps SaaS teams build and expose integrations inside their product. It usually provides workflow builders, managed authentication, embedded configuration, connectors, monitoring, and customer-specific deployment.
A unified API takes a different approach. It maps multiple providers in the same category to a shared schema and common set of endpoints. This reduces provider-specific development, but you work within the abstraction and data model defined by the unified API.
What is the difference between embedded iPaaS and integration infrastructure?
Embedded iPaaS platforms usually focus on visual or low-code workflows, embedded marketplaces, and customer-configurable integrations.
Integration infrastructure is generally more developer-focused. It provides building blocks such as authentication, syncs, webhooks, execution, retries, and observability. And it let developers keep more integration logic in code.
Are there self-hosted Zapier alternatives?
Yes. Some customer-facing integration platforms support self-hosting or private deployment. Nango supports Nango Cloud, BYOC, and self-hosting, while Paragon can run in your own AWS, GCP, or Azure environment. Prismatic also offers private cloud deployments in a customer’s AWS account.
Which Zapier alternative is best for AI agents?
It depends on how your agent needs to interact with external APIs. Nango is suitable when you want custom tools, per-user authentication, direct API access, syncs, webhooks, and MCP on the same platform. Pipedream Connect is better suited when your priority is quickly exposing a large catalog of ready-made actions and tools.
Zapier itself also supports AI agents through its MCP platform and developer tools. So it’s worth comparing the architecture and control you need without excluding Zapier by default.
Do customer-facing integrations require separate OAuth connections for each customer?
Usually, yes. Each customer is connecting their own account. So the platform needs to maintain a separate authenticated connection and credentials for that user or tenant.
For example, Nango manages OAuth credentials separately for each user connection. And Merge creates a separate Linked Account and account token when each end user completes Merge Link.
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