Hi all,
I have seen lately that the ‘source available’ N8N (which is excellent), has starting increasing pricing and restricting what you can get for your pricing.
In time, I can only assume this will get worse. Now, they deserve to get paid, and that’s fine, but I had gone in thinking this was open source, but I see now it’s not that at all.
This has led me to wonder if there’s a true open source / self hosted alternative to N8N out there? Doing a bit of a hunt shows ‘source available’ alternatives, with a price point, and restrictions. I’m wondering if any team has tackled this in a truly open manner and if there’s something out there?
Thanks so much
Depending on what you’re trying to do, Node-RED might be an option.
Don’t go into that rabbit hole called Node-Red. You will end up writing a lot of code, and node.js isn’t the best scripting language, and my suggestion is to just write a simple Python script.
Debugging is hell, version control is hell, it doesn’t have VSCode integration, plus sometimes it has some weird bugs, when you forget to clean up headers, etc. and it can truly make you crazy.
If you need something super simple and it has a good integration, you might consider it, but for anything more complex, stick to Python, or some other scripting language you are familiar with.
Node red is for visual node programming. I don’t think you’ll need to be writing node.js
Ive used it for years and wrote more bash / python for those nodes than I even touched js.
And I am using it almost every day and believe me I am writing a lot of code in those function nodes.
As soon as you want something more complicated that’s not covered by the nodes, you need to write your own code. And then debugging this code or version controlling it becomes a nightmare.
in that case you are doing the whole “no-coding” all wrong. If you really need something that cannot be done by connecting the nodes and grouping them in flows, then instead of developing new function nodes, develop your own contrib packages. But there are a lot of existing packages, so maybe you don’t need even that.
Node red is designed to use as little function nodes as possible. Sure, you can do anything with function nodes, but at this point, why use node red at all?
Look at sub flows, grouping flows and environment variables for sub flows, it will enhance what you can do a lot.
That seems to be the consensus, I will definitely try it out. Thank you
I second Node Red. I use it on different home automation systems and I’m very happy with it. I’ve never ever had any problem through updates and some nodes have been operating for at least 6 years.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will have a look at it as it seems to be the most likely option.
First thing I could think of is Automatisch. I use it for automations for one of my servers.
Thank you for that link. I guess my concern here is in the same way that N8N charges and changes what it charges for, this tool might end up in a cycle where it clamps down on what you can and can’t do and I end up heavily restricted. This is what is happening with N8N, so I am a little bit concerned about tools like this.
Yeah that is a valid concern. I don’t use it for critical stuff so I don’t have to be as concerned but that is definitely something to be aware of!
Not sure I understand. N8N can be self-hosted with the full featureset, can’t it?
That makes it source-available (like Microsoft Windows which is available under Shared Source) not open source.
TIL we’re both wrong: it’s FairCode
For now, but the writing on the wall in the forums is that the self hosted version will also have a reduction of capabilities in time. The owner has posted in a forum thread that he doesn’t feel that just because you self host that you should also get it completely unrestricted. And that is fine, it is their own commercial system, but I am looking for something that does not impose restrictions. I am happy to pay, but the rates they are wanting are above my capabilities for what I am using it for.
