I can highly recommend n8n. I prefer it over Make.com, Pipedream, Zapier, etc. for automations and AI agent tasks. Basically, anything you want to automate but don't want to spin up a custom code server each time.

The main reasons I switched to n8n are it's open source, meaning I can run it locally without limits, and it supports code nodes in javascript and python. Make.com used to drive me bonkers when it took 10+ minutes to create all the nodes in the UI to handle loops, errors, etc. when I could normally just write a few lines of code to handle it.

Only downside to n8n vs other platforms is it's polling based vs instant trigger unlike Zapier's and Make.com's connectors. So if you're processing email, Google Sheets data, etc. you'll have more latency with n8n unless you add some custom middleware to handle instant triggers. But polling is actually a benefit in my case since I mostly run n8n locally through docker. Whenever I spin it up, it auto catches up on new data it hasn't yet processed.

n8n's AI nodes are first rate and more intuitive IMO than others. You can easily extend it with custom LangChain nodes as well if you're self hosting.

If you want to play around with n8n locally, this tool makes it easy: https://github.com/LLemonStack/llemonstack/ I created it to make it easier for me to spin up and down project stacks on the same machine.

Or see n8n's official repo for instructions on running locally: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n

I recently started using it, and as an experienced developer, I love it.

It's really easy to automate tasks and schedule things.

For example, I connected it to my UXWizz MySQL database, asked the AI in UXWizz to give me a query with the funnel conversions for today (visits/pricing/checkout/sales) compared to last week, copied that into n8n and made it send me an emoji-formatted daily Telegram message.

I am now using it to implement an AI chat-bot/support ticket responder, and I'm planning to migrate a Node.js auto-poster to it, so I can easily change the schedule/model/content of the post without having to edit any code.

I like that it has good documentation for integrations. For example, I was testing Google Ads, and I want to do conversion tracking without adding the Google JS to my page. Again, I used an MySQL connection to my UXWizz analytics dashboard to select the gclid for all visits that lead to a conversion event, then with n8n I upload those daily to a Google Sheet, which is then used by Google Ads to properly track conversions. The Google Sheet integration is not trivial (you need Google Cloud account, create an app, create oauth login, etc.), but the n8n docs were clear enough to follow and up-to-date enough to work.

Before it was moved to GitHub Actions, we had a multiple-step deployment flow created in Node-Red, I believe you can achieve more or less the same thing with n8n. Never tried tho, it wasn't necessary anyway. If I really really simplify it's like, checkout, run some tests, deploy to a preview env, run some more tests, report back to slack.

On a personal level, I use it to automate booking a tennis court. It logs in, selects the date and time (pre-defined), adds a partner/opponent, books the court, pings a service that generates a calendar entry. If I decide to cancel the booking, it again pings the service and removes the calendar entry. I needed to bend some "nodes" to do what I need within the same workflow (such as create event runs once a day but update event runs in every 10 minutes).

In the past, I also used it to detect service interruptions with my ISP. I don't use that ISP anymore, so this workflow is redundant, but it was checking an API and if there's an entry, sending it as a push notification (via ntfy) to my phone.

I got to know n8n from HN comments a couple year ago. I tried it and kinda liked it, it was really a tool for making quick PoC, trying remote APIs and building operations.

I was able to hack a MVP of a new product in just one or two days.

Now, the company uses n8n for a lot of stuff, out ops team and finance team is expected to automatize manual work using n8n. From billing to financial conciliation to customer support. Also in product/dev team we implement some parts as flows, for things we expect to change a lot of features that are more internal.

But n8n requires a lot of time and care. It's not intended for high loads, they make a lot of breaking changes (more like new bugs, but is not fun).

We do all this self hosting in a k8s cluster.

In general I like it, but I think is still intended for a personal o early adopter.

Funny, one of my biz co-founder, learned and created a new biz just teaching it.

It is great to make chatbots in my opinion. Personal automations, AI, etc. I have friends who use it to prototype products and it works using n8n as backend for users. I mostly don't do this, only prototypes that only I can access. It has pros and cons vs coding, and you probably have to make something using n8n to see if it works for you.

It depends on what you need. For use cases like "export data from HubSpot, transform it (join by id, normalize), and load it into Google Spreadsheets," it works great. I've tested it for marketing automation, but it requires skill to configure properly.