Operational efficiency is no longer an “extra” in growth strategies; it is the oxygen of any modern enterprise. If you are reading this, it is likely that your marketing or IT team is drowning in repetitive tasks and you know that the solution is to connect your applications. This is where the great dilemma of the Low-Code ecosystem arises: Make vs N8N.
For years, we at Inprofit have implemented both solutions. We’ve seen companies scale beautifully with Make’s visual interface and we’ve seen IT departments breathe a sigh of relief with n8n’s data sovereignty. But in 2026, with AI redefining the rules of the game and search algorithms prioritizing accurate response, the choice is not as simple as “cheapest” or “prettiest.”
Which is the best tool to orchestrate your business? Let’s dissect both platforms, not from theory, but from the trenches of actual implementation.
Learning Curve: Visualization vs. control
To understand the difference, we must first look under the hood. Make (formerly Integromat) was born with a clear premise: to democratize integration. Its interface is, without a doubt, one of the most attractive on the market. Working with Make feels like playing; you move bubbles, connect modules and watch data flow in a hypnotic way.
It’s the preferred choice for marketing teams that don’t want to rely on developers. If you need to connect your CRM with Google Sheets and send a notification to Slack when a lead comes in, Make allows you to do it in minutes with a very intuitive visual logic.
What happens when we look at n8n?
Here the story changes. N8N presents itself as a fair-code tool that goes for total flexibility. Although it also uses a visual node interface, its logic is much closer to traditional programming.
If in Make you “drag and drop”, in n8n you “architect”. This doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible, but it does reward the user who isn’t afraid to touch a little JavaScript. While Make tries to hide complexity for ease of use, n8n hands you the keys to the kingdom to manipulate JSON objects directly. For a technical profile, this is pure freedom; for a purely creative profile, it may be an initial barrier to entry.
Note: At Inprofit we have noticed that learning curves have been shortened thanks to AI. Now, in both Make and n8n, you can ask the wizard to generate the scenario structure for you, reducing the initial friction on both platforms.
Scalability and pricing model
Let’s talk about money, because this is where the Make vs N8N battle becomes critical for SMBs and large enterprises. The business model of these two tools is radically opposed and making the wrong choice can cost you thousands of euros a year in operational cost overruns.
Make operates under a classic SaaS model based on “operations”. Every time your automation performs an action, the counter goes up. The problem? If you have an inefficient process or a massive volume of data (imagine synchronizing an e-commerce with thousands of daily orders), your bill can skyrocket exponentially. We’ve seen clients have to shut down scenarios in the middle of the month because they had eaten into their operations budget.
The “Self-Hosting” alternative
N8N breaks the deck with its self-hosting capability. You can install n8n on your own servers. This means you don’t pay per operation, you pay for the power of your server. If you have a modest VPS, you can run millions of workflows for a ridiculous fixed cost.
Is everything rosy with n8n? Not necessarily. Maintaining your own server involves maintenance costs, security updates and technical monitoring. What you save on licenses, you invest in DevOps hours. However, for high volumes of data, the economic balance almost always tips in favor of n8n.
Privacy and GDPR: A decisive factor in Europe
In a digital environment where privacy is the currency of change and European regulations are increasingly strict, the location of data is not a minor issue.
When you use Make, your data goes through their servers (usually hosted on AWS in areas you can choose, including the EU). They are secure and GDPR compliant, yes. But the data leaves your infrastructure.
With n8n in its self-hosted version, data never leaves your perimeter. For industries such as banking, healthcare or insurance, where confidentiality is critical, n8n is often the only viable option. Maintaining data sovereignty ensures that no third party, not even the automation tool provider, has access to your sensitive information.
AI integration: The new battlefield in 2026
We’ve reached the point that is redefining the martech industry. We no longer automate just “if A happens, do B”. Now we create autonomous agents that read, interpret, generate content and make decisions. How do our contenders behave here?
Make has made a titanic effort to integrate native modules from OpenAI, Anthropic and other LLMs. Its ease of chaining a ChatGPT response with a Notion database and a Gmail draft is amazing. It’s perfect for generating content, sorting leads by sentiment or automating Tier 1 support responses.
The power of agents in n8n
However, n8n has gone a step further by incorporating LangChain into its native nodes. This allows much more complex AI workflows to be created, with conversational memory and advanced reasoning capabilities, in a way that would require a much more convoluted (and operationally expensive) architecture at Make.
If your goal is to build AI agents that perform complex tasks, query multiple sources of internal documentation (RAG) and execute sequential actions based on reasoning, the n8n architecture offers a significant structural advantage today.
When to choose which one? The verdict
There is no universal “best tool”, there is the right tool for your business context. Based on our experience implementing digital solutions, here is our quick decision matrix:
Choose Make si:
- Your marketing or sales team will manage the automations directly.
- You prioritize speed of implementation and ease of use over cost per operation.
- Your workflows are linear and do not handle massive volumes of real-time data.
- You prefer a 100% managed environment in the cloud without worrying about servers.
Choose n8n if:
- You have a technical team or a technology partner (such as Inprofit) that can configure the environment.
- Data privacy is non-negotiable and you need self-hosting.
- You are going to process large volumes of data and the cost per Make operation is unfeasible.
- You are developing complex AI agents that require advanced memory management and thought chains (LangChain).
The importance of a unified data architecture
Beyond the tool, the success of automation lies in the strategy. It’s no use having the best engine if the fuel (your data) is of poor quality or if the roads (your processes) are broken.
The drop in visibility that many companies suffered in the 2025 Core Update taught us that quality and structure are everything. The same applies to your internal operations. Poor automation only makes you make mistakes at breakneck speed.
At Inprofit, we don’t marry a tool; we marry results. We analyze your current infrastructure, your business objectives and design an automation architecture that scales with you, whether using the visual agility of Make or the raw power of n8n.
The question is not whether you should automate, but how much money you are losing every day you spend doing manual tasks that an AI could solve in milliseconds.
Ready to transform your operational efficiency?
Technology moves fast, but your business can move even faster. If you feel overwhelmed by the technical choice or know that your current processes are holding you back, it’s time to talk to experts who understand both the code and the business.
At Inprofit, we are specialists in auditing, designing and implementing customized automation ecosystems. Don’t let analysis paralysis stop you.
