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N8n.io – Workflow automation alternative to Zapier

728 points by tablet 7y ago

janober 7y ago
Thanks a lot for posting! Even though I had actually planned to post it later myself ;-) Happy to see my project finally live on hacker news! n8n is a free node-based "Open Source" (Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause) Workflow Automation Tool. It can be self-hosted, easily extended, and so also used with internal tools. Currently, there is no hosted version yet but you can sign up on the website if you are interested to get informed once it is ready. I created it initially because I realized that every time I wrote a script to automate a small task it took me a very long time. Depending on the task it normally involved: reading documentation, writing code, committing to Github, deploying on a server, error reporting, SSL, make sure it restarts on a crash, and so on. So even very small tasks took at least half a day or day till everything was up and running properly. Existing Open Source solutions were not up to the task and also commercial ones like Zapier did not work for various reasons. Some being that they do not work well with in-house tools or complicated tasks and it gets expensive quite fast, ... So hope n8n is as helpful for other people as it is for me. Also, all help with further improving the project and create more integrations is very welcome! The project website with the nodes which exist and example workflows: https://n8n.io https://n8n.io You can find the source code on Github: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n The whole project is written in TypeScript and uses Vue for the frontend. So it should be easily extendable for everybody with web development experience. If you have any problems, questions or need an integration which does not exist yet you can post it to the forum: http://community.n8n.io http://community.n8n.io Documentation can be found here: https://docs.n8n.io https://docs.n8n.io Your feedback is highly appreciated! Thanks a lot!! UPDATE: [Sorry are unable to answer any questions right now as it always displays me that I am posting to fast. Will answer as soon as HN allows me!]
- deleted 7y ago
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- ipoopatwork 7y ago
  Looks neat! FYI you have a typo on https://n8n.io/hosting https://n8n.io/hosting you probably meant to s/self-hosted/hosted/
  - janober 7y ago
    Thanks a lot for the info. Is fixed!
- whitehouse3 7y ago
  I'd love to see this on DigitalOcean's app marketplace for self-hosting.
  - canada_dry 7y ago
    https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/category/all https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/category/all Interesting resource. But, how do you filter for just self-hosted... I can't find that as a specific category.
    - whitehouse3 7y ago
      All of the apps are "self-hosted". The marketplace just gives you one-click deploy to a VPS. It's especially convenient if you want to play around without committing to learn the setup bits. I haven't used the marketplace for any long term projects. But it's great for making MVP's.
- deleted 7y ago
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- d4mi3n 7y ago
  Fantastic to see more people getting into this space, and even better to be able to inspect the source code! Who's your target demographic here? I work at a place that was considering using Zapier, but couldn't because the security story around that service didn't really meet requirements we had around legal compliance/regulations (SOC, PCI, etc). Having freely available source to audit + a good security story could make n8n very appealing for back-office enterprise workflows.
  - janober 7y ago
    Thanks! Really great to hear! It is actually one of my target audiences. Thought n8n has something to offer for kind of everybody. The three groups I had in mind were: 1. Private people and small Startups which care about the price 2. Medium-sized companies for which it is important to integrate their inhouse tools 3. Large companies/banks/government which care about their data
    - elliekelly 7y ago
      > 3. Large companies/banks/government which care about their data As someone who left this space just two years ago and is now selling software into it I've been shocked by my users' appetite (appetites?) for self-hosted solutions. It makes me wonder whether SaaS will be short-lived and we'll see highly-regulated industries like finance and healthcare insisting data doesn't leave their servers unless absolutely necessary.
      - d4mi3n 7y ago
        Depends on the org. Highly regulated places like self hosting because keeping data within your own network removes a lot of the legwork for corporate acquisitions processes. If you run a SASS and a regulated business wants to use you, they need to process a whole slew of items: 1. Compliance - are you PCI/SOC/HIPPA compliant? When was your last audit? What were the results? 2. Legal - contracts, business continuity clauses, indemnity, liability around data, etc 3. Security - when was your last penetration test? Do you have a security team? What is your security posture? The list goes on and there is overlap between different corporate concerns. Keeping things on-prem removes many requirements in exchange for taking on the maintainable burden of a product.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  I'm confused, is it self-hosted or not? The website says that a self-hosted solution is on the way, but here you say it can be self-hosted already, and I can't find pricing on your centrally hosted version.
  - penagwin 7y ago
    It is self hosted - he hasn't released a hosted version yet but would like to. The source and documentation for setting it up, using it, and developing with it are already available.
  - janober 7y ago
    Sorry there was a typo on the "hosting" page. Got fixed in the meantime.
- KajMagnus 7y ago
  Interesting project, I like Zapier, and was interested in using this. — What about auto converting to GPL always 3? 4? 5? years into the future? So the current version of the project is guaranteed to become open source eventually, although it always starts as Commons-Clause for a few years. Look at the Business Source license — they do that. (I'm doing the same with my project: AGPL —> GPL some years later.) Best wishes :- )
  - janober 7y ago
    I thought about that. But did not decide yet as I first have to inform myself and think properly about what implications that could have. For example, could it mean a split of the community like what happened for Elasticsearch which is never good for any project.
  - Dayshine 7y ago
    Hey, as someone who works in non commercial, public health research, please consider using a license that doesn't penalise charities. If you're using a dual license model, only rich organisations can use your software in security conscious industries like academic research (open sourcing our whole platform is far too expensive). Please, please, pick a variant of AGPL that allows non commercial use.
    - KajMagnus 7y ago
      I'm confused :- ) Who are you writing to? Me or @janober? Did you mean that n8n could switch to AGPL? All versions of AGPL allow both non-commercial and commercial usage. (And one needs to share-alike one's modifications.) In any case I like the idea to be free for charities and public research :- ) You work with something like that? Is AGPL ok with you, or you're worried it might require you to open-source parts of your platform?
      - Dayshine 7y ago
        You! :) AGPL requires all users to open-source their projects using your work, even if they don't modify your work. It is an extension of GPL not LGPL. If my web application uses an AGPL library, it's a derivative work. I, like many in my field, work in a small team with almost no budget. My current project involves collecting sensitive (medical) data over the internet. The cost and risk involved in open-sourcing our application is prohibitive. However, it's slightly less relevant for your project, as I can't see much value in directly integrating it into another application :) This is more a problem we run into with AGPL libraries, not AGPL applications.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  I see some integrations related to functions. Could you use this as some sort of a self-hosted alternative for AWS Lambda or CloudFlare Workers?
  - janober 7y ago
    Hard to answer that in a general sense. It depends a lot on how you use AWS Lambda. In most cases, I would say no. But possible for a few.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > n8n is a free node-based "Open Source" (Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause) Commons Clause is not Open Source. It is free-of-charge (for certain uses) source-available proprietary software.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - eastendguy 7y ago
    I understand that developers need to earn money for their work. => Another license option to use is the the one of UI.Vision and others: Split the product in an Open-Source core (e. g. GPL license) and a proprietary part for the commercial "PRO" features of the product.
    - janober 7y ago
      Yes is an option but one I would hate to take. It would mean that I have to artificially cripple the product for all users just to eventually earn money from a few. That was the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted that everybody can use it for free which gives the product the chance to get used by very many people and so become amazing for all users over time. So ended up with the Commons Clause as it aligned the most with my vision.
- VvR-Ox 7y ago
  Thank you very much for creating this - I love it! :-D I don't know about all the licensing stuff and will have to evaluate if I can use it for official business but I'm glad I can just use it for my own stuff in private without paying high fees. Don't take the harsh critics about the licensing too personally - I think it's cool that you released your code and thought about Open Source licensing. Keep up the great work!
  - janober 7y ago
    Thanks a lot. That is great to hear! If you are unsure about if you can use it, simply explain what you want to do in an email to "license@n8n.io". The goal with the license was not keeping people from using it. The main goal was to start it in a way to make the project long term sustainable which I thought would be in the interest of all people using it. Also does not mean that people can never use it in a way which the license prohibits by default. It simply means that away has to be found which is beneficial to all sides. So just like anywhere in life.
- johnx123-up 7y ago
  Any comparison with https://www.flogo.io/ https://www.flogo.io/ ?
underyx 7y ago
Might end up difficult to talk about this project. I was pronouncing it "Nathan" till I found the actual name in the docs.
- JanKoenig 7y ago
  haha, same! I can see it eventually being renamed to Nathan
  - underyx 7y ago
    It would have to be Naaaaathan, then.
- janober 7y ago
  haha yes did not invest to much time in naming the project. Had questions about it quite often so added it to the docs very fast ;-)
automatist 7y ago
How is this different from node-red?
- janoberhauser 7y ago
  Node-Red is more low-level. You can already see it in the way it describes itself "Flow-based programming for the Internet of Things". So it is "programming" what n8n does not try to be. In Node-Red they give you as a guideline that you should not write high-level nodes if you can write lower-level ones instead (which could build the higher-level one when combined). Which is totally right for programming but not really to allow none coders to automate things. That is also the reason why there are no Asana, Pipedrive, ... nodes in Node-Red. It is simply not what it is made for. It is perfect for IOT applications but not for higher-level automation tasks. n8n, on the other hand, is probably not the best choice for your IOT application. So it is simply about using the right tool for the task at hand.
- linuxdude314 7y ago
  Node-RED targets a different market than this product and Zapier. Loosely speaking Node-RED has a superset of the functionality this project has, sacrificing customization/generality for simplicity. Zapier and n8n interface with the user via a catalog model. Without needing to know what is going on behind the scenes or seeing any code, a person can follow a recipe and bolt together (certain) APIs to achieve business requirements. The “certain” is an important to note because you will never achieve 100% coverage for your “API glue” for a mid size to large organization “out of the box” with any tool. That being said, if using a tool like any of the above mentioned as a custom workflow engine (knowing you will be writing software from the onset) or as a solution and not a limiting factor or “silver bullet”, they can be very useful! Other tools that can achieve similar results (using Directed Acyclic Graphs, where the nodes represent the execution of your code for a desired pre-programmed task) are Airflow, Flink, NiFi, Dagster, Dagobah, Celery, and many more.
swsieber 7y ago
Nit: This is not open source - it is source available.(THANK-YOU for being upfront about the license though!) Still, I might use this, and thanks for releasing
- janober 7y ago
  Yes you are correct. Wrote an extra section about it here in the docs: https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=license https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=license Great to hear!
  - EvanAnderson 7y ago
    I think it's disingenuous of you to call it "Open Source" and I think the distinction matters to more people than you think it does.
    - swsieber 7y ago
      I think "open source (but not really, there's a small restriction)" sums it up better than "source available", so I can understand framing it that way. OTOH, this is likely to never make it into distro repos anywhere. I also wonder if the author is driving to make a business out of it. So I'd make three points: 1) It does affect distribution 2) It otherwise doesn't materially affect how I would use it 3) It seems a little like asking for contributions to a proprietary project.
      - d4mi3n 7y ago
        Source Available is pretty sweet if you have a paid product you'd like to do detailed audits on. Especially in regulated environments (finance, medicine, etc). Many enterprises prefer a paid service, as such contracts usually come with somebody assuming liability for data on the system and being around to resolve problems you'd otherwise need to distract an in-house team with.
        swsieber 7y ago
fergie 7y ago
At the risk of sounding flippant: the pipe operator.
nubela 7y ago
How are you funded? Because this honestly looks quite complete.
- janoberhauser 7y ago
  I work two days a week for a startup to earn my living and the other time I spend on other projects like n8n. That is why progress is not always as fast as I hope it would be. That is why I also hope to make money with n8n as some point to work full time and make real progress.
  - carltonbanks 7y ago
    Wow how do you do this? Can you divulge the specifics?
  - nubela 7y ago
    Got a donation link? If not, do add it. In the meantime, I will deploy this and test to see how well it works :)
romanovcode 7y ago
Wow, this is a lot of work. Thanks a lot for open-sourcing it!
- janober 7y ago
  Yes it was and still a lot left ;-) But it was worth it as it helps me now every day and will hopefully from now on do the same for other people as well!
- bevax 7y ago
  Only, it is not open sourced: https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=is-n8n-really-open-source https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=is-n8n-really-open-source Deceptive tactics.
rrggrr 7y ago
Zapier has about 1,000 integrations, more than any of their closest competitors and at a price that is far less than others in their space. What you've done here is great! The UX seems better than Zapier and the extensibility & community approach terrific. The key, though, is going to be adding integrations rapidly. I might also stress: - Bulk actions. - Sync actions. And support for other programming languages (eg. python) Hope that helps.
- fillskills 7y ago
  The value definitely seems to be more in getting the integration. Having the integrations OS would be great to make small changes if needed.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  If it's like most things in software (and life), there's probably a long tail of niche/useless integrations in that list.
  - rrggrr 7y ago
    Not really. The integrations are node-up, meaning the SAAS creates its own integration as value-add to its customers; and there's some user growth that emerges from being in their catalog. But, you point is somewhat valid in that many of the integrations tend to be shallow - so apart from a few key functions it can be tough to use them for complex workflows.
- tjbiddle 7y ago
  N8n.io looks amazing. I would absolutely switch over to this if there were more integrations! (Namely: Shopify & Zoho Mail) Half-tempted to dive in and see if I can code something up, but I need to focus on other parts of my business and not dive down the scratch-my-itch dev rabbit hole (again).
  - janober 7y ago
    Thanks a lot! It would be amazing if you would create those integrations but can understand if you have different priorities. In this case, simply add the integrations you need as a request to the forum. Other people can then upvote them and I know what to work on next. For example, already created a request for a Shopify integration myself a month ago which you could simply upvote: https://community.n8n.io/t/shopify-integration/22 https://community.n8n.io/t/shopify-integration/22
shortformblog 7y ago
This looks interesting, though Zapier is a little more intuitive interface-wise. Overall though, nice work!
realty_geek 7y ago
Good god Jan, you are amazing! Liked what you did with "link fish" and "ninja crib" but this takes things to a whole new level. I would love the chance to learn from you!!! Congrats, I'm pretty sure this project will be a big success
- janober 7y ago
  Thanks a lot! But probably not the right person to learn from. But that is one of the great things about the internet that you can now really always learn from the best people in their field thanks to Udemy & co.
frb 7y ago
We're using n8n in production for a month now and are pretty happy with it. Easily extendable and new integrations can be built easily. Also helps that the author works here and is generally a great guy ;-)
- amandana 7y ago
  Same here. Nice work!
fenwick67 7y ago
Nitpick but the commons clause license isn't really "open source" as much as "source-available"
certera 7y ago
I love how you licensed it. I'm seeing a trend in how developers are being thoughtful about the licensing and how it will help monetize their efforts later. Excited to see how this goes.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  Likely badly - this doesn't meet the OSI open source defintion, and while interesting, many developers are reluctant to contribute to various shared source / source available proprietary core products.
  - janober 7y ago
    Which I think is quite interesting. I can totally understand if a person says "I do not want to contribute code to a project for free when somebody else can make money with it". But then they can not contribute code to any OSI approved Open Source licensed project. Because with that license everybody can make money with it. And very often is that somebody the wrong one (like for example Amazon). The only difference with the Commons Clause is that now still somebody can make money. But that somebody is now the entity behind the project. And they normally put that money right back into the project (by for example hiring developers) and make so sure that it improves and stays around a long time. So I personally would prefer to contribute code to a project which uses the Commons Clause then one which does not.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Thank you for picking the license you did. Developers should be able to earn from their hard work, versus having a Goliath cloud provider take it and profit from it without contributing anything back. No need to cater to potential contributors who have no skin in the game, but turn their nose up at a license they don't believe in.
    - ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
      >I can totally understand if a person says "I do not want to contribute code to a project for free when somebody else can make money with it" It's not so much that somebody can make money with it. It's that you, the project maintainer, will be reaping all the monetary benefits for yourself. With open source software theoretically anyone can benefit. If you don't like what the maintainer is doing, you can fork it. In this case, though I believe the commons clause does allow you to fork it, you would still be the one reaping any monetary benefits from the fork. In my opinion the biggest issue with the commons clause is it no longer makes logical sense to fork the project. If the project dies because you couldn't make any money off it, and you don't go back and relicense your work, the code is practically dead as an 'open source' project. Well, that and that the consulting clause seems to be just sitting there waiting for a major court case to decide what it truly means (even the lawyer who led drafting the clause admitted as such [1]). [1] https://github.com/fossas/commons-clause/issues/4#issuecomment-415653257 https://github.com/fossas/commons-clause/issues/4#issuecomme...
bytematic 7y ago
I really don't like when people say they are the "x" of "x" or the alternative to "x", doesn't that just drive people to look at "x". Sure it gets the idea across but there are other words to do that. Otherwise, great looking product
- zeroxfe 7y ago
  It's not always that cut and dry. If X is already well known, it actually has the opposite effect -- it capitalizes off of X's brand and familiarity and drives people to the new product. It's a common technique (that is frequently misused) in marketing and advertising. I don't know if X=Zapier here is that effective, but I recognized it right away, and clicked the link to learn more.
TipiKoivisto 7y ago
This really looks like a great software and seems that the guy behind it knows what his doing. Additionally being open and fair about the licence. I will try it ASAP and wish the project gets BIG.
lyr 7y ago
How do you compare to StackStorm ? You mentioned other similar solutions as less adequate, but I'm curious to get a quick comparison.
- ivoecpereira 7y ago
  This would be a nice addition to the website, comparing the solution with each of its competitors.
orliesaurus 7y ago
Look awesome, and although the license is definitely NOT open source (although you DO say the parts that people care the most are best-effort open source to the community), this has the potential to motivate other people to work on similar projects or suggest improvements to yours. However... The beauty of Zapier relies on its amount of pluggable blocks. I don't think there's anyone in this market that has as many operations as Zapier and using custom blocks you can do pretty much anything. Yes I am totally a fan of Zapier as I have been using it for years! Zapier is like LEGO, there are many clones of LEGO but only one true LEGO (ouch my feet hurt just by thinking about it ;) ) I really hope you can get people to contribute more and more integrations as that's what really matters at the end of the day: The ability to use little or no-code to achieve automation between various platforms!
- zimmund 7y ago
  Zapier is propietary and prohibitively expensive. Yes, I like it -- but I'd rather support small projects like this one, even if it requires a bit more of time.
haywirez 7y ago
Super happy to see this effort and eager to check the code out soon! As someone who relies on a lot of Zapier-style API connections, I’d love to hear more about how people approach it - how you go about managing env vars (keys/token), abstracting similar service procedures (oauth, webhooks) and generally monitoring 3rd party API endpoints for keeping the connections healthy? Any advice from Zapier / IFTTT veterans? Edit: the n8n docs seem good and also address most of my questions [1] [1] https://docs.n8n.io/#/nodes https://docs.n8n.io/#/nodes
- deleted 7y ago
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- janober 7y ago
  Yes, any advice would also be very appreciated from my side. Great to hear that the docs are helpful! They were actually the main reason why I did not launch on Product Hunt/Hackernews earlier. It was very important for me to have something in place which is at least reasonable. Nothing more annoying than bad docs. Anyway, still a lot on my list to add documentation for. But it will get better, I promise!
reilly3000 7y ago
Cool project. One aspect of these integration systems is that the volume and velocity of integration development is one of the main ways they show value. Zapier claims 1500+ integrations, and they have many competitor with similar counts of integrations. Somehow, they always seem to not have that thing I need. I wonder why, in this era of Swagger / OpenAPI / Postman Collections / API Gateways ... why this is so difficult? I feel like there was a promise that integration would become more magical at a rapid clip, but as it stands it just seems like there are more options but no less headaches.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  A lot of APIs don’t support the tooling you mentioned, have all sorts of rough edges (return improper http codes, or don't return them at all), or act...quirky at scale (based on my experience at an automation workflow org). Of course, as APIs improve (OpenAPI, etc), the barrier to entry for all workflow tools declines (which is a good thing!). You're then just serializing and deserializing JSON (or a mutation thereof) between two or more steps. Just as Google makes their Terraform provider a first class citizen by autogenerating the Terraform provider based off of their APIs (Hashiconf 2018 SF talk), so could integration partners for workflow automators. Just takes time for the ecosystem to mature.
- infectoid 7y ago
  Does Datafire meet some of your requirements? https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire I've used it before and it's not too bad.
  - reilly3000 7y ago
    Thanks for sharing, that is definitely compelling. I like that their integrations cover lots of API methods, whereas a lot of simpler services only cover a few.
yboris 7y ago
Sorry unsure, but perhaps this is similar? https://stdlib.com https://stdlib.com > Standard Library: APIs as Building Blocks
royletron 7y ago
Open source or not (I'm so confused) this works really well. Solid job.
- basilgohar 7y ago
  From other comments in this thread, it's apparent this is "source-available" but not "open source" in the sense of a free software [0] or OSI-compatible [1] license. But the usual benefits of free software, like what has been possible with the Linux kernel, GNU software, and so much more, are not going to be possible to the same degree with this software. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [1] https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
CoreyKeller 7y ago
Thanks for this! I was just yesterday looking for good workflow automation tools, and was leaning towards Huginn, but I will definitely check this out.
- janober 7y ago
  Great to hear! If you have any problems simply post them in the forum I try to get back to you asap (sorry, will maybe be right ow longer than normal as I have a lot to follow up right now).
rrggrr 7y ago
Crowded space, but darn few (if any) shared source or community based solutions. Here's a several examples from a market study I did in 2018: Workato, Apiant, Inegromat, Snaplogic, CloudHQ, Boomi, Tibco, Jitterbit, AWS Lambda, Mulesoft, Tray.io, ApacheNiFi, Stringify, Adeptia, Kotive, Cazoomi, Scribesoft and several more. I really think the community angle is unique.
- jonjomckay 7y ago
  I work at Boomi, on their Flow product (similar to this project), and we open source everything in our product, except for our core workflow engine - https://github.com/manywho https://github.com/manywho (our pre-acquisition name if you're wondering). The community part is hard to generate though... there's a lot of enterprise in the workflow space.
  - rrggrr 7y ago
    StandardLib also has a community, though not sure how big it may be. Pricing is a key differentiator. My market research included a pricing analysis and Boomi was priced well above Zapier and other similar solutions. I think there is a LOT of money ceded to less expensive offerings by 10 or 15 providers (including Boomi) all chasing the same enterprise market. I would've expected tiered pricing to emerge to a greater extent, but haven't seen it. I watch this space very closely.
- tarsinge 7y ago
  Thank you for sharing this list. It’s maybe a dumb question but even after looking in some of them I usually fall back on a classic cron job + some Python scripts for automation for the flexibility. What’s the biggest advantage of these services / solutions when you already have some servers available?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Ability for a non-technical user to implement and manage the automation.
  - 7y ago
tmikaeld 7y ago
Do I understand this correctly? - I'm allowed to setup an instance and charge clients to use it. - I'm NOT allowed to host the instance for clients and charge for that hosting.
cristyansv 7y ago
question: if I have a project management software saas, and I want to integrate n8n to make automations (for example: when a task is marked as completed), is the license valid for this use?
- cdolan 7y ago
  Also interested in this example and the answer.
- ron22 7y ago
  Hope this question is answered.
mthoms 7y ago
Can someone possibly summarize why this doesn't fit the strict definition of open source? What important rights are missing?
- Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
  You can't place prohibitions on selling the software or consulting services related to it. The definition of open source is here: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- EvanAnderson 7y ago
  I'm one of the people who subscribes to the Open Source Initiative's definition[1] of the term "Open Source". On that basis, the "Commons Clause" applied to the license of this software discriminates against fields of endeavor. This makes it a "source available" license to me, and not an "Open Source" license. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source-if-the-open-source-initiative-osi-says-it-is-not https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source... Don't lie about being open source. That's what you're doing: lying. https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-youre-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-y... Bullshit. You are being a bad actor in the technology ecosystem and I'm calling you out for it. This behavior is completely and utterly unacceptable. You're gaslighting the open source software community. You may be doublethinking your way into being able to sleep at night, but at the end of the day this is an abhorrent thing for you to do. Even the proponents of the commons clause acknowledge that it's not open source. Cut it out. Your software is "source available" and that's fine. What's not fine is gaslighting your users.
- samcodes 7y ago
  Just registering my disagreement with this position. I think the author is right, most people are going to look at the difference between this license and true FOSS and say "whatever".
  - Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
    You cannot disagree about facts. "Open source" is well defined, the author knows about it, and they're lying about their software's qualifications for it to deliberately mislead users and make themselves more money.
    - frb 7y ago
      1. As was already posted: stop with the hurtful language and accusations toward the author. It’s just sad and disrespectful. 2. It’s not a fact, it’s a definition, as you’re stating it yourself. The thing with definitions and laws is that they can be changed if a majority agrees to do so. Not sure if it’s the case here. You are probably right with the definition, but stop acting like you have the ultimate truth.
- janoberhauser 7y ago
Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
Remember that those who lie about their projects being open source are deliberately gaslighting users because they have a vested interest in tapping into the open source community without giving it the respect that comes with the title. Do not support software like this. https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-youre-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-y... https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source-if-the-open-source-initiative-osi-says-it-is-not https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source...
masukomi 7y ago
> I hereby grant anybody the right to do consulting/support without prior permission as long as it is less than 30.000 USD per year. technical note: USD uses commas to denote thousands. So, in USD 30.000 == $30 which isn't worth the time spent to do the research to pick up the first phone call. Social note: in many US cities $30k isn't enough to survive. In the US it's certainly not enough to live _well_. So, you're basically saying "Hey, I give you permission to make an important contribution to the success and community of this project as long as you're willing to take an absolutely CRAP salary for it." that's.... not really cool. I don't think it should matter how much a support person can make supporting your project. The only way a support person will be crazy successful financially is if your tool is ALSO crazy successful. It's a mutually beneficial situation. Don't limit them. Their success is your success.
- tssva 7y ago
  If you are running a consulting/support business and have your customer download the software then this clause is likely not even enforceable. You would not be distributing or running the software and therefore would not be subject to the terms of the license.
- janober 7y ago
  Sorry for the confusion. The 30k was just some random amount to make it easy for most people. And did honestly not expect that a lot of people's income would come to 100% from n8n. Thought it would be one of multiple things they do and so 30k seemed like more than enough to cover the majority. Additionally did I not mean that they can ever make more. I simply wrote that up to that amount they do not even have to say anything. In the next sentence it additionally says: "If you have bigger things planned simply write an email to license@n8n.io."
  - gault8121 7y ago
    This is very reasonable, and great that you provided those clear guidelines! Too bad the poster above didn't provide the full quote. Great project!
- KajMagnus 7y ago
mdszy 7y ago
Yeah because diluting the definition of open source for personal gain is just whatever, who cares, right?
- anderspitman 7y ago
  My experience is that that genie is already out of the bottle. IMO this project falls under the "open source" umbrella. I know that could mean a number of things. The term is overloaded. Therefore I always check the license in these situations, and this author has gone to great lengths to clarify their position. Assuming someone's intent based on their personal interpretation is wrong.
- judge2020 7y ago
  I don't think the term "open source" shouldn't be controlled by one org (OSI). My personal understanding of open source is fine with the license having "cannot be used as a offering/product by AWS/GCP/Azure" line.
- dang 7y ago
  Please stop. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21196136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21196136 and marked it off-topic.
anderspitman 7y ago
HN usually finds a theme to complain about with any cool project. Looks like this time they picked licensing. Just wanted to say thank you for making this project. I think tech like Zapier/IFTTT are really cool, but I would never trust a closed platform of this sort. But something like n8n I would consider using, because you've provided an escape hatch to lock-in by making the source available. I think it's totally reasonable to prevent other companies from profiting from your work. I also think it falls under the umbrella of "open source". If someone wants a truly FLOSS version of this, they're welcome to make it themselves. But they won't, they'll just complain and keep using n8n, because the licensing is good enough for 99.9% of use cases. EDIT: I just want to point out that there's been some discussion of licensing here which I've personally found interesting and instructive. I've seen several people suggest that there is a definition of the term "open source" that is essentially universally agreed upon (that being the Open Source Initiative definition [0]), and that that is the only valid definition. I've worked in what I consider to be open source for many years, and wasn't aware that such consensus had been reached. My personal views have not changed as of yet, but my paradigm has definitely shifted. I intend to pay closer attention to how others use this term, and carefully attempt to be clear about my usage in the future. Having a single agree-upon definition of things is always valuable, and if that's where we're at I'm all for it. I'm just not convinced yet that it's actually 100% agreed upon. That said, I think the author of n8n was pretty dang clear. [0] https://opensource.org/ https://opensource.org/
- wmsiler 7y ago
  There's a weird trend on HN. For proprietary products (e.g. slack) I rarely see them getting criticized for having a proprietary license. If you are fully open source, then of course they love you. But if you try to strike a compromise and give away a lot while still keeping some licensing terms to let you make money off your creation, then you'll be bombarded by complaints about your licensing.
  - jchw 7y ago
    If Microsoft started calling Windows open source, I would be pretty peeved too. The word open source here is used as a marketing term for a product that isn't in spirit or reality. Yes, the source is available; that's nice, but it's not the same.
johnm 7y ago
In terms of the licensing debate... Did you bother to actually read the Common Clause FAQ? Here are the first 2 FAQ entries: "What is Commons Clause? The Commons Clause is a license condition drafted by Heather Meeker that applies a narrow, minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license to transition the project to a source-availability licensing scheme. The combined text replaces the existing license, allowing all permissions of the original license to remain except the ability to "Sell" the software as defined in the text. This Clause is not intended to replace licenses of existing open source projects in general, but to be used by specific projects to satisfy urgent business or legal requirements without resorting to fully "closing source". Is this “Open Source”? No. “Open source”, has a specific definition that was written years ago and is stewarded by the Open Source Initiative, which approves Open Source licenses. Applying the Commons Clause to an open source project will mean the source code is available, and meets many of the elements of the Open Source Definition, such as free access to source code, freedom to modify, and freedom to re-distribute, but not all of them. So to avoid confusion, it is best not to call Commons Clause software “open source.” "
cosmie 7y ago
This is really neat! I'm generally prohibited from using stuff like Zapier at work, since we handle a lot of client data and passing it through any third party opens up a Pandora's Box of legal reviews. The self-hosted nature of this would bypass a lot of that hassle. Public Service Announcement for anyone at BigCorp: Microsoft has it's own tool in this space called Microsoft Flow[1]. It's not as feature-filled as Zapier, but it works in a pinch and you get access to it automatically as part of an Office/Microsoft 365 license. So unless your corporate IT has gone to great lengths to explicitly disable access to it, you can leverage it to make your life at least a bit easier. [1] https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/
- flowwyy 7y ago
  For companies there are even more alternatives e.g. https://flowground.net https://flowground.net
phonon 7y ago
Have you thought about teaming up with an ESB like https://zato.io/ https://zato.io/ ? Could really help both of you, I think.
chrisweekly 7y ago
Looks awesome!! Bookmarked, planning to play w/ this. Kudos for launching something useful. :)
dsalzman 7y ago
This reminds me a lot of a visual code based data processing tool developed out of the NSA. Apache NiFi. The difficulty with all these low/no code environments is getting scale and maintaining enough widget blocks for it to be productive quickly.
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benoror 7y ago
What are your thoughts on StdLib.com?
andrewflnr 7y ago
I've seen enough of these supposedly non-programmer-friendly interfaces to judge them all guilty until proven innocent (not that many, to be honest, but I am scarred nonetheless). Looking at the video, it's not the worst I've seen. But please, I beg you (the authors here or anyone building a similar product): - Provide first class debugging and dry-run support. Don't make people either run in prod (as the demo video effectively does) or set up full testing environments. - Strict, comprehensible scoping rules. Non-programmers will have more, not less trouble with having named data propagated everywhere for reasons that aren't visually clear. Global state is still bad. - Don't make users think about JSON. - Supply auto-layout. Don't force users to manually reposition things to get a decent layout, and ideally don't let them. The demo video seems to show at least the first half in place, so that's good. - Version control. Possibly via... - Ideally an isomorphically editable text representation. You can switch between graphical and text representations and have changes propagate. Maybe this project checks more of these boxes than I've seen so far. I'm pathologically optimistic, so there's a good chance I'll work with this enough to find out. I don't really know why everyone wants to keep making these benighted flow-chart UIs instead of using the relatively proven Scratch UI model.
- npsomaratna 7y ago
  I'm curious - could you explain what you mean by the "Scratch UI"? I did some searching on Google, but there appear to be several products which use this term. Is this what you meant? https://scratch.mit.edu/developers https://scratch.mit.edu/developers
  - vSanjo 7y ago
    I believe they are talking about that. I've seen that methodology of UI take off lately, too.
  - andrewflnr 7y ago
    Exactly that, yes.
dgrabla 7y ago
Leaving the UI aside, how is this different from Huginn? I have a few Huginn agents running menial tasks, but I find time consuming to debug issues. Does N8n have more connectors? What are the strengths compared with Huginn?

728 points by tablet 7y ago

Thanks a lot for posting! Even though I had actually planned to post it later myself ;-) Happy to see my project finally live on hacker news! n8n is a free node-based "Open Source" (Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause) Workflow Automation Tool. It can be self-hosted, easily extended, and so also used with internal tools. Currently, there is no hosted version yet but you can sign up on the website if you are interested to get informed once it is ready. I created it initially because I realized that every time I wrote a script to automate a small task it took me a very long time. Depending on the task it normally involved: reading documentation, writing code, committing to Github, deploying on a server, error reporting, SSL, make sure it restarts on a crash, and so on. So even very small tasks took at least half a day or day till everything was up and running properly. Existing Open Source solutions were not up to the task and also commercial ones like Zapier did not work for various reasons. Some being that they do not work well with in-house tools or complicated tasks and it gets expensive quite fast, ... So hope n8n is as helpful for other people as it is for me. Also, all help with further improving the project and create more integrations is very welcome! The project website with the nodes which exist and example workflows: https://n8n.io https://n8n.io You can find the source code on Github: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n The whole project is written in TypeScript and uses Vue for the frontend. So it should be easily extendable for everybody with web development experience. If you have any problems, questions or need an integration which does not exist yet you can post it to the forum: http://community.n8n.io http://community.n8n.io Documentation can be found here: https://docs.n8n.io https://docs.n8n.io Your feedback is highly appreciated! Thanks a lot!! UPDATE: [Sorry are unable to answer any questions right now as it always displays me that I am posting to fast. Will answer as soon as HN allows me!]

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ipoopatwork 7y ago
Looks neat! FYI you have a typo on https://n8n.io/hosting https://n8n.io/hosting you probably meant to s/self-hosted/hosted/
- janober 7y ago
  Thanks a lot for the info. Is fixed!
whitehouse3 7y ago
I'd love to see this on DigitalOcean's app marketplace for self-hosting.
- canada_dry 7y ago
  https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/category/all https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/category/all Interesting resource. But, how do you filter for just self-hosted... I can't find that as a specific category.
  - whitehouse3 7y ago
    All of the apps are "self-hosted". The marketplace just gives you one-click deploy to a VPS. It's especially convenient if you want to play around without committing to learn the setup bits. I haven't used the marketplace for any long term projects. But it's great for making MVP's.
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d4mi3n 7y ago
Fantastic to see more people getting into this space, and even better to be able to inspect the source code! Who's your target demographic here? I work at a place that was considering using Zapier, but couldn't because the security story around that service didn't really meet requirements we had around legal compliance/regulations (SOC, PCI, etc). Having freely available source to audit + a good security story could make n8n very appealing for back-office enterprise workflows.
- janober 7y ago
  Thanks! Really great to hear! It is actually one of my target audiences. Thought n8n has something to offer for kind of everybody. The three groups I had in mind were: 1. Private people and small Startups which care about the price 2. Medium-sized companies for which it is important to integrate their inhouse tools 3. Large companies/banks/government which care about their data
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    > 3. Large companies/banks/government which care about their data As someone who left this space just two years ago and is now selling software into it I've been shocked by my users' appetite (appetites?) for self-hosted solutions. It makes me wonder whether SaaS will be short-lived and we'll see highly-regulated industries like finance and healthcare insisting data doesn't leave their servers unless absolutely necessary.
    - d4mi3n 7y ago
      Depends on the org. Highly regulated places like self hosting because keeping data within your own network removes a lot of the legwork for corporate acquisitions processes. If you run a SASS and a regulated business wants to use you, they need to process a whole slew of items: 1. Compliance - are you PCI/SOC/HIPPA compliant? When was your last audit? What were the results? 2. Legal - contracts, business continuity clauses, indemnity, liability around data, etc 3. Security - when was your last penetration test? Do you have a security team? What is your security posture? The list goes on and there is overlap between different corporate concerns. Keeping things on-prem removes many requirements in exchange for taking on the maintainable burden of a product.
hannasanarion 7y ago
I'm confused, is it self-hosted or not? The website says that a self-hosted solution is on the way, but here you say it can be self-hosted already, and I can't find pricing on your centrally hosted version.
- penagwin 7y ago
  It is self hosted - he hasn't released a hosted version yet but would like to. The source and documentation for setting it up, using it, and developing with it are already available.
- janober 7y ago
  Sorry there was a typo on the "hosting" page. Got fixed in the meantime.
KajMagnus 7y ago
Interesting project, I like Zapier, and was interested in using this. — What about auto converting to GPL always 3? 4? 5? years into the future? So the current version of the project is guaranteed to become open source eventually, although it always starts as Commons-Clause for a few years. Look at the Business Source license — they do that. (I'm doing the same with my project: AGPL —> GPL some years later.) Best wishes :- )
- janober 7y ago
  I thought about that. But did not decide yet as I first have to inform myself and think properly about what implications that could have. For example, could it mean a split of the community like what happened for Elasticsearch which is never good for any project.
- Dayshine 7y ago
  Hey, as someone who works in non commercial, public health research, please consider using a license that doesn't penalise charities. If you're using a dual license model, only rich organisations can use your software in security conscious industries like academic research (open sourcing our whole platform is far too expensive). Please, please, pick a variant of AGPL that allows non commercial use.
  - KajMagnus 7y ago
    I'm confused :- ) Who are you writing to? Me or @janober? Did you mean that n8n could switch to AGPL? All versions of AGPL allow both non-commercial and commercial usage. (And one needs to share-alike one's modifications.) In any case I like the idea to be free for charities and public research :- ) You work with something like that? Is AGPL ok with you, or you're worried it might require you to open-source parts of your platform?
    - Dayshine 7y ago
      You! :) AGPL requires all users to open-source their projects using your work, even if they don't modify your work. It is an extension of GPL not LGPL. If my web application uses an AGPL library, it's a derivative work. I, like many in my field, work in a small team with almost no budget. My current project involves collecting sensitive (medical) data over the internet. The cost and risk involved in open-sourcing our application is prohibitive. However, it's slightly less relevant for your project, as I can't see much value in directly integrating it into another application :) This is more a problem we run into with AGPL libraries, not AGPL applications.
anderspitman 7y ago
I see some integrations related to functions. Could you use this as some sort of a self-hosted alternative for AWS Lambda or CloudFlare Workers?
- janober 7y ago
  Hard to answer that in a general sense. It depends a lot on how you use AWS Lambda. In most cases, I would say no. But possible for a few.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> n8n is a free node-based "Open Source" (Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause) Commons Clause is not Open Source. It is free-of-charge (for certain uses) source-available proprietary software.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- eastendguy 7y ago
  I understand that developers need to earn money for their work. => Another license option to use is the the one of UI.Vision and others: Split the product in an Open-Source core (e. g. GPL license) and a proprietary part for the commercial "PRO" features of the product.
  - janober 7y ago
    Yes is an option but one I would hate to take. It would mean that I have to artificially cripple the product for all users just to eventually earn money from a few. That was the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted that everybody can use it for free which gives the product the chance to get used by very many people and so become amazing for all users over time. So ended up with the Commons Clause as it aligned the most with my vision.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
Thank you very much for creating this - I love it! :-D I don't know about all the licensing stuff and will have to evaluate if I can use it for official business but I'm glad I can just use it for my own stuff in private without paying high fees. Don't take the harsh critics about the licensing too personally - I think it's cool that you released your code and thought about Open Source licensing. Keep up the great work!
- janober 7y ago
  Thanks a lot. That is great to hear! If you are unsure about if you can use it, simply explain what you want to do in an email to "license@n8n.io". The goal with the license was not keeping people from using it. The main goal was to start it in a way to make the project long term sustainable which I thought would be in the interest of all people using it. Also does not mean that people can never use it in a way which the license prohibits by default. It simply means that away has to be found which is beneficial to all sides. So just like anywhere in life.
johnx123-up 7y ago
Any comparison with https://www.flogo.io/ https://www.flogo.io/ ?

underyx 7y ago

Might end up difficult to talk about this project. I was pronouncing it "Nathan" till I found the actual name in the docs.

JanKoenig 7y ago
haha, same! I can see it eventually being renamed to Nathan
- underyx 7y ago
  It would have to be Naaaaathan, then.
janober 7y ago
haha yes did not invest to much time in naming the project. Had questions about it quite often so added it to the docs very fast ;-)

automatist 7y ago

How is this different from node-red?

janoberhauser 7y ago
Node-Red is more low-level. You can already see it in the way it describes itself "Flow-based programming for the Internet of Things". So it is "programming" what n8n does not try to be. In Node-Red they give you as a guideline that you should not write high-level nodes if you can write lower-level ones instead (which could build the higher-level one when combined). Which is totally right for programming but not really to allow none coders to automate things. That is also the reason why there are no Asana, Pipedrive, ... nodes in Node-Red. It is simply not what it is made for. It is perfect for IOT applications but not for higher-level automation tasks. n8n, on the other hand, is probably not the best choice for your IOT application. So it is simply about using the right tool for the task at hand.
linuxdude314 7y ago
Node-RED targets a different market than this product and Zapier. Loosely speaking Node-RED has a superset of the functionality this project has, sacrificing customization/generality for simplicity. Zapier and n8n interface with the user via a catalog model. Without needing to know what is going on behind the scenes or seeing any code, a person can follow a recipe and bolt together (certain) APIs to achieve business requirements. The “certain” is an important to note because you will never achieve 100% coverage for your “API glue” for a mid size to large organization “out of the box” with any tool. That being said, if using a tool like any of the above mentioned as a custom workflow engine (knowing you will be writing software from the onset) or as a solution and not a limiting factor or “silver bullet”, they can be very useful! Other tools that can achieve similar results (using Directed Acyclic Graphs, where the nodes represent the execution of your code for a desired pre-programmed task) are Airflow, Flink, NiFi, Dagster, Dagobah, Celery, and many more.

swsieber 7y ago

Nit: This is not open source - it is source available.(THANK-YOU for being upfront about the license though!) Still, I might use this, and thanks for releasing

janober 7y ago
Yes you are correct. Wrote an extra section about it here in the docs: https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=license https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=license Great to hear!
- EvanAnderson 7y ago
  I think it's disingenuous of you to call it "Open Source" and I think the distinction matters to more people than you think it does.
  - swsieber 7y ago
    I think "open source (but not really, there's a small restriction)" sums it up better than "source available", so I can understand framing it that way. OTOH, this is likely to never make it into distro repos anywhere. I also wonder if the author is driving to make a business out of it. So I'd make three points: 1) It does affect distribution 2) It otherwise doesn't materially affect how I would use it 3) It seems a little like asking for contributions to a proprietary project.
    - d4mi3n 7y ago
      Source Available is pretty sweet if you have a paid product you'd like to do detailed audits on. Especially in regulated environments (finance, medicine, etc). Many enterprises prefer a paid service, as such contracts usually come with somebody assuming liability for data on the system and being around to resolve problems you'd otherwise need to distract an in-house team with.
      - swsieber 7y ago

fergie 7y ago

At the risk of sounding flippant: the pipe operator.

nubela 7y ago

How are you funded? Because this honestly looks quite complete.

janoberhauser 7y ago
I work two days a week for a startup to earn my living and the other time I spend on other projects like n8n. That is why progress is not always as fast as I hope it would be. That is why I also hope to make money with n8n as some point to work full time and make real progress.
- carltonbanks 7y ago
  Wow how do you do this? Can you divulge the specifics?
- nubela 7y ago
  Got a donation link? If not, do add it. In the meantime, I will deploy this and test to see how well it works :)

romanovcode 7y ago

Wow, this is a lot of work. Thanks a lot for open-sourcing it!

janober 7y ago
Yes it was and still a lot left ;-) But it was worth it as it helps me now every day and will hopefully from now on do the same for other people as well!
bevax 7y ago
Only, it is not open sourced: https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=is-n8n-really-open-source https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=is-n8n-really-open-source Deceptive tactics.

rrggrr 7y ago

Zapier has about 1,000 integrations, more than any of their closest competitors and at a price that is far less than others in their space. What you've done here is great! The UX seems better than Zapier and the extensibility & community approach terrific. The key, though, is going to be adding integrations rapidly. I might also stress: - Bulk actions. - Sync actions. And support for other programming languages (eg. python) Hope that helps.

fillskills 7y ago
The value definitely seems to be more in getting the integration. Having the integrations OS would be great to make small changes if needed.
anderspitman 7y ago
If it's like most things in software (and life), there's probably a long tail of niche/useless integrations in that list.
- rrggrr 7y ago
  Not really. The integrations are node-up, meaning the SAAS creates its own integration as value-add to its customers; and there's some user growth that emerges from being in their catalog. But, you point is somewhat valid in that many of the integrations tend to be shallow - so apart from a few key functions it can be tough to use them for complex workflows.
tjbiddle 7y ago
N8n.io looks amazing. I would absolutely switch over to this if there were more integrations! (Namely: Shopify & Zoho Mail) Half-tempted to dive in and see if I can code something up, but I need to focus on other parts of my business and not dive down the scratch-my-itch dev rabbit hole (again).
- janober 7y ago
  Thanks a lot! It would be amazing if you would create those integrations but can understand if you have different priorities. In this case, simply add the integrations you need as a request to the forum. Other people can then upvote them and I know what to work on next. For example, already created a request for a Shopify integration myself a month ago which you could simply upvote: https://community.n8n.io/t/shopify-integration/22 https://community.n8n.io/t/shopify-integration/22

shortformblog 7y ago

This looks interesting, though Zapier is a little more intuitive interface-wise. Overall though, nice work!

realty_geek 7y ago

Good god Jan, you are amazing! Liked what you did with "link fish" and "ninja crib" but this takes things to a whole new level. I would love the chance to learn from you!!! Congrats, I'm pretty sure this project will be a big success

janober 7y ago
Thanks a lot! But probably not the right person to learn from. But that is one of the great things about the internet that you can now really always learn from the best people in their field thanks to Udemy & co.

frb 7y ago

We're using n8n in production for a month now and are pretty happy with it. Easily extendable and new integrations can be built easily. Also helps that the author works here and is generally a great guy ;-)

amandana 7y ago
Same here. Nice work!

fenwick67 7y ago

Nitpick but the commons clause license isn't really "open source" as much as "source-available"

certera 7y ago

I love how you licensed it. I'm seeing a trend in how developers are being thoughtful about the licensing and how it will help monetize their efforts later. Excited to see how this goes.

privateSFacct 7y ago
Likely badly - this doesn't meet the OSI open source defintion, and while interesting, many developers are reluctant to contribute to various shared source / source available proprietary core products.
- janober 7y ago
  Which I think is quite interesting. I can totally understand if a person says "I do not want to contribute code to a project for free when somebody else can make money with it". But then they can not contribute code to any OSI approved Open Source licensed project. Because with that license everybody can make money with it. And very often is that somebody the wrong one (like for example Amazon). The only difference with the Commons Clause is that now still somebody can make money. But that somebody is now the entity behind the project. And they normally put that money right back into the project (by for example hiring developers) and make so sure that it improves and stays around a long time. So I personally would prefer to contribute code to a project which uses the Commons Clause then one which does not.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Thank you for picking the license you did. Developers should be able to earn from their hard work, versus having a Goliath cloud provider take it and profit from it without contributing anything back. No need to cater to potential contributors who have no skin in the game, but turn their nose up at a license they don't believe in.
  - ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
    >I can totally understand if a person says "I do not want to contribute code to a project for free when somebody else can make money with it" It's not so much that somebody can make money with it. It's that you, the project maintainer, will be reaping all the monetary benefits for yourself. With open source software theoretically anyone can benefit. If you don't like what the maintainer is doing, you can fork it. In this case, though I believe the commons clause does allow you to fork it, you would still be the one reaping any monetary benefits from the fork. In my opinion the biggest issue with the commons clause is it no longer makes logical sense to fork the project. If the project dies because you couldn't make any money off it, and you don't go back and relicense your work, the code is practically dead as an 'open source' project. Well, that and that the consulting clause seems to be just sitting there waiting for a major court case to decide what it truly means (even the lawyer who led drafting the clause admitted as such [1]). [1] https://github.com/fossas/commons-clause/issues/4#issuecomment-415653257 https://github.com/fossas/commons-clause/issues/4#issuecomme...

bytematic 7y ago

I really don't like when people say they are the "x" of "x" or the alternative to "x", doesn't that just drive people to look at "x". Sure it gets the idea across but there are other words to do that. Otherwise, great looking product

zeroxfe 7y ago
It's not always that cut and dry. If X is already well known, it actually has the opposite effect -- it capitalizes off of X's brand and familiarity and drives people to the new product. It's a common technique (that is frequently misused) in marketing and advertising. I don't know if X=Zapier here is that effective, but I recognized it right away, and clicked the link to learn more.

TipiKoivisto 7y ago

This really looks like a great software and seems that the guy behind it knows what his doing. Additionally being open and fair about the licence. I will try it ASAP and wish the project gets BIG.

lyr 7y ago

How do you compare to StackStorm ? You mentioned other similar solutions as less adequate, but I'm curious to get a quick comparison.

ivoecpereira 7y ago
This would be a nice addition to the website, comparing the solution with each of its competitors.

orliesaurus 7y ago

Look awesome, and although the license is definitely NOT open source (although you DO say the parts that people care the most are best-effort open source to the community), this has the potential to motivate other people to work on similar projects or suggest improvements to yours. However... The beauty of Zapier relies on its amount of pluggable blocks. I don't think there's anyone in this market that has as many operations as Zapier and using custom blocks you can do pretty much anything. Yes I am totally a fan of Zapier as I have been using it for years! Zapier is like LEGO, there are many clones of LEGO but only one true LEGO (ouch my feet hurt just by thinking about it ;) ) I really hope you can get people to contribute more and more integrations as that's what really matters at the end of the day: The ability to use little or no-code to achieve automation between various platforms!

zimmund 7y ago
Zapier is propietary and prohibitively expensive. Yes, I like it -- but I'd rather support small projects like this one, even if it requires a bit more of time.

haywirez 7y ago

Super happy to see this effort and eager to check the code out soon! As someone who relies on a lot of Zapier-style API connections, I’d love to hear more about how people approach it - how you go about managing env vars (keys/token), abstracting similar service procedures (oauth, webhooks) and generally monitoring 3rd party API endpoints for keeping the connections healthy? Any advice from Zapier / IFTTT veterans? Edit: the n8n docs seem good and also address most of my questions [1] [1] https://docs.n8n.io/#/nodes https://docs.n8n.io/#/nodes

deleted 7y ago
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janober 7y ago
Yes, any advice would also be very appreciated from my side. Great to hear that the docs are helpful! They were actually the main reason why I did not launch on Product Hunt/Hackernews earlier. It was very important for me to have something in place which is at least reasonable. Nothing more annoying than bad docs. Anyway, still a lot on my list to add documentation for. But it will get better, I promise!

reilly3000 7y ago

Cool project. One aspect of these integration systems is that the volume and velocity of integration development is one of the main ways they show value. Zapier claims 1500+ integrations, and they have many competitor with similar counts of integrations. Somehow, they always seem to not have that thing I need. I wonder why, in this era of Swagger / OpenAPI / Postman Collections / API Gateways ... why this is so difficult? I feel like there was a promise that integration would become more magical at a rapid clip, but as it stands it just seems like there are more options but no less headaches.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
A lot of APIs don’t support the tooling you mentioned, have all sorts of rough edges (return improper http codes, or don't return them at all), or act...quirky at scale (based on my experience at an automation workflow org). Of course, as APIs improve (OpenAPI, etc), the barrier to entry for all workflow tools declines (which is a good thing!). You're then just serializing and deserializing JSON (or a mutation thereof) between two or more steps. Just as Google makes their Terraform provider a first class citizen by autogenerating the Terraform provider based off of their APIs (Hashiconf 2018 SF talk), so could integration partners for workflow automators. Just takes time for the ecosystem to mature.
infectoid 7y ago
Does Datafire meet some of your requirements? https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire I've used it before and it's not too bad.
- reilly3000 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing, that is definitely compelling. I like that their integrations cover lots of API methods, whereas a lot of simpler services only cover a few.

yboris 7y ago

Sorry unsure, but perhaps this is similar? https://stdlib.com https://stdlib.com > Standard Library: APIs as Building Blocks

royletron 7y ago

Open source or not (I'm so confused) this works really well. Solid job.

basilgohar 7y ago
From other comments in this thread, it's apparent this is "source-available" but not "open source" in the sense of a free software [0] or OSI-compatible [1] license. But the usual benefits of free software, like what has been possible with the Linux kernel, GNU software, and so much more, are not going to be possible to the same degree with this software. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [1] https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

CoreyKeller 7y ago

Thanks for this! I was just yesterday looking for good workflow automation tools, and was leaning towards Huginn, but I will definitely check this out.

janober 7y ago
Great to hear! If you have any problems simply post them in the forum I try to get back to you asap (sorry, will maybe be right ow longer than normal as I have a lot to follow up right now).

rrggrr 7y ago

Crowded space, but darn few (if any) shared source or community based solutions. Here's a several examples from a market study I did in 2018: Workato, Apiant, Inegromat, Snaplogic, CloudHQ, Boomi, Tibco, Jitterbit, AWS Lambda, Mulesoft, Tray.io, ApacheNiFi, Stringify, Adeptia, Kotive, Cazoomi, Scribesoft and several more. I really think the community angle is unique.

jonjomckay 7y ago
I work at Boomi, on their Flow product (similar to this project), and we open source everything in our product, except for our core workflow engine - https://github.com/manywho https://github.com/manywho (our pre-acquisition name if you're wondering). The community part is hard to generate though... there's a lot of enterprise in the workflow space.
- rrggrr 7y ago
  StandardLib also has a community, though not sure how big it may be. Pricing is a key differentiator. My market research included a pricing analysis and Boomi was priced well above Zapier and other similar solutions. I think there is a LOT of money ceded to less expensive offerings by 10 or 15 providers (including Boomi) all chasing the same enterprise market. I would've expected tiered pricing to emerge to a greater extent, but haven't seen it. I watch this space very closely.
tarsinge 7y ago
Thank you for sharing this list. It’s maybe a dumb question but even after looking in some of them I usually fall back on a classic cron job + some Python scripts for automation for the flexibility. What’s the biggest advantage of these services / solutions when you already have some servers available?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Ability for a non-technical user to implement and manage the automation.
- 7y ago

tmikaeld 7y ago

Do I understand this correctly? - I'm allowed to setup an instance and charge clients to use it. - I'm NOT allowed to host the instance for clients and charge for that hosting.

cristyansv 7y ago

question: if I have a project management software saas, and I want to integrate n8n to make automations (for example: when a task is marked as completed), is the license valid for this use?

cdolan 7y ago
Also interested in this example and the answer.
ron22 7y ago
Hope this question is answered.

mthoms 7y ago

Can someone possibly summarize why this doesn't fit the strict definition of open source? What important rights are missing?

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
You can't place prohibitions on selling the software or consulting services related to it. The definition of open source is here: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
EvanAnderson 7y ago
I'm one of the people who subscribes to the Open Source Initiative's definition[1] of the term "Open Source". On that basis, the "Commons Clause" applied to the license of this software discriminates against fields of endeavor. This makes it a "source available" license to me, and not an "Open Source" license. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

deleted 7y ago

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Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago

https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source-if-the-open-source-initiative-osi-says-it-is-not https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source... Don't lie about being open source. That's what you're doing: lying. https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-youre-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-y... Bullshit. You are being a bad actor in the technology ecosystem and I'm calling you out for it. This behavior is completely and utterly unacceptable. You're gaslighting the open source software community. You may be doublethinking your way into being able to sleep at night, but at the end of the day this is an abhorrent thing for you to do. Even the proponents of the commons clause acknowledge that it's not open source. Cut it out. Your software is "source available" and that's fine. What's not fine is gaslighting your users.

samcodes 7y ago
Just registering my disagreement with this position. I think the author is right, most people are going to look at the difference between this license and true FOSS and say "whatever".
- Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
  You cannot disagree about facts. "Open source" is well defined, the author knows about it, and they're lying about their software's qualifications for it to deliberately mislead users and make themselves more money.
  - frb 7y ago
    1. As was already posted: stop with the hurtful language and accusations toward the author. It’s just sad and disrespectful. 2. It’s not a fact, it’s a definition, as you’re stating it yourself. The thing with definitions and laws is that they can be changed if a majority agrees to do so. Not sure if it’s the case here. You are probably right with the definition, but stop acting like you have the ultimate truth.
janoberhauser 7y ago

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago

Remember that those who lie about their projects being open source are deliberately gaslighting users because they have a vested interest in tapping into the open source community without giving it the respect that comes with the title. Do not support software like this. https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-youre-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/30/Its-not-okay-to-pretend-y... https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source-if-the-open-source-initiative-osi-says-it-is-not https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=why-do-you-call-n8n-open-source...

masukomi 7y ago

> I hereby grant anybody the right to do consulting/support without prior permission as long as it is less than 30.000 USD per year. technical note: USD uses commas to denote thousands. So, in USD 30.000 == $30 which isn't worth the time spent to do the research to pick up the first phone call. Social note: in many US cities $30k isn't enough to survive. In the US it's certainly not enough to live _well_. So, you're basically saying "Hey, I give you permission to make an important contribution to the success and community of this project as long as you're willing to take an absolutely CRAP salary for it." that's.... not really cool. I don't think it should matter how much a support person can make supporting your project. The only way a support person will be crazy successful financially is if your tool is ALSO crazy successful. It's a mutually beneficial situation. Don't limit them. Their success is your success.

tssva 7y ago
If you are running a consulting/support business and have your customer download the software then this clause is likely not even enforceable. You would not be distributing or running the software and therefore would not be subject to the terms of the license.
janober 7y ago
Sorry for the confusion. The 30k was just some random amount to make it easy for most people. And did honestly not expect that a lot of people's income would come to 100% from n8n. Thought it would be one of multiple things they do and so 30k seemed like more than enough to cover the majority. Additionally did I not mean that they can ever make more. I simply wrote that up to that amount they do not even have to say anything. In the next sentence it additionally says: "If you have bigger things planned simply write an email to license@n8n.io."
- gault8121 7y ago
  This is very reasonable, and great that you provided those clear guidelines! Too bad the poster above didn't provide the full quote. Great project!
KajMagnus 7y ago

mdszy 7y ago

Yeah because diluting the definition of open source for personal gain is just whatever, who cares, right?

anderspitman 7y ago
My experience is that that genie is already out of the bottle. IMO this project falls under the "open source" umbrella. I know that could mean a number of things. The term is overloaded. Therefore I always check the license in these situations, and this author has gone to great lengths to clarify their position. Assuming someone's intent based on their personal interpretation is wrong.
judge2020 7y ago
I don't think the term "open source" shouldn't be controlled by one org (OSI). My personal understanding of open source is fine with the license having "cannot be used as a offering/product by AWS/GCP/Azure" line.
dang 7y ago
Please stop. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21196136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21196136 and marked it off-topic.

anderspitman 7y ago

HN usually finds a theme to complain about with any cool project. Looks like this time they picked licensing. Just wanted to say thank you for making this project. I think tech like Zapier/IFTTT are really cool, but I would never trust a closed platform of this sort. But something like n8n I would consider using, because you've provided an escape hatch to lock-in by making the source available. I think it's totally reasonable to prevent other companies from profiting from your work. I also think it falls under the umbrella of "open source". If someone wants a truly FLOSS version of this, they're welcome to make it themselves. But they won't, they'll just complain and keep using n8n, because the licensing is good enough for 99.9% of use cases. EDIT: I just want to point out that there's been some discussion of licensing here which I've personally found interesting and instructive. I've seen several people suggest that there is a definition of the term "open source" that is essentially universally agreed upon (that being the Open Source Initiative definition [0]), and that that is the only valid definition. I've worked in what I consider to be open source for many years, and wasn't aware that such consensus had been reached. My personal views have not changed as of yet, but my paradigm has definitely shifted. I intend to pay closer attention to how others use this term, and carefully attempt to be clear about my usage in the future. Having a single agree-upon definition of things is always valuable, and if that's where we're at I'm all for it. I'm just not convinced yet that it's actually 100% agreed upon. That said, I think the author of n8n was pretty dang clear. [0] https://opensource.org/ https://opensource.org/

wmsiler 7y ago
There's a weird trend on HN. For proprietary products (e.g. slack) I rarely see them getting criticized for having a proprietary license. If you are fully open source, then of course they love you. But if you try to strike a compromise and give away a lot while still keeping some licensing terms to let you make money off your creation, then you'll be bombarded by complaints about your licensing.
- jchw 7y ago
  If Microsoft started calling Windows open source, I would be pretty peeved too. The word open source here is used as a marketing term for a product that isn't in spirit or reality. Yes, the source is available; that's nice, but it's not the same.

johnm 7y ago

In terms of the licensing debate... Did you bother to actually read the Common Clause FAQ? Here are the first 2 FAQ entries: "What is Commons Clause? The Commons Clause is a license condition drafted by Heather Meeker that applies a narrow, minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license to transition the project to a source-availability licensing scheme. The combined text replaces the existing license, allowing all permissions of the original license to remain except the ability to "Sell" the software as defined in the text. This Clause is not intended to replace licenses of existing open source projects in general, but to be used by specific projects to satisfy urgent business or legal requirements without resorting to fully "closing source". Is this “Open Source”? No. “Open source”, has a specific definition that was written years ago and is stewarded by the Open Source Initiative, which approves Open Source licenses. Applying the Commons Clause to an open source project will mean the source code is available, and meets many of the elements of the Open Source Definition, such as free access to source code, freedom to modify, and freedom to re-distribute, but not all of them. So to avoid confusion, it is best not to call Commons Clause software “open source.” "

cosmie 7y ago

This is really neat! I'm generally prohibited from using stuff like Zapier at work, since we handle a lot of client data and passing it through any third party opens up a Pandora's Box of legal reviews. The self-hosted nature of this would bypass a lot of that hassle. Public Service Announcement for anyone at BigCorp: Microsoft has it's own tool in this space called Microsoft Flow[1]. It's not as feature-filled as Zapier, but it works in a pinch and you get access to it automatically as part of an Office/Microsoft 365 license. So unless your corporate IT has gone to great lengths to explicitly disable access to it, you can leverage it to make your life at least a bit easier. [1] https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

flowwyy 7y ago
For companies there are even more alternatives e.g. https://flowground.net https://flowground.net

phonon 7y ago

Have you thought about teaming up with an ESB like https://zato.io/ https://zato.io/ ? Could really help both of you, I think.

chrisweekly 7y ago

Looks awesome!! Bookmarked, planning to play w/ this. Kudos for launching something useful. :)

dsalzman 7y ago

This reminds me a lot of a visual code based data processing tool developed out of the NSA. Apache NiFi. The difficulty with all these low/no code environments is getting scale and maintaining enough widget blocks for it to be productive quickly.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

benoror 7y ago

What are your thoughts on StdLib.com?

andrewflnr 7y ago

I've seen enough of these supposedly non-programmer-friendly interfaces to judge them all guilty until proven innocent (not that many, to be honest, but I am scarred nonetheless). Looking at the video, it's not the worst I've seen. But please, I beg you (the authors here or anyone building a similar product): - Provide first class debugging and dry-run support. Don't make people either run in prod (as the demo video effectively does) or set up full testing environments. - Strict, comprehensible scoping rules. Non-programmers will have more, not less trouble with having named data propagated everywhere for reasons that aren't visually clear. Global state is still bad. - Don't make users think about JSON. - Supply auto-layout. Don't force users to manually reposition things to get a decent layout, and ideally don't let them. The demo video seems to show at least the first half in place, so that's good. - Version control. Possibly via... - Ideally an isomorphically editable text representation. You can switch between graphical and text representations and have changes propagate. Maybe this project checks more of these boxes than I've seen so far. I'm pathologically optimistic, so there's a good chance I'll work with this enough to find out. I don't really know why everyone wants to keep making these benighted flow-chart UIs instead of using the relatively proven Scratch UI model.

npsomaratna 7y ago
I'm curious - could you explain what you mean by the "Scratch UI"? I did some searching on Google, but there appear to be several products which use this term. Is this what you meant? https://scratch.mit.edu/developers https://scratch.mit.edu/developers
- vSanjo 7y ago
  I believe they are talking about that. I've seen that methodology of UI take off lately, too.
- andrewflnr 7y ago
  Exactly that, yes.

dgrabla 7y ago

Leaving the UI aside, how is this different from Huginn? I have a few Huginn agents running menial tasks, but I find time consuming to debug issues. Does N8n have more connectors? What are the strengths compared with Huginn?