4 ms·

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really rep

by seer 1y ago

While n8n is amazing for the odd office automation and giving semi-technical people an enormously powerful tool to get things done, it seems it can’t really replace a real backend, and mostly because of the n8n team choices than any technology. We were trailing it and wanted to essentially switch our entire backend to it - and technically it seemed to be able to do the job, but their licensing turned out to not be a fit. For a moderately used app we very quickly burned through their “executions” that were allotted by our license - and that’s where we host it ourselves, configuring and paying for the servers, load balancers, key value store and database, with its failovers and backups. So the license was to use it on top of all that, and even their highest enterprise license was cutting it close, and if you “run out” of these executions, the service just stops working … And all of that would have been fair if it was hosted, but sounds ludicrous to me for something we self host. I think it is an incredible piece of tech, but just not suited for a dynamic startup, and once we spent the time to code up the alternative paths for our use cases, it no longer made sense to use n8n at all, as we mostly solved all the problems it was helping us with.

jitl 1y ago
Surely you can negotiate an unlimited amount of executions?
- spwa4 1y ago
  Only by installing nodeRED.
- kristopherleads 1y ago
  You could, but then you start getting into additional costs, controlling how much of your metrics are surfaced vs. kept internal, etc. At that point, why not just go for another solution? Like you could make a car like a truck, but why not just buy a truck in the first place?
  - jitl 1y ago
    It's more like they sell a truck, but disable it remotely if I drive more than 50 miles a day. And I want to drive unlimited miles. > then you start getting into additional costs, controlling how much of your metrics are surfaced vs. kept internal, etc I don't know what this means. In my experience with anything sold B2B, all the terms are negotiable. If you want unlimited everything, you can ask for that.
vini 1y ago
It seems crazy to me that they impose imaginary limits on the self-hosted version, you can have a server that can handle more executions, but the license won't allow it.
- Hobadee 1y ago
  I can see an argument of "well it typically bogs down and stops being performant at X, and we don't want to get a bad rep because people abuse it, so we don't allow anything over X", but that should still be negotiable if you can show you have plenty of horsepower.
  - scns 1y ago
    I understood it as a total amount, not how many executions at the same time.
  - Jalad 1y ago
    Look I love giving people the benefit of the doubt, but that's not why this pricing model exits. It's because they want to capture a percentage of the value delivered, and the easiest way to do that it to charge by executions
- dylan604 1y ago
  People continue to use these limitations. A long time ago when multicore CPUs were new or even systems with multiple CPUs saw vendors charge higher fees to allow their software to run on more than one core/cpu. My first run in with this was transcoding software with the license running ~$5k per core. To them, it was a whole second computer since everything was single threaded, so they felt it was worth twice as much. All it took was for someone else to not charge per core and took away business for that sales model to go the way of the dodo.
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    Huh? Isn't that oracle's business strategy in 2025, still? I mean my current role doesn't put me into these kinds of considerations anymore, but I didn't hear they've changed their ways - so I just thought that's still the way you pay for Oracle DB
rkuodys 1y ago
Facing similar issue with monitoring part of executions. What is your solution if I may as - have you taken smth of the shelf and extended to your needs or did you built from the ground up everything?
- MasterJJ 1y ago
  [dead]
- seer 1y ago
  Honestly we were looking at hatchet / pickaxe - similar vein of a project but more dev focused, but in the end realised our use cases were not all that complex so just built everything in a bespoke manner. We used n8n for two things mostly - AI agents and process automation. For AI we just built own MCP servers, and then the agents are quite easy to use as the major frameworks kinda help you with it. N8N’s AI is kinda just a UI layer for langchain - though we just used google’s adk. For process automation - well there is so much options it’s not even funny.
j45 1y ago
It's an orchestration tool. Backends are a lot more than just orchestration. There are alternatives to n8n depending on your stack of what is being orchestrated. Node-red, and others have quietly existed for a very long time, similar to how n8n existed for a good while before being discovered by the AI world.
- kristopherleads 1y ago
  I guess the bigger question is why use two tools when you can use one? Full disclosure I work at Node-RED/FlowFuse, so take that into consideration, but the point remains - if you need to use both an orchestration tool and a flow management/backend management tool, why not use one solution that does both excellently? I think that's a critical argument that n8n and others will have to overcome - why should users decide to over-specialise one aspect of their stack when they can do so much more and have so much more control elsewhere?
  - j45 1y ago
    I use both.. And yes, both handle calls between different APIs. One for the many, and maybe one for a different audience. Node-red didn't have a login at the time, and was well geared towards direct IoT type flowing. I loved how I can just jump into the logic and flows. N8N has a lot of pre-configured connectors. If Node-red had the pre-configured connectors to different systems as easy as n8n, I think the point here would be even stronger. It's why I use both. I start with the low level, and if orchestration beyond it is needed, I can tie in another tool if needed.
Onavo 1y ago
Well there's always YC's n8n competitor https://www.activepieces.com/ https://www.activepieces.com/ They are open core I think (MIT+enterprise features model)
MasterJJ 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
raheelrjunaid 1y ago
To add onto your concerns, their form nodes and file-blob node are limiting to say the least. I wrote a post on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558489

by seer 1y ago

jitl 1y ago

Surely you can negotiate an unlimited amount of executions?

spwa4 1y ago
Only by installing nodeRED.
kristopherleads 1y ago
You could, but then you start getting into additional costs, controlling how much of your metrics are surfaced vs. kept internal, etc. At that point, why not just go for another solution? Like you could make a car like a truck, but why not just buy a truck in the first place?
- jitl 1y ago
  It's more like they sell a truck, but disable it remotely if I drive more than 50 miles a day. And I want to drive unlimited miles. > then you start getting into additional costs, controlling how much of your metrics are surfaced vs. kept internal, etc I don't know what this means. In my experience with anything sold B2B, all the terms are negotiable. If you want unlimited everything, you can ask for that.

vini 1y ago

It seems crazy to me that they impose imaginary limits on the self-hosted version, you can have a server that can handle more executions, but the license won't allow it.

Hobadee 1y ago
I can see an argument of "well it typically bogs down and stops being performant at X, and we don't want to get a bad rep because people abuse it, so we don't allow anything over X", but that should still be negotiable if you can show you have plenty of horsepower.
- scns 1y ago
  I understood it as a total amount, not how many executions at the same time.
- Jalad 1y ago
  Look I love giving people the benefit of the doubt, but that's not why this pricing model exits. It's because they want to capture a percentage of the value delivered, and the easiest way to do that it to charge by executions
dylan604 1y ago
People continue to use these limitations. A long time ago when multicore CPUs were new or even systems with multiple CPUs saw vendors charge higher fees to allow their software to run on more than one core/cpu. My first run in with this was transcoding software with the license running ~$5k per core. To them, it was a whole second computer since everything was single threaded, so they felt it was worth twice as much. All it took was for someone else to not charge per core and took away business for that sales model to go the way of the dodo.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  Huh? Isn't that oracle's business strategy in 2025, still? I mean my current role doesn't put me into these kinds of considerations anymore, but I didn't hear they've changed their ways - so I just thought that's still the way you pay for Oracle DB

rkuodys 1y ago

Facing similar issue with monitoring part of executions. What is your solution if I may as - have you taken smth of the shelf and extended to your needs or did you built from the ground up everything?

MasterJJ 1y ago
[dead]
seer 1y ago
Honestly we were looking at hatchet / pickaxe - similar vein of a project but more dev focused, but in the end realised our use cases were not all that complex so just built everything in a bespoke manner. We used n8n for two things mostly - AI agents and process automation. For AI we just built own MCP servers, and then the agents are quite easy to use as the major frameworks kinda help you with it. N8N’s AI is kinda just a UI layer for langchain - though we just used google’s adk. For process automation - well there is so much options it’s not even funny.

j45 1y ago

It's an orchestration tool. Backends are a lot more than just orchestration. There are alternatives to n8n depending on your stack of what is being orchestrated. Node-red, and others have quietly existed for a very long time, similar to how n8n existed for a good while before being discovered by the AI world.

kristopherleads 1y ago
I guess the bigger question is why use two tools when you can use one? Full disclosure I work at Node-RED/FlowFuse, so take that into consideration, but the point remains - if you need to use both an orchestration tool and a flow management/backend management tool, why not use one solution that does both excellently? I think that's a critical argument that n8n and others will have to overcome - why should users decide to over-specialise one aspect of their stack when they can do so much more and have so much more control elsewhere?
- j45 1y ago
  I use both.. And yes, both handle calls between different APIs. One for the many, and maybe one for a different audience. Node-red didn't have a login at the time, and was well geared towards direct IoT type flowing. I loved how I can just jump into the logic and flows. N8N has a lot of pre-configured connectors. If Node-red had the pre-configured connectors to different systems as easy as n8n, I think the point here would be even stronger. It's why I use both. I start with the low level, and if orchestration beyond it is needed, I can tie in another tool if needed.

Onavo 1y ago

Well there's always YC's n8n competitor https://www.activepieces.com/ https://www.activepieces.com/ They are open core I think (MIT+enterprise features model)

MasterJJ 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

raheelrjunaid 1y ago

To add onto your concerns, their form nodes and file-blob node are limiting to say the least. I wrote a post on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558489