What is n8n?

If you have spent any time at all in AI circles, or overheard someone bragging about their latest workflow on a train, you have probably heard about n8n.

I’m going to say straight off the bat, I am a fan of n8n. 

I think it is refreshing to find an open source, easy to use tool with such a wide range of genuinely useful applications. 

But my opinion isn’t important right now so lets dive straight in with: 

n8n is a workflow automation tool.

Specifically, it is a tool that lets you connect different apps and services together, so that you can automate processes.

n8n is open source, meaning that anyone can self-host the software on their own servers and use it for virtually zero costs.

*For anyone wanting to avoid this step, they also offer a cloud version with a monthly subscription fee. 

n8n was founded in 2019 in Berlin (my home!) by Jan Oberhauser.

Originally n8n was called “nodemation” based on its core principles of “nodes” + “automation”.

But it became clear that this was a bit of a mouthful and so the name was shortened, literally, to n8n.

Fun fact: If you look closely, you can see eight letters between the two “n”s in “nodemation.”

n [eight letters] n → n8n

Pretty cool I thought.

n8n is used for automating processes. So doing things automatically that you would usually have to do manually yourself.

Let's see an example:

Say you have a form on your website. Every time someone fills it in, you want to:

Three tools are at play here: Google Sheets, Gmail and Slack. +

Normally you would just have to do everything yourself. Opening each tool individually and manually copying things over.

With n8n, you set up a workflow which connects these tools together, allowing information to flow between them.  

Now, each time a form is filled in, instead of manually completing the task, your n8n workflow is “triggered” and the task is performed automatically.

When I first heard of n8n I thought - hmm OK but aren’t there already loads of tools out there that can do stuff like this? Zapier? Power Automate? 

I can honestly say I have never heard someone fan-boying over Zapier. So why is n8n so hot right now?

The answer is yes, there are already workflow automation tools out there, some of which have been around for much longer than n8n.

But n8n did a few things differently and people are here for it:

This is a big one as more and more people are AI “hobby-ists” than actual developers. 

You don’t want to fork out a lot of money for a subscription when you are just playing around a bit at home. 

Tools from big tech players tend to be expensive once you get going and usually not very customisable. 

n8n is popular because it is open source, meaning anyone can create and run workflows virtually for free*

(They do offer a cloud version for a monthly fee for those who don’t want the hassle of setting up self-hosting)

Turns out people really love free stuff.

Spoiler - AI is sort of the in-thing right now.

n8n has become a bit of a go-to in the AI world specifically because it lets you plug AI models, like Claude or ChatGPT, directly into your workflows.

This means that n8n can be used to make AI agents, AI powered automated workflows - all those things that get project managers salivating at the mouth.

Nowadays, everyone is a vibe coder. 

(My partner whips up a new app whenever the mood strikes him. As a software developer who spent years learning about memory and pointers, this is VERY annoying to me.)

Access to AI and other technology has never been easier. Thanks to AI you don’t need to be able to write code to use AI tools or create AI applications. 

This means that more and more people want to try their hand at building cool things with AI.

Code be damned!

N8n really capitalized on this wave of “hobby”-coders by making a platform that is low-code and really intuitive to use.  

n8n works using a visual drag-and-drop editor. You click, and connect things. There are also hundreds of pre-built workflow templates you can just grab and tweak.

(Being honest though, I have to admit that the more technical you are, the more you can get out of it. If you can write a bit of JavaScript or Python, you can add custom logic and get more from the tool.

But saying that, you can also use AI to help you with the coding part. So… yeah, it’s probably fine either way.)

I mentioned before an example of a workflow you could build using n8n (form comes in -> gets processed) but how exactly does n8n do this?

Let’s take a quick look at two important components of n8n:

A workflow in n8n is made up of individual steps called nodes where each node does one specific job.

The“workflow is usually describing the task that you are trying to automate. 

E.g. I might have one workflow which sends me automatic daily reminders to do something and another workflow for handling my emails.

(Some tasks might need to be split between two or more workflows, but generally speaking, I think of workflows as individual processes.)

I said just now that workflows are made up of nodes and really nodes are the absolute heart and power of n8n.

It is the fundamental building block that performs a specific task, processes data, or routes information.

In my mind, I picture nodes like individual stepping stones crossing a river. 

To cross the river,  you have to start on Stone 1 (called the trigger node) and you must step on every other stone one after the other (the action stones), until you reach the other side. 

You can decide which stones (or nodes) to use, depending on what you are trying to do.

Examples of a node might be: 

The end result is a chain of nodes which make up a workflow.

Because there are so many different nodes to choose from, and they can do so many different things, the possible combinations of nodes here are endless! 

This is another reason why people love n8n.

Here is a quick list of some of the real life applications you could use n8n for:

(I recommend taking a look at n8n’s workflow library, where anyone can share a workflow they have created. This will give you a pretty good idea of the sorts of things you can do.)

This is why I really like n8n personally. Because it is actually doing something useful. It’s not AI for the sake of AI or to make the boss happy. 

You take a manual process and you automate it. Everyone is happy.

I will be doing more posts on n8n in the future - including actually walking through building a workflow -  so don't worry about diving in headfirst just yet. This is just your introduction.

Hopefully this gave you a good idea of what n8n is and what you can use it for.

The most important bits from this post: