OPEN-SOURCE MIGRATION BENCHMARK License: Sustainable Use (Free Self-Host) ★ 56.4k GitHub Stars

Replace Zapier with Self-Hosted n8n

Fair-code workflow automation with 400+ integrations and native LangChain AI agent nodes Stop paying Professional ($69–$299/mo task tiers) ($99/mo for a 10-person team) and run n8n on a $4.50/mo Linux VPS with full data sovereignty.

10-Seat Annual Savings

+$1,134 / yr

vs Zapier standard plan

Container RAM & vCPU

512 MB RAM

1.0 vCPU • Migration: Easy

Recommended Cloud Box

$4.50/mo VPS

Hetzner CX22 (4GB RAM / 2 vCPU)

1-to-100 Seat Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Table

Comparing Zapier (Professional ($69–$299/mo task tiers)) vs n8n on Hetzner CX22 (4GB RAM / 2 vCPU).

Team Size	Zapier Cost	n8n VPS	Net Annual Savings
1 Seat (Solo)	$72.00/mo ($864/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$810 / year
5 Seats	$84.00/mo ($1,008/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$954 / year
10 Seats	$99.00/mo ($1,188/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$1,134 / year
25 Seats	$144.00/mo ($1,728/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$1,674 / year
50 Seats	$219.00/mo ($2,628/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$2,574 / year
100 Seats	$369.00/mo ($4,428/yr)	$4.50/mo (CX22)	+$4,374 / year

Production Docker Compose + Caddy Auto-SSL

Copy and run docker compose up -d on any Ubuntu 24.04 server.

Open in Multi-Tool Builder →

# Production Docker Compose: n8n (Replaces Zapier)
services:
  caddy:
    image: caddy:2-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:ro
      - caddy_data:/data
    networks:
      - stack_net

  n8n:
    image: docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n:latest
    container_name: stack-n8n
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - "N8N_HOST=automate.${DOMAIN:-yourdomain.com}"
      - "N8N_PORT=5678"
      - "N8N_PROTOCOL=https"
      - "WEBHOOK_URL=https://automate.${DOMAIN:-yourdomain.com}/"
      - "DB_TYPE=postgresdb"
      - "DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST=postgres"
      - "DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE=n8n"
      - "DB_POSTGRESDB_USER=postgres"
      - "DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD:-strongpassword}"
      - "N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY=${N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY:-change_this_encryption_key_32c}"
    volumes:
      - n8n_data:/data
    networks:
      - stack_net

  postgres:
    image: pgvector/pgvector:pg16
    container_name: stack-postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - "POSTGRES_USER=postgres"
      - "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD:-strongpassword}"
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    networks:
      - stack_net

networks:
  stack_net:
    driver: bridge

volumes:
  caddy_data:
  n8n_data:
  postgres_data:

Caddyfile (Automatic HTTPS Reverse Proxy):

# Automatic Let's Encrypt HTTPS for n8n
n8n.{$DOMAIN:yourdomain.com} {
  encode zstd gzip
  reverse_proxy n8n:5678
}

Why Teams Switch to n8n

✓Unlimited workflow executions on your VPS
✓Visual AI Agent, Vector Store & LLM nodes
✓Full JavaScript & Python code steps

GitHub Repository n8n-io/n8n

Official Website n8n.io

Docker Image docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n:latest

Database Needed PostgreSQL 16

1-Click Cloud VPS Hosting

Deploy n8n in 60 Seconds

Sized automatically for n8n (512MB container RAM + OS overhead).

Hetzner Cloud (CX22)

Includes €20 Free Cloud Credit

$4.50/mo →

DigitalOcean Droplet

Includes $200 60-Day Free Credit

$24.00/mo →

Railway.app Managed Container

Zero server maintenance

$5.00/mo →

PRODUCTION BOILERPLATE ZIP

Get All 16 Pre-Built Production Stacks + Encrypted S3 Backups

Includes pre-tuned docker-compose.yml, Caddy Auto-SSL, AES-256 encrypted nightly S3/R2 Postgres backups, and Ubuntu 24.04 UFW/Fail2ban hardening scripts.

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