What Is n8n? Workflow Automation You Can Self-Host (Licence Explained)
n8n is a workflow automation tool you connect together visually — trigger, then a chain of nodes that fetch, transform and send data — with several hundred integrations and the option to run it on your own server.
The comparison people reach for is Zapier, and it’s fair as far as it goes. The differences that actually matter are that n8n can run on hardware you control, and that its licence is neither closed nor quite open source.
That licence is the thing most explainers get wrong, so it goes first.
Comparing it against Zapier or the other open-source options? Self-hosted Zapier alternatives prices the breakeven — Zapier’s cheapest paid tier costs more than a whole 4GB server — and compares five tools on licence rather than connector count.
Is n8n free? The licence, precisely
n8n describes itself as fair-code licensed, under the Sustainable Use License. That’s not the same as open source, and the distinction has a practical edge.
Here’s the operative clause, verbatim:
“You may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use. You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.”
Translated into decisions:
- Running n8n for your own company’s automations — free. “Internal business purposes” covers it explicitly, and there’s no user count or revenue threshold attached.
- Running it for yourself — free.
- Selling n8n-as-a-service, or bundling it into a product you charge for — not permitted under this licence. That’s the boundary it exists to draw.
- Building automations for clients sits in between and depends on the arrangement — if you’re hosting an instance and charging for access, read the licence rather than an article about it.
One detail almost nobody mentions: not everything in the repository is under that licence. Source files with .ee. in the filename or .ee in the directory name are excluded and require an n8n Enterprise License. Branches other than master aren’t licensed at all. So “the n8n repo is free” is too broad — most of it is, under the terms above, and some of it isn’t.
The editions
Self-hosting isn’t one thing either:
| Edition | Cost | For |
|---|---|---|
| Community | Free, indefinitely | Everyone starting out |
| Registered (free) | Free, with registration | Unlocks some extra features |
| Business | Paid licence key | SSO, environments, projects |
| Enterprise | Paid licence key | Advanced security, scaling, governance |
n8n notes that “every self-hosted installation runs on the same underlying product” — the paid tiers unlock features in the software you already have rather than shipping a different build.
How it actually works
A workflow is a chain of nodes. One node triggers it — a schedule, a webhook, an incoming email — and the rest do the work: call an API, transform JSON, branch on a condition, write to a database.
Two properties matter more than the node count:
You can drop into code. Any node’s output can feed a JavaScript or Python step, which is what separates n8n from tools where you’re stuck when the visual builder runs out. Most real workflows end up with at least one.
Executions are logged and inspectable. You can open a past run and see exactly what each node received and emitted, which makes debugging tractable in a way that opaque automation platforms aren’t.
That inspectability has a cost, which brings us to what it needs to run.
What it needs to run
RAM is the binding constraint, not CPU:
| Setup | Spec |
|---|---|
| Light — a few workflows, modest volume | 2 vCPU / 4GB |
| Community nodes, larger payloads, browser automation | 4 vCPU / 8GB |
| Queue mode with separate workers | 8GB+ |
Three configuration facts worth knowing before you install rather than after:
It defaults to SQLite, and switching later doesn’t bring your data. n8n’s own documentation describes moving to Postgres as “meant for a fresh instance, not an in-place migration” — existing SQLite data doesn’t carry over. Start on Postgres if this will ever be production, because the alternative is rebuilding every workflow and credential by hand.
Execution data pruning is already on, at 14 days and 10,000 executions by default. Better than most self-hosted software manages, but generous for a busy instance on a small disk.
Queue mode is free to self-host. EXECUTIONS_MODE=queue with Redis and workers has no licence gate — it’s multi-main setup that requires an Enterprise licence, and queue mode on n8n Cloud that’s an Enterprise plan feature. Those get conflated constantly.
Our Docker Compose guide has a working stack with Postgres and Caddy.
Self-hosted versus n8n Cloud
The usual comparison is subscription price against server price. The more durable one is the ceiling, because n8n publishes it:
| n8n Cloud plan | RAM |
|---|---|
| Trial / Starter | 320 MiB |
| Pro-1 (10k executions) | 640 MiB |
| Pro-2 (50k executions) | 1280 MiB |
| Enterprise | 4096 MiB |
A commodity 4GB VPS matches the Enterprise tier, and an 8GB one doubles it — with executions bounded by your hardware rather than a plan limit.
That’s the real argument, and it isn’t primarily about price. Memory is what kills n8n workflows — large payloads, big loops, anything holding a dataset — and on Cloud you can’t buy past the ceiling without changing tier.
What you take on in exchange is genuine: upgrades, backups, uptime, and the credential store becoming your responsibility. Set N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY deliberately and record it, because credentials are encrypted with it and a rebuild without it means re-entering everything.
If you’re moving an existing Cloud instance, the migration guide covers the part that catches people: workflows export from the admin dashboard, but credentials don’t come with them.
Where to run it
Hostinger has a one-click n8n VPS template, which skips the Docker setup entirely — and its 8GB tier is where most real instances land. Hetzner is the cheapest per gigabyte when its CX tier is in stock — worth checking before you commit, because that tier was showing as unavailable when we last looked, and the CPX line you’d fall back to is several times dearer. A plain Docker host suits n8n well. Cloudzy bills monthly with no term, which suits trying it out. Railway will host it as a managed container — though as we found in Railway vs a VPS for n8n, n8n has to stay resident to catch webhooks, so metered pricing works out dearer than a flat VPS quickly.
DigitalOcean is a common host for this too; its tracked link isn’t working on our end, so we’ve named it without linking.
Our best VPS for n8n guide covers sizing and the pruning settings new self-hosters most often miss.
How we checked this
The licence quotation is from n8n’s own LICENSE.md in the project repository, read in August 2026, as is the exclusion of .ee. files and non-master branches from the Sustainable Use License. The edition table and the statement that every self-hosted installation runs on the same underlying product are from n8n’s documentation, as are the Cloud plan memory limits, the SQLite-to-Postgres migration caveat, the pruning defaults and the EXECUTIONS_MODE behaviour.
On the licence specifically: we’ve quoted the operative clause rather than paraphrasing it, because the boundary between “internal business purposes” and providing the software to others is exactly where paraphrase goes wrong. This is a summary for orientation, not legal advice — if your use case sits near that line, particularly agency or client-hosting work, read the licence text and take proper advice rather than trusting any article, including this one.
What we did not do: we haven’t benchmarked n8n’s memory use across workload types. The sizing brackets are conventional guidance and n8n’s published Cloud ceilings, not our measurements — and your payload sizes move them more than your provider does.
The hosting links above are affiliate links. n8n’s Community edition is free, and nothing in this article requires paying for the software.
FAQ
Is n8n free?
For your own internal business, personal or non-commercial use, yes — the Community edition is free indefinitely under the Sustainable Use License. What the licence doesn’t permit is providing n8n to others commercially, such as selling it as a service.
Is n8n open source?
Not strictly. It’s “fair-code” under the Sustainable Use License, which grants broad rights to use and modify but restricts commercial redistribution. Some files in the repository — those marked .ee. — require an Enterprise licence and aren’t covered at all.
Can I use n8n for my clients’ automations?
Building workflows for clients is different from hosting an instance and charging them for access — the second is closer to the boundary the licence draws. Read the licence text for your specific arrangement.
How much RAM does self-hosted n8n need?
4GB for light use, 8GB once you add community nodes, large payloads or browser automation. Memory is the constraint rather than CPU, and running out kills the process with no error in n8n’s own log.
Should I use SQLite or Postgres?
Postgres, from the start, if this will ever be production. n8n describes switching later as meant for a fresh instance rather than an in-place migration — your existing SQLite data won’t come across.
Is self-hosting cheaper than n8n Cloud?
Usually, but the sharper difference is the ceiling: Cloud’s Starter plan provides 320 MiB of RAM while a 4GB VPS matches its Enterprise tier, with no execution cap. You take on upgrades, backups and the credential store in exchange.
Do I need queue mode?
Only when a long-running workflow blocks others or concurrent webhooks get dropped. It’s free to run self-hosted — it’s multi-main setup that needs a licence, which is a different thing.
