TL;DR
Pick Zapier if you're a non-technical operator who values app breadth and reliability. Pick Make if you like visual thinking and complex branching. Pick n8n if you want ownership, code steps, or self-hosting.
Pricing
Zapier prices per task and gets expensive fast at scale, but the entry-level plans are the easiest to justify.
Make prices per operation, which is cheaper for fan-out workflows but harder to forecast.
n8n Cloud prices per execution with generous limits; self-hosted is free of platform cost and only bounded by your infra.
AI readiness
All three now ship first-class AI nodes for OpenAI, Anthropic, and open models. The differences are in how easily you can chain multiple AI calls with structured output validation.
n8n's Function and Code nodes make it easiest to enforce a JSON schema, retry with a stricter prompt, or run a small ranking step between calls.
Self-hosting
Only n8n supports true self-hosting. That matters when you handle regulated data or want to run behind a VPN with no third-party egress.
Developer ergonomics
n8n treats workflows as versioned JSON you can code-review. Make and Zapier are improving here but remain GUI-first.
Which to pick
For most teams starting out, Zapier gets you into production fastest. As soon as you feel task-cost pain or need code-level control, migrate the highest-volume workflows to n8n.