First of all

Technology selection is never an absolute distinction between good and bad, but rather a difference in applicable scenarios. It must be admitted that n8n does have significant advantages in terms of technical flexibility and customized applications. Its open source nature gives developers almost unlimited freedom and the ability to deeply customize any automation needs, which is difficult for commercial platforms such as Make.com to achieve. For technical teams or individual developers, the flexibility and control provided by n8n is undoubtedly an extremely attractive choice.
However, the selection decision for enterprise applications is not just about technical advantages, but also involves broader organizational considerations. This article aims to explore key factors that enterprises should consider when introducing automation platforms, in addition to technical flexibility, such as long-term maintenance costs, authority management architecture, organizational collaboration, and knowledge inheritance. This is not a question about n8n's technical capabilities, but a comprehensive consideration of platform selection in an enterprise environment.

Considerations for import costs

Make.com:

• Adopting a subscription model, the initial investment is high
• No infrastructure investment is required, cloud services are immediately available
• The price of the Enterprise Edition increases according to the scale of use, but includes full functionality

n8n:

• Open source and free, with no licensing costs on the surface (of course, there will still be costs for enterprises or rights management)
• Requires server resources for deployment and maintenance
• Seems affordable at first, appealing to organizations with limited budgets

Key consideration: The implementation cost is not just the software licensing fee, but also includes the labor costs of infrastructure, configuration, and initial setup. The "free" nature of n8n hides the need for more technical investment.

When enterprises choose open source platforms that require extensive internal maintenance, they are actually making the opposite decision—allocating valuable technical talent time to maintenance rather than innovation. In a competitive market environment, this allocation can severely limit an organization’s ability to innovate.

The chief technology officer of a fintech company once shared: "After migrating to an enterprise-level platform, our development team shifted from spending 70% of their time maintaining infrastructure to spending 70% of their time developing new features. This is not just an efficiency improvement, but a fundamental change in mindset."

Learning curve and training costs

Make.com :

• Intuitive visual interface, lowering the entry barrier for non-technical personnel (for easier communication and coordination)
• Complete official documentation and learning resources
• Standardized operating procedures and efficient in-organization training (with certification exams)

n8n :

• Developer-friendly, but requires more technical background (but more suitable for technical people)
• Learning resources are scattered and rely on community contributions (but many YTs are teaching)
• High degree of customization, difficult to standardize training

Key Thoughts: In an enterprise environment, platform ease of use directly impacts cross-departmental adoption rates. Solutions with high technical barriers may lead toAutomation is limited to the IT department? Failure to achieve digital transformation across the organization.

The truth about long-term maintenance costs

Make.com :

• The supplier is responsible for platform upgrades and maintenance
• Built-in monitoring and error reporting system
• Professional support team to handle technical issues

n8n :

• A dedicated person is required to be responsible for system updates and security updates
• Fault diagnosis relies on internal technical capabilities
• Problem solving time depends on team expertise

Key thinking: n8n’s technical debt is reflected in the maintenance phase. When the automation system becomes the core of the enterprise, the business impact of each failure may far exceed the subscription fee of Make.com. The annual salary cost of full-time technical personnel is often several times the platform subscription fee.

Real case (anonymized):
A medium-sized manufacturing company initially adopted n8n to build internal automation processes, starting with simple inventory notifications. As demand grew, automation expanded to order processing, supply chain management, and financial report generation. The initial success prompted management to expand investment and automate more key business processes. A year and a half later, the core architect of the original development team resigned, and the new team that took over found that:

Lack of unified documentation and standardized practices
Custom code is scattered throughout the processes
The monitoring system is incomplete and some key processes cannot be effectively tracked

A major system upgrade caused the collapse of multiple key automated processes, resulting in a two-day delay in order processing and direct business losses of more than 60 yuan. More seriously, customer trust was damaged, and multiple long-term partners began to re-evaluate their supplier relationships.
Ultimately, the company had to invest three times the original budget to rebuild its entire automation architecture and maintain dual systems during the transition.
This case highlights the true cost of technical debt: the initial savings on software costs are ultimately repaid many times over in the form of business interruption, reputational damage, and reconstruction costs.

Permission management and security compliance

Make.com :

• Enterprise-level permission management system, supporting role allocation (including MCP to control across organizations, teams and scenarios)
• Compliance certification and data security assurance
• Operational audit log to track all changes

n8n :

• Basic permission control requires additional tools to enhance
• Security relies on self-configuration and maintenance
• Auditing functions are limited and data governance challenges are great

Key thinking: As the organization scales, fine-grained permission control is no longer a "nice-to-have feature" but a necessity for compliance and risk management.

Organizational collaboration and knowledge transfer

Make.com :

• Built-in collaboration features to support team workflow
• Version control ensures traceability (multiple people manage different permissions and levels)
• Unified interface reduces the risk of knowledge silos

n8n :

• Collaboration relies on external tools or code management
• Knowledge is often concentrated in a small number of technical personnel
• Staff turnover may lead to system management crisis

Key thinking: How can enterprise automation knowledge be smoothly passed on when personnel move? Make.com's structured platform makes it easier for newcomers to take over, while n8n's technical barriers may result in the automation system being left unmaintained when key talent leaves.

Make.com's low-code environment allows business personnel to directly participate in automation creation and adjustment, shortening the distance from business needs to technical implementation. The technical threshold of n8n may prolong this process and create a competitive disadvantage in the ever-changing market environment.

Swedish furniture giant IKEA provides a way of thinking that is worth learning from. Rather than choosing the cheapest materials, they followed the concept of "democratic design" - combining design, functionality, quality, sustainability and low price. Likewise, the selection of an automation platform should not be based solely on cost or technological advancement, but rather on how it contributes to the overall goals of the organization.

Process management authority and monitoring

Make.com :

• Integrated monitoring dashboard and alert system
• The global view shows the status of all automated processes
• Cross-organizational visibility improves management efficiency

n8n :

• Monitoring requires integration of additional tools
• Lack of unified management interface
• Management complexity increases exponentially as you scale

Key consideration: When automation grows from a single process to dozens or hundreds of cross-departmental processes, a unified management view upgrades from a "convenience" to a "must."

Hidden Technical Debt Insights

When n8n expanded from a personal project to a core enterprise system, technical debt began to emerge:

1. Dependence on professional talents：Organizations need to maintain a professional technical team, and the cost far exceeds the platform subscription fee
2. System stability risk: One major outage could cost the business more than years of Make.com expenses
3. Scaling bottleneck: As the demand for automation grows, the challenges of scaling self-built systems continue to increase
4. Innovation slows down: Technology teams spend more time on maintenance rather than innovation
5. Risk of knowledge loss: The departure of key developers may result in no one being able to maintain the system

AI will enable technology to continue to advance, so we should not focus on the underlying technology, but on the management model.

Summary

Once again, n8n's advantage in technical flexibility is unquestionable (it is also an important part of M8D). It may be an ideal choice for organizations with a stable technical team, a focus on deep customization, and a high demand for technical autonomy. However, for companies that pursue long-term organizational effectiveness, value cross-departmental collaboration, and face challenges with talent mobility, the structured environment provided by business platforms such as Make.com may bring higher long-term value (backbone).

Ultimately, this is not an argument about the merits of technology, but a reflection of the strategic positioning of the organization. Decision makers should go beyond a purely technical perspective, comprehensively evaluate business needs, organizational culture, talent structure and long-term development goals, and choose solutions that best suit the characteristics of their own organization.

As management guru Peter Drucker said, "Efficiency is doing things right, and effectiveness is doing the right things." In the selection of automation platforms, the real wisdom lies in discerning what is the "right thing", which often depends on the organization's long-term development strategy rather than short-term technology or cost factors.