n8n hosted on a £6 Hetzner box has run a lot of workflows for me[1]. The pattern of where it wins is sharp.
Where n8n wins
Source: My own tracking, 30 workflows
CRM sync, Slack alerts, webhook routing, simple ETL. n8n ships these in a fraction of the time of writing the equivalent in TypeScript. The integrations are pre-built; the auth is solved; the retries are pre-wired.
For a "when X happens, do Y" workflow under 10 steps, n8n is faster every time.
Where it loses
Stateful long-running workflows. n8n can do them but the debugging is painful.
Document classification with custom prompts and post-processing. The visual nodes are awkward for prompt engineering.
Anything where the workflow logic itself becomes the product. If a workflow is the thing, write it in code; if the workflow connects two systems, n8n.
Where I land
n8n for the connector tier (Slack, CRM, email, calendar). Code for anything that involves business logic or AI generation.
Cost: £6/mo for the box, £0 for n8n itself (self-hosted). Total support time across two years: maybe 4 hours total.
About the data
A note on what the numbers in this post represent so you can read them with the right confidence:
- "My own bench" rows are personal measurements on my own hardware. They are honest about my setup and reproducible there, but they should not be treated as universal benchmark scores.
- Benchmark numbers attributed to public sources (Geekbench Browser, DXOMARK, NotebookCheck, FIA timing) are illustrative, the trend is what matters, not the third decimal place. Cross-check against the source for anything you would act on financially.
- Client outcomes and ROI percentages in business-focused posts are anonymised composites drawn from my own consulting work. Real numbers, real direction, sanitised so individual clients are not identifiable.
- Foldable crease-depth and similar engineering measurements are estimates pulled from teardown reports and reviewer claims; manufacturers do not publish these directly.
- Forecasts and "what I bet" lines are exactly that, opinions, not predictions with a track record yet.
If you spot a number that contradicts a source you trust, tell me, I would rather correct it than be the chart that was off by 6 percent and pretended otherwise.