Comparison
Eleven Cloud vs n8n
n8n is what technical people pick. Self-hostable, source available under their fair-code license, metered by workflow run rather than by step, and you can drop into code the moment the nodes run out.
It also puts the real distinction on the table faster than anything else here, because n8n assumes a developer. If you have one, this page is short.
The short answer
Pick n8n when you have a developer and you want the data staying on your own infrastructure. Pick us when that developer does not exist and you would rather buy the finished operation than the platform it runs on.
Side by side
| Eleven Cloud | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Assumes you have | An operation that costs too much | A developer |
| Hosting | Your accounts, your choice, set up by us | Your own servers, or their cloud |
| Data residency | Whatever your rules require | Entirely yours when self-hosted |
| License cost | A project fee, quoted after the assessment | Nothing for the self-hosted community edition |
| Metering | None | By workflow run on their cloud, none self-hosted |
| Real cost | Quoted up front, ends at handover | Hosting, plus developer time, ongoing |
| Models in the flow | Chosen for the work and trained on your data | Good nodes you prompt and wire yourself |
| Who maintains it | Your trained person, from a runbook | You. Upgrades, hosting, broken nodes |
| Best fit | Owner-led companies with no engineering function | Companies with engineers and a data-control requirement |
The developer question settles this one
n8n is free the way a kitchen is free. The equipment costs nothing to look at, and everything depends on whether someone cooks.
If you have a developer with spare cycles, self-hosted n8n is close to unbeatable on cost and control, and we will say that on the call.
Most companies between $3M and $10M do not have that person free. They have a developer already behind on the product, or no developer at all and an owner sitting in every decision.
Where n8n is the better answer
Data that cannot leave. If patient records or anything under a regulator has to stay inside your own infrastructure, self-hosting solves that cleanly, and most managed services cannot match it.
Throughput. Self-hosted there is no meter, so a workflow does not get more expensive as it succeeds.
Escape hatches. When the node does not exist you write the function, and that ceiling sits far above any closed platform.
What we do differently
We start before the tool. The assessment covers how you get customers, how you deliver, and how the place runs, and it produces a written list: every operation, whether it can be automated, and what it is worth if it is.
Only then does anything get built, and the tool gets picked for that job instead of picked first.
Then we sit with whoever will run it until they can run it without us. That part decides whether the system is still alive in a year.
Self-hosting sends its bill later
Upgrades. A queue that fills up. A webhook that stops on a Sunday. Someone carries that. Fine when it is a developer's job, expensive when it lands on the owner.
If keeping your data in-house is the driver, we build inside your infrastructure and hand it over with the runbook. You get the residency without inheriting a platform to babysit.
Forty questions a week
A production company where the same forty questions land on the owner or the plant manager every week. Where is the spec, what is the tolerance, which supplier for this part.
On n8n: a developer wires a Slack bot to a search index over the SOP folder. It works, and it takes a competent person about two weeks, plus the standing job of keeping the documents current.
The way we ran it: same outcome, and a shift lead trained to add and correct documents. The owner is off that loop rather than off it until the index goes stale.
If you have that developer, use them. If the developer is hypothetical, so is the two-week estimate.
So which one?
Choose Eleven Cloud if
- You have no developer with time to spare
- You want a written assessment before anything is built
- You want the handover and the training to be part of the work
- You want a fixed scope rather than an open-ended internal project
Choose n8n if
- You have a developer who can own it
- Data has to stay inside your own infrastructure
- You run high volume and want nothing metered
- You want source-level control of every workflow
n8n, answered
Will you build on self-hosted n8n if we ask?
Yes. If the requirement is that nothing leaves your infrastructure, that is a design constraint and we build to it.
Is n8n really free?
The community edition is free to self-host under their fair-code license. The cost is hosting plus the person who maintains it, and for most companies that person is the larger number.
What happens to our existing n8n workflows?
They usually stay. Working plumbing is not something we rip out to justify a bill.
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