Automation without the per-task bill
Zapier charges per task: 750 tasks/month already costs about thirty euros, and a heavy workflow (scraping + AI + notifications) burns through them in days. Self-hosted n8n on a VPS reverses the model: unlimited workflows, unlimited executions, a fixed $49/month. For an agency or growth team, the ROI is immediate.
Your data stays with you
Webhooks containing customer data, CRM exports, API tokens: everything passes in clear through SaaS automation platforms. Self-hosted on our European servers (native GDPR), your flows never leave your infrastructure. For teams under compliance constraints, it's often the only acceptable choice.
n8n's real resource usage
n8n is reasonable: 300-500 MB of RAM at rest, spikes during parallel executions. An Apex (8 GB) runs n8n + PostgreSQL + Redis (for queue mode) with headroom. Heavy workflows — image generation, LLM calls in loops, parsing large CSVs — directly benefit from NVMe Gen4 and Ryzen 9 frequency.
Recommended architecture
n8n (main) + n8n (worker) + Redis + PostgreSQL
└── Nginx + Let's Encrypt in frontQueue mode lets you scale workers horizontally as your workflows explode. Docker Compose orchestrated in 20 minutes with our guide.
Beyond n8n
The same VPS hosts Windmill, Activepieces, Huginn or your own cron jobs. Many of our customers also run Uptime Kuma there to monitor their own workflows — automation watching automation.