n8n Documentation
Two things make it different from most automation tools. You are billed per full workflow execution rather than per step, so a workflow with 40 nodes costs the same as one with 4. And the source is available under a fair-code license, so self-hosting the Community Edition is free and has almost the complete feature set.
Pick Cloud or self-hosted, then build a working workflow
A schedule trigger, an API call, and a condition, end to end
Nodes, executions, credentials, and expressions in one pass
Branch, loop, merge, and wait inside a workflow
Move and reshape data between nodes using expressions
Give a model tools, memory, and your own data
Retries, error workflows, and what happens when a run fails
Managed hosting, free trial, no server to operate
Docker Compose, npm, and cloud providers
How secrets are stored and shared
What you can build#
n8n covers the same ground as a scripting cron job, an integration platform, and an AI agent framework, which is why the examples look so different from each other:
- Scheduled data movement. Pull from an API every morning, reshape the payload, write it to a database or a sheet.
- Webhook-driven services. Expose an endpoint, run logic against the request, return a response — an API without a codebase to deploy.
- AI agents with real tools. Give a model access to your systems and let it decide which to call, with a human approval step where it matters.
- Internal glue. The integrations nobody wants to own as a service: alert routing, onboarding steps, report assembly.
Start free on n8n Cloud with no credit card, or install the Community Edition on your own machine with a single command.
Next steps#
- New to n8n? Start with Get started.
- Deciding how to run it? Read Cloud or self-hosted.
- Looking for a specific term? Check the glossary.