I’ve been writing about Power Automate for a while now—enough time that It was not even called “Power Automate” yet. I like automation a lot, and I’m always looking at other automation tools that I think are doing interesting things. I found N8N and I wanted to start sharing with you what I’ve learned.
We’ll review some details below, but I want to state the obvious. I’m not going to stop using or writing about Power Automate. The title is “new section” and not something else :). Power Automate is my workhorse and something I use daily, so it’s not going anywhere. I also want to state that if I say something good about it, it doesn’t mean that the equivalent is bad in Power Automate. It’s just different and good in its way. Like in everything, competition is also healthy, especially for us who use the tools and services.
So, let’s look at some interesting stuff to know about.
The company
N8N is a relatively new (2019) company/project if you count when the repository was created in GitHub. It has (at the time of the writing of this article) 84k stars on GitHub, which is not an assurance of quality, but it is a good way to understand how the community is engaged in the project. If it’s an open source (like N8N is) project, the more people are engaged, the better because more bugs and security problems are found and (potentially) solved. Also, some projects, like N8N, allow for extensions, so having a dynamic community will enable the people to provide their implementations and fix problems that the core team doesn’t have time to fix, for example.
I like to know the origins of the names and N8N is not enterly a name that is obvious. According to the website:
It is “n8n” with all lower case letters. It can either be pronounced “n eight n” or “nodemation”.
While looking for a good name for the project with a free domain, Jan quickly realized that all the good ones he could think of were already taken. So, in the end, he chose nodemation. ‘node-‘ in the sense that it uses a Node-View and that it uses Node.js and ‘-mation’ for ‘automation’ which is what the project is supposed to help with. However, he did not like how long the name was and could not imagine writing something that long every time in the CLI. That is when he ended up on ‘n8n’.
Finally, I like that it’s an European company (based in Berlin), providing some alternative to the American giants like Microsoft and other giant automation tools like Zapier.
What it is?
N8N can be considered similar to Power Automate in multiple areas. It’s workflow-based, meaning that you can have a set of instructions, and, depending on the data, it could move to different branches of the workflow. It allows you to easily connect services that, in normal circumstances, would be hard to do without coding.
But notice that I said “similar” and not “the same”. Here’s a list of some of the amazing features.
Mock data notes
You can define mock data in the “nodes” (equivalent to actions in Power Automate). This way you can test an action while developing the workflow, without even needing the source. So, for example, if you have an external API or are reading data from a file, you don’t need to have that file. You can define your mock data in your trigger, and it will use that data so that you can develop your workflows. It saves a lot of time, but if you have restrictions on API usage, you can avoid them by using this strategy. Also, if you want to simulate a specific error, you can provide the data and fix the workflow, for example, without finding the trigger’s source to simulate the error.
Partial runs of the Workflows
Ability to run workflows until a certain point. There’s a very handy “Execute Previous nodes” to map the data from previous nodes. So, you can test a node in the middle of a workflow without running the whole workflow.
Preview Data
When you map the data, you can see a preview. I like it because it makes it easy to understand if you’re on the right track without running the workflow. Any changes you make will update the preview, making it easier to see and fix the changes quickly.
No Loops needed
No need for loops. We all know Power Automate’s “Apply to Each” action allows you to cycle through the items to get the information. N8N, there’s a node for it that you don’t need. The looping of the items is automatic, meaning that if you get an array, it will execute the next items automatically per instance in the array.
Code in familiar languages
Javascript / Python nodes. You can transform the data and write expressions in both Javascript and Python. Depending on who is writing them, I know this could be an advantage or disadvantage. However, with the large communities around both programming languages, I think it’s a fantastic addition, making things much easier. Also, you can ask your favorite AI tool to write you the code, even if you’re not an expert.
What it isn’t?
I feel that I need to state the obvious, but it’s not a drop-in replacement to Power Automate, meaning that since Power Automate is part of the larger Microsoft platform, it has much nicer integrations with Microsoft’s services like SharePoint, Outlook, and Teams to name a few. It doesn’t mean that you can’t automate the tasks in N8N. It only means that many actions and triggers give you quick access to things that, otherwise, would be hard to achieve. For example, in Power Automate you can use the “When a new email arrives” Trigger for Outlook and get easily that event, while developing it in N8N would be a bit harder. Getting the list of items from SharePoint is also possible in N8N, but you must register an application in Azure to work with it. It’s something that some users would not even be able to do because it requires admin access to Azure, while in Power Automate would be as simple as adding your credentials andyou’re good to go.
It’s clear that the examples are a “Home Turf Advantage” where Microsoft can connect its services better than anyone, while N8N needs to follow the rules for “all the other services and apps,” which makes sense from Microsoft’s perspective to keep things secure.
Schedule
There isn’t a defined schedule for this section. I wanted to put it on the website, and when I find interesting things to write about, I’ll release them. For example, I may create some additional sections for Nodes and Triggers, but there are no promises. As always, I’ll focus things on feedback and write about things that I feel people need, so if you think you should focus on something, please reach out, and I’ll check if it’s possible.
Final Thoughts
I’m super excited to start writing about N8N. It’s new to me, and it’s always fun to try new things. N8N shines in a few areas because It handles many details well, making workflows easy to implement.
As always, I have no association with the company, and I’m writing about it because I think it’s interesting. Also, as always, it’s a good way for me to learn in public and share with you what I learn, where I stumble, and things to consider to save you some time.
I hope you enjoy it. See you soon!
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Photo by Jinsoo Choi on Unsplash
