# n8n Alternatives (2026): 3 Compared

> Source: https://theagentsindex.com/n8n/alternatives (curated, quality-gated, re-verified)

n8n is the leading source-available answer to "build agentic automations visually" — free to self-host, €20/month for Cloud Starter, and native AI-agent nodes wired into 400+ app integrations. That strength comes with two trade-offs n8n names about itself: its fair-code licence is source-available rather than OSI open-source, so commercial resale needs a licence check, and deeply branching agent logic "can get unwieldy" on a visual canvas. n8n's own "not for" call is explicit — "developers who prefer expressing complex agent control as code rather than a visual graph." The three tools below are independently researched, Published listings on this site, not a scraped or AI-generated list: each carries current pricing we verified against the vendor's own page, sourced pros and cons, and an honest "best for" and "not for" call. Pydantic AI answers n8n's own licensing and code-vs-canvas gaps directly with a free, MIT-licensed, code-first framework; Lindy goes the other direction with a fully-managed, zero-infrastructure "AI employee" builder for non-technical operators who don't want to self-host or read a licence at all; and Relevance AI stays no-code but adds the production-grade multi-agent orchestration, evals and governance n8n's plain canvas doesn't provide natively.

| # | Name | What it is | Why it's here | Pricing | API |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Pydantic AI](https://theagentsindex.com/pydantic-ai.md) | The Python AI SDK for type-safe agents, realtime voice, image generation and embeddings, with every model a string swap away. | The direct fix for n8n's own "not for" call: free, MIT-licensed (no fair-code fine print to check before resale) and code-first, so branching agent logic lives in typed Python instead of an expanding visual canvas. | Free | — |
| 2 | [Lindy](https://theagentsindex.com/lindy.md) | A Slack-native AI teammate with a no-code app builder bundled in. | The opposite extreme from n8n's self-hosted, developer-facing model: a fully-managed, closed-source "AI employee" builder for non-technical operators who want zero infrastructure and no licence to check, from $49.99/month with no permanent free plan. | $29.99/mo | No |
| 3 | [Relevance AI](https://theagentsindex.com/relevance-ai.md) | Visual builder for multi-agent AI workforces, with evals, tracing, and SSO-grade governance on Enterprise. | Stays no-code like n8n but adds what its plain canvas doesn't provide natively — built-in evals, tracing, approvals and RBAC/SSO for coordinated multi-agent "workforces" in production, with a free self-serve tier before its dual-meter paid plans. | $0/month | Yes |

## Methodology

We drew alternatives from across this site's agent-platforms and frameworks categories (10 Published listings total), not from agent-platforms alone — n8n's only 3 category-mates are Dify, Lindy and Relevance AI, and Dify's own listing carries the identical "not pure OSS" licence caveat as n8n, so it does not resolve that gap the way a genuinely MIT-licensed pick does. A tool qualifies only if it is a genuine standalone agent-building tool we have fact-checked against its own pricing and licence page, with sourced pros, cons and a "best for" call already in place, and if it answers a real, specific gap n8n names about itself rather than duplicating another entry's angle. The order below runs from the closest code-first fix for n8n's own stated "not for" persona, through the fully-managed opposite extreme, to a no-code pick built for heavier production governance.