n8n is an automation platform with a visual editor, more than a thousand integrations and AI agents, which you can install on your own server. Why I like it as a way to start automating sensibly.
Almost every company has the same problem.
Ten tools that don't talk to each other.
And one person acting as the bridge by hand.
n8n is a platform for automating processes by connecting applications. You build flows on a visual canvas ("when a form comes in, create the client, notify the team and send an email") and, when needed, add JavaScript or Python code.
In recent years it has gone all-in on AI: you can put agents and language models inside flows, connect them to your data and pick whichever provider you want. And you can use it in their cloud or install it on your own server.
One important note: its licence isn't open source in the strict sense. They call it fair-code: the code is visible and you can self-host it, but with commercial-use conditions worth reading.
Because it forces you to think about the process before the tool.
When you draw a flow on a canvas, you have to decide what happens first, what happens if something fails and who finds out. Many companies discover while doing it that their process was never defined. It worked because one person knew it by heart.
If you can't draw a process, you can't automate it. And you probably can't delegate it either.
And then there's the usual point: being able to keep it on your server. Your clients' data flows through these automations. Keeping it at home makes a big difference.
The temptation is to put AI everywhere. I'd do the opposite.
AI is good at interpreting messy things. Clear rules are better left as rules. They're cheaper, faster and they don't make things up.
That automation isn't about technology, it's about order. Tools like n8n make connecting things easy. The hard part is still knowing what you want to happen.
If you're clear on that, the tool hardly matters. If you're not, no tool will fix it for you.
P.S. Start by automating the process you hate most, not the one that impresses most. It's the one you'll notice first.