Zapier, Make, n8n, or custom code? An honest decision guide

We sell custom software, so you'd expect us to tell you no-code tools are toys. They're not. For a huge class of business automation, Zapier, Make, or n8n is the correct answer, and recommending anything else would be billing you for our ego.

When no-code wins

• Connecting two SaaS tools that both have official integrations
• Volumes under a few thousand runs a month
• Workflows your ops team should be able to read and tweak
• Anything you might delete in three months: prototypes, experiments

When custom code wins

• High volume: per-task pricing gets ugly past tens of thousands of runs
• Complex branching, retries, or error handling beyond simple paths
• Sensitive data with compliance requirements you must control
• Logic that is your competitive advantage, not plumbing

The hybrid most clients actually need

Our default recommendation: n8n self-hosted for the glue, plus small custom services for the steps that are genuinely yours. You get visual workflows your team can maintain, no per-run pricing surprises, and proper engineering exactly where it pays for itself.

Buy the plumbing. Build the moat.