Why we stopped using Zapier for client work
Zapier is great for prototypes. Here's why we moved every client off it for production work.
Zapier is brilliant. We use it constantly for prototypes — it's the fastest way to wire two systems together and see if a workflow makes sense.
But for production client work, we now default to n8n self-hosted. Why? Three reasons.
First, observability. Zapier's run history is fine for debugging the last few hours; n8n keeps everything indefinitely with proper structured logging.
Second, version control. n8n workflows can be exported as JSON and committed to git. Zapier ones can't, easily.
Third, cost predictability. Zapier scales by tasks; n8n self-hosted scales by infrastructure. For workflows with high task counts, the math flips fast.
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