Operations

Stop paying for Make

A visible data pipeline for the process only your company has.

Make costs US$10–29 / mo, which is US$120–348 a year. You have two paths:

Option 1 · Install

Install n8n for free

n8n is your business's engine room. You draw a chain of steps on a canvas (when a form is submitted, create the CRM record, ping Slack, send the welcome email) and it runs without you, day and night. Over 400 services are already wired in, and when none fits, you can call any API. The difference from Zapier and Make: you can run it on your own machine. Where Zapier counts your tasks and bills every trigger, your server counts nothing. And for automations that call Claude, you plug in your own key instead of buying their AI credits.

n8n vs Zapier / Make

Criterionn8nZapier / Make
PriceUS$0, you only pay for your server€9 to €26 a month, then more
VolumeUnlimited, it's your machine750 tasks a month on Zapier Pro
Your dataNever leaves your serverPasses through them at every step
Custom codeA JavaScript or Python node when visual falls shortRestricted, and kept for higher tiers
The AI insideYour own Claude key, at costAI credits billed on top

How to install it (even from zero)

Two ways in: on your machine to try it out, or on a server so your automations keep running when your computer is off. Start with the first.

  1. 1

    Install Docker Desktop

    Download it from docker.com, install it, and open it once. It's the engine that will run n8n on your machine.

  2. 2

    Paste this prompt into Claude (Code or Desktop)

    It installs n8n from the official repository, starts it and checks that the interface responds:

    Install n8n on my machine (the open source workflow automation tool, GitHub repo n8n-io/n8n) with Docker, following the official documentation at docs.n8n.io. Create the working folder, write the docker-compose.yml with a volume that keeps my workflows between restarts, start it, and check that the interface responds at http://localhost:5678. Then explain how to create my first workflow. Explain each step simply, I'm a beginner.
    
    Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.
  3. 3

    Build your first chain

    Open http://localhost:5678, create your account, and begin with a simple, useful case: a submitted form that triggers an email. Once that works, the rest follows naturally.

  4. 4

    When it gets serious, move it to a server

    On your machine, your automations stop when you close your laptop. Ask Claude to deploy it to a server or hosting platform, with a real domain, the day you truly depend on it.

What you'll use it for

The repetitive task you do by hand

Copying a form into a spreadsheet, chasing an unanswered quote, filing attachments: build it once and it runs forever. That's where the time comes back.

Claude wired into your real tools

An email arrives, Claude reads it, sorts it, drafts the reply and saves it. n8n is the pipe that connects the intelligence to your everyday tools, using your own API key.

The deliverable you set up for a client

You install n8n at their company, build their automations, and their team can read and maintain them because everything is visual. You bill for the work, not for a subscription that keeps running.

Project health

GitHub stars
206,811
Forks
61k
Contributors
429
Commits
25.4k
Project age
7.3 years
License
Other

Built with: TypeScript 92.2% · Vue 6.3% · JavaScript 0.7%

Public GitHub repository data, captured on October 8, 2026.

Option 2 · Build

Build your own Make

Who this is for

This build is aimed at a technical operations team moving records between three internal systems. The goal: run scheduled data pipelines you can inspect, with mapping, branching, and recovery. If you need more than that, keep paying. Building it yourself is about owning a tool shaped around your workflow, not rebuilding a venture-funded roadmap.

What the prompt builds and what stays out

The prompt below builds a single version with what actually gets used. Everything else is left out on purpose.

What the prompt buildsscheduled fetch, field mapping, one destination, visual run diagram, branching, dry runs, failure queue
What stays outconnector ecosystem, arbitrary loops, visual canvas engine

What a minimal Make alternative needs

  • scheduled and webhook triggers
  • HTTP fetch, field mapping, filter, branch, batch, and destination steps
  • visual left-to-right run diagram showing each step's status
  • sample-data mapping editor and dry run
  • run history, failure queue, replay, and per-step logs

Data model

Pipeline, Node, Edge, Run, NodeRun, Credential

Integrations

HTTP APIs, Queues, Cron Triggers

Capability context

Astro, Workflows, D1

The guardrail

Encrypt credentials, cap payload sizes, redact sensitive data in logs, and require idempotency keys on writes.

Deliberate non-goals

Don't build arbitrary loops, user-written code, thousands of connectors, or a general integration marketplace.

The complete build prompt

Pick your stack, copy the prompt and hand it to your coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex…).

You are building a production-ready software product named “Pipeloop”, a deliberately focused alternative to Make. Build a complete, usable vertical slice—not a landing page, static mockup, or disconnected collection of components.

WORKING AGREEMENT
Before you write any implementation code, put together a short technical plan naming the routes or pages, server actions or endpoints, data tables, key state transitions, authorization boundaries, background jobs, and external adapters. When something conflicts, side with the narrow audience and the non-goals below. Choose a small, readable architecture over speculative abstraction, but never skip persistence, validation, error handling, or tests.

PRODUCT BRIEF
Primary user: a technical operations team moving records between three internal systems.
Primary outcome: run inspectable scheduled data pipelines with mapping, branching, and recovery.
Product principle: optimize the exact workflow below instead of copying the full breadth of Make. A first-time user should understand what to do from the interface itself, without a tour or documentation.

END-TO-END USER JOURNEYS
Implement every one of these flows through the real interface and the persistent data layer:
1. An operator creates a scheduled pipeline, loads sample source data, maps fields into the destination shape, adds a filter and branch, completes a dry run, then publishes and enables it.
2. A webhook starts a published pipeline, records are fetched and batched, each record follows the matching branch, and the live run diagram shows counts and status at every node.
3. A destination batch fails, enters the failure queue with redacted diagnostics, and is replayed after correction without refetching or duplicating already accepted records.

SCREENS AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Build these as coherent, responsive views. Each screen must define its primary action, secondary actions, visible status, validation feedback, empty state, loading or pending state, success confirmation, and recoverable failure state.
1. Pipeline dashboard: enabled state, trigger type and schedule, published revision, last run, processed-record count, failures, create, pause, and manual-run actions.
2. Visual builder: left-to-right nodes and edges, trigger, fetch, map, filter, branch, batch, and destination palette, credential references, validation, and publish controls.
3. Mapping and dry-run inspector: sample input, field-path autocomplete, output preview, per-record branch result, validation errors, payload sizes, and no-write dry-run summary.
4. Runs and failure queue: searchable run list, node diagram with timing and counts, per-node attempts and redacted logs, failed batches, replay scope, and cancellation state.

CORE CAPABILITIES
1. scheduled and webhook triggers
2. HTTP fetch, field mapping, filter, branch, batch, and destination steps
3. visual left-to-right run diagram showing each step's status
4. sample-data mapping editor and dry run
5. run history, failure queue, replay, and per-step logs

DETAILED BEHAVIOR AND BUSINESS RULES
Treat these as product requirements enforced on the server, not as interface suggestions:
1. Validate every pipeline as a directed acyclic graph with one trigger, reachable nodes, compatible input and output shapes, bounded fan-out, and no orphaned destinations.
2. Runs pin an immutable published pipeline revision and credential references; later edits cannot alter the graph or mapping used by an in-progress or historical run.
3. Cap source payload, record count, batch size, branch fan-out, and stored diagnostic output; move large batches through queues rather than a single request lifecycle.
4. Checkpoint each node and batch durably, redact credential and configured sensitive fields, and use pipeline, run, node, and record keys to make destination writes idempotent.

DATA MODEL AND LIFECYCLE
Design a small relational schema centered on Pipeline, Node, Edge, Run, NodeRun, Credential. Before implementing it, document:
1. The purpose of each table, its primary key, ownership or tenant boundary, timestamps, status fields, and important attributes.
2. Foreign keys, uniqueness constraints, check constraints, the indexes the named screens need, and transaction boundaries for changes that touch several records.
3. The allowed lifecycle or state transitions, who can trigger each one, which transitions are terminal or reversible, and which audit history must stay immutable.
4. Archive, retention, and deletion behavior, including what happens to dependent records and external files.
5. The idempotency strategy for submissions, jobs, imports, notifications, webhooks, or retries where it applies.
Use migrations instead of ad-hoc schema creation. Store time instants consistently and keep the named timezone context whenever local schedules or dates matter. Never rely on a counter, a disabled button, or a client-side check to protect a business invariant.

USERS, AUTHENTICATION, AND PERMISSIONS
Implement only the roles the stated audience needs. Make the ownership and visibility model explicit before coding. Enforce authorization in every server-side query and mutation, including search, exports, attachments, live updates, and guessed URLs—not just by hiding controls. Use secure session defaults, protect state-changing requests, and provide a clear signed-out, expired-session, and forbidden state. Seed separate users whenever several roles are needed so permissions can be shown and tested.

INTERACTION AND VISUAL DIRECTION
The product should feel fast, calm, focused, and trustworthy rather than like a generic admin template. Use a clear visual hierarchy, restrained color, readable typography, generous hit targets, and a consistent place for primary actions. Start from server-rendered HTML and progressively enhance only the interactions that benefit from it. The core workflow must stay understandable if enhancement fails.

Start from server-rendered Astro pages and plain HTML forms. Use HTMX for form submissions, partial navigation, and server-driven updates, then Alpine.js only for small local browser state. The core workflow must stay understandable if either enhancement layer fails.

Design mobile layouts on purpose instead of just stacking desktop panels. Support keyboard navigation, visible focus, semantic landmarks, explicit labels, useful page titles, reduced-motion preferences, and screen-reader announcements for asynchronous results. Never use color alone to signal state. Destructive actions need a clear scope and a confirmation; safe repeated actions should be idempotent.

Add a footer to every page with the text “Created by aurelioagency.com”, where “aurelioagency.com” is an embedded link to https://www.aurelioagency.com that opens in a new tab. Keep it visible and do not remove it.

TECHNICAL DIRECTION
Build this version with the AHA stack: Astro for routing, layouts, and server-rendered pages; HTMX for interactions that benefit from HTML fragment responses; and Alpine.js for small, local interface state. Prefer Cloudflare D1 for relational persistence, R2 for object storage, Workers for server endpoints and scheduled work, Durable Objects only for coordinated real-time state, and Workflows or Queues for durable background jobs—but only when the product requirements call for them.

Keep domain rules in testable server-side modules, not in route handlers or UI components. Put persistence, external providers, and background work behind small interfaces without building a framework. Prefer plain HTML forms and URLs for durable navigation; use optimistic interaction only when a failure can be reconciled clearly.

The product brief currently identifies Astro, Workflows, D1 as capability context. Preserve any required native, browser-only, edge, storage, real-time, or background-processing capability through a narrow adapter appropriate to the selected framework. If the core workflow genuinely requires native or browser APIs, keep that runtime as the primary execution surface rather than simulating inaccessible capabilities or inventing an unnecessary web surface.

Integrate with HTTP APIs and Queues and Cron Triggers. For every integration:
- List the required environment variables in an .env.example with no real secrets.
- Add a small adapter with timeouts, normalized errors, and a deterministic local fake or development path.
- Verify inbound signatures and deduplicate provider events where supported.
- Keep credentials on the server, encrypt long-lived provider tokens at rest, and redact secrets and sensitive payloads from logs.
- Define retry, backoff, and idempotency behavior for every side effect that can be repeated.

SECURITY AND PRIVACY
Encrypt credentials, cap payload sizes, redact logs, and require idempotency keys for writes.
Validate, normalize, and length-limit all untrusted input on the server. Escape rendered content by default, sanitize any markup you intentionally accept, rate-limit public or abuse-prone actions, and use private object storage plus short-lived authorized URLs for sensitive files. Collect only the personal data the named workflow needs. Document retention and deletion behavior. Add specific protections for the riskier surfaces of this app, such as uploads, redirects, outbound requests, email delivery, OAuth, webhooks, CSV import or export, and real-time connections.

ACCEPTANCE SCENARIOS
Automate these app-specific scenarios at the most suitable level:
1. Given sample data with a missing required destination field, dry run identifies the exact node and record and publishing remains blocked.
2. Given records matching different branch conditions, each record reaches only the configured destination path and the node counts reconcile with the source total.
3. Given one failed batch after other batches succeeded, replay processes only that failed batch and does not duplicate destination records already accepted.

TESTING
Add focused unit tests for state transitions, authorization predicates, normalization, date or money calculations, and other risky domain rules. Add integration tests for persistence constraints and for each external adapter's success, timeout, retry, and rejection paths. Add at least one browser-level test for every end-to-end journey above, including one on a small-screen viewport. Tests must use isolated data and run with one documented command.

OPERATIONS AND FAILURE RECOVERY
Add structured server logs with request, job, or event correlation IDs, but no secrets or unnecessarily sensitive data. Make failures actionable both in the interface and in the logs. Background work must expose pending, succeeded, failed, and retrying states where relevant; never swallow errors silently. Include safe database migration and rollback guidance, seed data, backup and restore notes, external-data cleanup behavior, and a basic health or diagnostic path suited to the stack.

DELIVERABLES
Ship the working application, migrations, representative seed data, tests, .env.example, and a short README. The README must cover prerequisites, local setup, environment variables, migrations, seed and test commands, deployment, integration setup, backup and restore, security decisions, and known limitations. Seed data should cover the happy path plus at least one empty, failed, overdue, expired, archived, or permission-restricted state that matters for the product.

DEFINITION OF DONE
The app is done when a new developer can follow the README, create and migrate the database, run the app, sign in as each relevant role, complete every named journey with real persisted data, refresh without losing state, recover from common failures, and use the core interface on phone and desktop. All acceptance scenarios pass, permission boundaries are covered by tests, no core screen is left as a placeholder, and the “Created by aurelioagency.com” footer credit is visible on every page.

NON-GOALS
Do not build arbitrary loops, user code, thousands of connectors, or a general integration marketplace.

The app you build with this prompt carries a “Created by aurelioagency.com” footer.

Build just one piece

Short prompts that solve the hardest part without building everything.

The graph validator that blocks bad pipelines at the doorOne trigger, no cycles, compatible shapes, bounded fan-out — or no publish.
Build the publish-time validator for a visual data pipeline builder, where pipelines are graphs of nodes (trigger, fetch, map, filter, branch, batch, destination) connected by edges.

Validate structure first: exactly one trigger, every node reachable from it, no cycles (a DAG check with any cycle reported by its member nodes, not a generic error), no orphaned destinations, and branch fan-out within a configured bound. Then validate shapes: each node declares what it emits, and each edge is checked so a consumer's required input fields exist in the producer's output — a destination needing customer_id fed by a map step that never produces it is a publish-time error naming the node, the field, and the upstream culprit.

Run the full validation on every publish attempt and refuse partial passes; a pipeline that is 90 percent valid is 100 percent broken at 3 AM. Keep the checks pure functions over the graph definition so the editor can run them live while the operator drags nodes around.

Done when: cycles and unreachable nodes are rejected with specific node names, a field-shape mismatch names both ends of the bad edge, and validation runs identically in editor and publish paths.
The dry run that writes nothing and hides nothingFull pipeline simulation on sample data, with the failing record pinpointed.
Build dry-run mode for a data pipeline tool: execute the whole pipeline against sample data with destination writes replaced by a report of what would have been written.

Load a sample (captured webhook payload or a bounded fetch) and push it through every real stage — mapping, filters, branching, batching — using the exact production code paths, not a parallel simulation that can drift. Only the final writes are stubbed. For each record, show its journey: which branch it matched, what its mapped output looks like, and the payload size it would produce.

Precision is the feature: when a record fails, report the exact node and the exact record — "record 47 is missing required destination field customer_id after the map step" — never a generic mapping-error summary. Aggregate results into per-node counts (in, out, filtered, errored) that reconcile with the sample total.

Wire dry-run into publishing: a pipeline whose latest dry run failed on required-field errors remains blocked from publish until a clean run passes.

Done when: a dry run leaves every destination untouched, a bad record is identified by node and index, and publish is blocked while the sample still fails.
Replaying the one batch that failedIdempotent destination keys so recovery never duplicates accepted records.
Build the failure queue and replay mechanism for a batch data pipeline — recovery that touches only what actually failed.

When a destination batch fails (timeout, 500, auth expiry), park it in a failure queue with redacted diagnostics: status code, error category, attempt count, but credential values and configured sensitive fields scrubbed. The rest of the run continues; one bad batch must not abort its siblings.

Replay is scoped: the operator fixes the cause and replays exactly the failed batch, from durable checkpointed data — no refetching from the source, which may have moved on, and no reprocessing of batches already accepted. The duplication guard: every destination write carries an idempotency key derived from pipeline, run, node, and record identity, so the murky failure mode — destination accepted the batch but the response timed out — resolves safely when the replayed write arrives with the same keys and the destination (or your dedupe wrapper) recognizes them.

Cap replay attempts and keep parked batches inspectable, with payload sizes bounded.

Done when: replaying a failed batch leaves previously accepted records single, diagnostics contain no secrets, and a timeout-after-accept followed by replay produces zero duplicates downstream.
The run diagram where the numbers have to add upDurable per-node checkpoints feeding counts that reconcile with the source.
Build the live run view for a data pipeline: a left-to-right diagram of nodes where each shows its status and running record counts — and the counts must reconcile.

Instrument every node with durable counters: records in, records out, filtered, errored, currently in flight. Update them from checkpoints, not from optimistic in-memory state — after each batch completes a node, persist the count delta with the checkpoint in one write, so a crashed worker resumes without double-counting or losing progress. The invariant to enforce and display: source total equals the sum of every terminal outcome (delivered per destination, filtered, errored, still in flight). If the books do not balance, show the discrepancy as an error state rather than quietly rendering plausible numbers — a run view that lies is worse than none.

Branch nodes make this interesting: each record takes exactly one branch, so branch outputs must sum to the branch node's input.

Stream updates to the browser while the run executes, and freeze the final counts immutably when it completes.

Done when: a mid-run crash and resume preserves exact counts, branch outputs sum to their input, and any imbalance is surfaced instead of smoothed over.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Make cost if I keep subscribing?

Make runs US$10–29 per month on its public paid plans, which comes to US$120–348 per year. A focused, self-built replacement costs your build time plus close-to-zero hosting.

What stack should I use to build a Make alternative?

The build prompt on this page comes in four flavors: the AHA stack (Astro, HTMX, Alpine.js), Next.js, Laravel, and Ruby on Rails. The capability context for this product is Astro, Workflows, D1. Pick the stack you already know — scope matters more than framework.

What features does a minimal Make replacement need?

A useful v1 needs: scheduled and webhook triggers; HTTP fetch, field mapping, filter, branch, batch, and destination steps; a visual left-to-right run diagram showing each step's status; a sample-data mapping editor and dry run; and run history, a failure queue, replay, and per-step logs. Anything beyond that is scope creep until you genuinely miss it.

What should I deliberately not build?

Don't build arbitrary loops, user-written code, thousands of connectors, or a general integration marketplace.

How is it different from Make?

n8n does most of what Make does, with no subscription, and your data stays with you. The point-by-point comparison is on the page.

Do I own my data?

Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can shut down your account or change the price.

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No time to do it?

We'll build it for you.

If you'd rather have someone install it, connect it to your tools and keep it running, that is exactly what we do at Aurelio.

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