Activepieces vs Make(2026)
Activepieces is better for teams that need free and open source. Make is the stronger choice if much cheaper than zapier. Activepieces is open-source (from $0) and Make is freemium (from $9/mo).
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
By Bikram NathLast updated
Affiliate disclosure: Some “Visit” links on this page are affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you sign up — at no extra cost to you. It does not affect our rankings or editorial coverage. Learn more.
Activepieces
Activepieces is an open-source automation tool with 100+ integrations and a no-code interface. Self-host it free or use the cloud — built for teams who want Zapier-like ease with control.
Starting at $0
Visit ActivepiecesMake
Make (formerly Integromat) offers a visual canvas for building complex multi-step automations with advanced data manipulation, error handling, and branching logic — at a fraction of Zapier's cost.
Starting at $9/mo
Visit MakeHow Do Activepieces and Make Compare on Features?
| Feature | Activepieces | Make |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | open-source | freemium |
| Starting price | $0 | $9/mo |
| Open source (MIT) | ✓ | — |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | — |
| 100+ integrations | ✓ | — |
| No-code editor | ✓ | — |
| Branching logic | ✓ | — |
| Webhook triggers | ✓ | — |
| Community pieces | ✓ | — |
| Visual workflow canvas | — | ✓ |
| 1,500+ integrations | — | ✓ |
| Complex data mapping | — | ✓ |
| Error handling routes | — | ✓ |
| Webhooks | — | ✓ |
| HTTP module | — | ✓ |
| Scenario scheduling | — | ✓ |
Activepieces Pros and Cons vs Make
Activepieces
Make
Deep dive: Activepieces
When to choose Activepieces
Activepieces is the right pick when the team wants a self-hosted automation platform that is genuinely open source under the MIT license with no restrictions on commercial use. Unlike n8n, which uses a custom license that restricts some enterprise features, Activepieces is fully MIT-licensed, meaning the team can fork, modify, and deploy it without legal ambiguity. It fits teams that want a clean, modern UI closer to Zapier's simplicity than n8n's developer-oriented interface, but without the per-task pricing. The Docker-based deployment takes under 10 minutes, and the project ships with a growing library of pre-built integrations called Pieces. Choose Activepieces when the team is cost-sensitive, needs a self-hosted solution for compliance, and prefers a polished UI. Avoid it when the integration catalog must cover hundreds of niche SaaS tools, when the workflow logic requires code-level complexity that n8n handles better, or when the team needs battle-tested reliability at enterprise scale.
Real-world use case
A small agency running client projects deploys Activepieces on a per month DigitalOcean droplet to automate repetitive client onboarding tasks. When a new client fills out a Typeform, a webhook triggers an Activepieces flow that creates a Notion workspace from a template, sends a welcome email via Resend, adds the client to a Google Sheet tracker, and posts a notification in the internal Slack channel. The agency runs about 50 flows per month across 8 active automations. Total cost is per month for the server. The equivalent on Zapier would cost approximately per month. The tradeoff: the integration library is smaller, so the agency had to use the HTTP piece for two integrations that Zapier handles natively with dedicated connectors. Each of those required manually constructing API requests with proper authentication headers, which took about an hour per integration to set up and test.
Hidden gotchas
The Piece ecosystem is growing but still significantly smaller than Zapier, Make, or n8n. As of mid-2026, Activepieces has roughly 100 pre-built integrations compared to n8n's 400-plus and Zapier's 6,000-plus. For any integration not in the catalog, the team must use the HTTP piece or build a custom Piece in TypeScript, which requires Node.js development skills. The project is actively developed with frequent releases, but this also means breaking changes between versions can occur. Database migrations during upgrades sometimes require manual intervention, especially when upgrading across multiple minor versions. The built-in code piece supports TypeScript but runs in a sandboxed environment with limited package access, so importing external NPM packages is not straightforward. Webhook reliability on self-hosted instances depends entirely on the hosting setup: without a reverse proxy with proper SSL termination and health checks, webhook endpoints can become unreachable during deployments or server restarts without the team noticing.
Pricing breakdown
Activepieces Cloud starts free with 1,000 tasks/mo. The Pro plan at $10/user/mo includes 10,000 tasks. The Platform plan at $50/mo adds white-labeling and custom branding. Self-hosted is free and open-source under the MIT license with no task limits. A self-hosted instance on a $5/mo VPS handles unlimited automation tasks. The cost advantage over n8n: Activepieces Cloud is 50% cheaper (€10 vs €20 for starter tier), and the self-hosted version has a more permissive MIT license vs n8n's Sustainable Use License. The limitation: fewer built-in integrations (200+ vs n8n's 400+).
Deep dive: Make
When to choose Make
Make is the right choice when the team needs Zapier-level integration breadth at a fraction of the cost, and when workflows involve non-trivial data transformations, branching, or error handling. Its visual canvas with drag-and-drop modules, routers, and iterators makes complex multi-path workflows significantly easier to build and debug than the equivalent in Zapier, which flattens everything into a linear step chain. Make is strongest for teams that sit between no-code users and full developers: comfortable enough to map JSON fields and write basic expressions, but not wanting to manage infrastructure. The built-in HTTP module and JSON parser mean most API integrations that lack a native module can still be wired up without external tools. Choose Make when the workflow complexity or task volume would make Zapier prohibitively expensive. Avoid it when the team is entirely non-technical and needs the simplest possible UX, or when the integration catalog must include niche vertical SaaS tools that only Zapier supports.
Real-world use case
An e-commerce team running a Shopify store uses Make to automate order fulfillment notifications, inventory sync, and customer feedback collection. A new order triggers a scenario that branches based on shipping destination: domestic orders route to a local 3PL API via HTTP module, international orders route to a different fulfillment partner. Both branches then update a Google Sheet inventory tracker, send a WhatsApp notification to the warehouse team via the Twilio module, and create a follow-up email in Brevo scheduled for 7 days post-delivery. The scenario has 12 modules across 3 branches and runs approximately 3,000 times per month. On Make Core at per month with 10,000 operations, this is comfortably within plan. The equivalent Zapier setup would consume roughly 36,000 tasks per month at 12 steps per trigger, pushing the cost past per month. The tradeoff: the initial build took the team about 4 hours compared to a likely 2 hours in Zapier, because Make requires explicit data mapping between modules where Zapier automatically surfaces fields from previous steps.
Hidden gotchas
Operations counting differs from Zapier tasks but is not always cheaper in edge cases. Each module execution counts as one operation, including filters that stop the flow. However, iterators that loop over an array count one operation per array element per downstream module, which can cause a single webhook trigger to consume hundreds of operations if it processes a list. Teams that automate batch events like processing all line items in an order must model the operation count as trigger_count multiplied by average_items multiplied by modules_after_iterator. The visual editor, while powerful, has a learning curve: routers, aggregators, and iterators are concepts that do not exist in Zapier and require understanding data flow rather than just connecting apps. Error handling routes are a major differentiator but must be explicitly configured per module. Without them, a module failure silently stops the scenario branch, and the team discovers missing data hours later. The built-in data store is limited to 10,000 rows on most plans and uses a proprietary query interface rather than SQL. Webhook response timing is tight: if a webhook trigger needs to return a response to the calling system, the entire scenario must complete within 40 seconds. Complex scenarios that exceed this window require an asynchronous pattern with a separate confirmation webhook, which the documentation mentions but does not walk through clearly.
Pricing breakdown
The free plan includes 1,000 operations per month and 2 active scenarios. The Core plan at per month includes 10,000 operations and unlimited active scenarios. The Pro plan at per month includes 10,000 operations plus priority execution and full-text log search. A team running 10 scenarios averaging 500 executions per month with 5 modules each consumes 25,000 operations monthly, requiring the Core plan with an add-on pack or the Teams plan at per month with 10,000 base operations plus purchased operation packs at per additional 10,000. Total cost would land around per month. The same workload on Zapier Professional would cost approximately per month in tasks.
Should You Use Activepieces or Make?
For most teams, Activepieces is the better default: it offers free and open source and is open-source (from $0). Choose Make instead if much cheaper than zapier matters more than fewer integrations than zapier/n8n. There is no universal winner — the right pick depends on your budget, team size, and whether you value free and open source or much cheaper than zapier more.
Choose Activepieces if…
- •Free and open source
- •Easy self-hosting (Docker)
- •Growing integration library
Choose Make if…
- •Much cheaper than Zapier
- •Powerful data transformation
- •Visual debugger