Beam AI vs n8n
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Beam AI if you want platform for agentic process automation across enterprise systems (Supervised agent, subscription); choose n8n if you want fair-code workflow automation with built-in ai agent nodes, self-hostable (Supervised agent, freemium).
| Beam AI | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Platform for agentic process automation across enterprise systems | Fair-code workflow automation with built-in AI agent nodes, self-hostable |
| Type | platform | platform |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | subscription · Pro reported at $50/mo; Agent tiers from ~$990/mo (reported) | freemium · Self-hosted free; Cloud Starter EUR 20/mo |
| Best for | mid-market, enterprise | developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise |
| Deployment | saas | saas, self-hosted, on-prem, api |
| Modalities | text, api | text, code, api, email |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic, gpt, claude, open-source |
| Protocols | function-calling, rest-api | mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | Salesforce, Slack, Gmail, Airtable, ServiceNow | OpenAI, Anthropic, Slack, Google Sheets, Postgres, HTTP/REST |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Beam AI
- +Focused on operational, back-office process automation with exception handling
- +Very broad integration surface (1,000+ apps)
- +EU-hosted, GDPR-compliant, with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II
- -Higher agent tiers are expensive and pricing tiers vary by source
- -Self-learning and autonomy claims should be validated against real workflows
n8n
- +Genuinely flexible: visual no-code builder plus inline JavaScript/Python and HTTP-to-any-API
- +Self-hostable community edition is free with unlimited executions, giving full data control
- +Strong native AI: agent nodes, MCP support, model-agnostic LLM connections built into workflows
- -Not truly open source: the Sustainable Use License restricts commercial use such as reselling n8n as a service
- -Execution-based cloud pricing can balloon for high-frequency workflows
Which should you choose?
Beam AI is platform for agentic process automation across enterprise systems, best for mid-market, enterprise. n8n is fair-code workflow automation with built-in ai agent nodes, self-hostable, best for developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.