A vendor-neutral, plain-English guide to picking and living with the three platforms most operators actually weigh: n8n, Make, and Zapier. Eight volumes, forty chapters, roughly 189,000 words. The same workflows costed three ways, the criteria that actually decide the call, and the decision framework itself in Volume G.
Independent and not affiliated with n8n GmbH, Celonis (Make), or Zapier Inc. These platforms change their pricing, limits, and features often; the reasoning here is built to outlast the specifics, but confirm current numbers against each vendor before you sign.
What automation is and isn't, the three product families and their philosophies, how a run actually happens on each, the capability map, and the same first build three ways.
The app catalogs compared, connections and credentials, triggers, webhooks and raw HTTP, and what each platform offers when the catalog falls short.
The three data models, mapping and transforming fields, lists and loops and aggregation, storing data inside the platform, and handling files.
Branching and merges, waiting and scheduling and throttling, modularity and reuse, error handling by design, and keeping humans in the loop.
AI steps inside ordinary workflows, copilots that build automations for you, agents and MCP, knowledge and memory and chat surfaces, and trust, cost, and control.
Testing and launch, monitoring and alerting, diagnosing failures, teams and governance and change management, and scaling with volume.
The heart of it: unit economics and where each pricing model bends, hosting and security and compliance, embedding and client work, migration and lock-in, and the decision framework you actually run.
Two worked projects costed on all three platforms, a recipes cookbook, a troubleshooting encyclopedia, and the mega-glossary and resource atlas.