n8n - Workflow Automation Tool

n8n is a free node based "Open Source" (with Commons Clause) Workflow Automation Tool. It can be self-hosted, easily extended, and so also used with internal tools.

Is still in beta so can not guarantee that everything works perfectly. Also is there currently not much documentation. That will hopefully change soon.

Demo

A short demo (< 3 min) which shows how to create a simple workflow which automatically sends a new Slack notification every time a Github repository received or lost a star:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePdcf0yaz1c

Usage

Information about how to install and use it can be found in the cli package here

And information about how to run it in Docker here

Development Setup

1. Clone the repository
2. Go into repository folder
3. Run: npm install
4. Run: npx lerna bootstrap --hoist
5. Run: npm run build or npx lerna exec npm run build (if lerna is not installed)

Start

Execute: npm run start

Hosted n8n

If you are interested in a hosted version of n8n on our infrastructure please contact us via: hosting@n8n.io

What does n8n mean and how do you pronounce it

Short answer: It means "nodemation"

Long answer: I get that question quite often (more often than I expected) so decided it is probably best to answer it here. While looking for a good name for the project with a free domain I realized very fast that all the good ones I could think of were already taken. So, in the end, I choose nodemation. "node-" in the sense that it uses a Node-View and that it uses Node.js and "-mation" for "automation" what the project is supposed to help with. Did however not like how long the name was and could not imagine writing something that long every time in the CLI. That is when I then ended up on "n8n". Sure does not work perfectly but does neither for Kubernetes (k8s) and did not hear anybody complain there. So I guess it should be ok.

License

Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause