Built this for a real estate client a few months back and it's still running 24/7 without issues. The problem: they were manually checking OLX, Storia and IMMOFLUX every morning for new listings in their target area. By the time they called, half the good ones were gone. The solution: a single n8n workflow that scrapes all 3 platforms every 15 minutes, deduplicates against a Postgres database, and pushes new listings instantly to Telegram with price, location, photos and a direct link. The stack: - n8n (self-hosted on Oracle Cloud Free Tier — yes, completely free) - - HTTP Request nodes with custom headers to bypass basic bot detection - - Postgres for deduplication (IF EXISTS check on listing ID) - - Telegram Bot API for instant notifications - - Cron trigger every 15 minutes The part that took the most time wasn't the scraping — it was the deduplication logic. You don't want the same listing pushed 4 times just because the price changed slightly. My solution: store a hash of (listing_id + price + location). If any of those change, it's treated as a new/updated listing and pushed again with an "UPDATED" flag. Total hosting cost: €0/month Response time from new listing → Telegram notification: under 2 minutes If anyone is building something similar or has questions about the dedup logic, happy to share more details.

Most people pay €20–50/month for a VPS just to keep n8n running. I've been doing it for free for months now. The secret: Oracle Cloud Always Free tier. What you actually get for free (forever): - 4 Arm-based CPUs + 24GB RAM - - Fixed public IP - - Block storage - - No surprise charges My stack on it: → n8n in Docker (docker-compose) → PostgreSQL as the database → Nginx as reverse proxy → SSL via Let's Encrypt (certbot) What it's running right now: → Real estate listing monitor — checks OLX every 15 min → New listing → instant Telegram notification → Lead data → Google Sheets auto-update → Claude API for lead qualification scoring Uptime: 99%+. Cost: €0. The setup takes maybe 2–3 hours if you have basic Linux knowledge. The Oracle free tier doesn't expire — it's not a trial. I can share the docker-compose.yml I use if anyone wants it. Drop a comment below and I'll post it 👇 Anyone else running their workflows on Oracle or another free cloud? Curious what stacks people are using here.

Built something last week that changed how I handle inbound leads for my automation services. The problem: getting DMs and form submissions from people interested in n8n automation, but 80% were a bad fit — wrong budget, wrong use case, or just learning. The solution: n8n workflow that intercepts Typeform submissions, runs them through Claude API with a scoring prompt, and routes: - Score 8-10 → calendar link sent automatically - - Score 5-7 → added to nurture sequence in Airtable - - Score 1-4 → gets educational resources, no sales call booked Claude evaluates: budget signals, use case complexity, tech readiness, intent clarity. Results after 7 days: → 40% fewer calls scheduled → 100% of booked calls were actually qualified → Zero time on "I just want to learn n8n" requests Runs on Oracle Free Tier, €0/month hosting. Claude API: ~€3-4 for the week. The real insight: LLMs read between the lines better than any dropdown form field. Tone + specificity + context = way more signal than "what's your budget?". Anyone else routing leads through an LLM inside n8n? Curious what prompts work for you.

Când am început cu n8n, puneam totul într-un singur workflow — 25-30 noduri, totul conectat, de sus până jos. Părea logic la momentul respectiv. Dar când cădea un nod undeva la mijloc, trebuia să iau totul de la capăt. Debugging-ul era un coșmar. Am schimbat abordarea complet: max 7-8 noduri per workflow, restul se apelează prin "Execute Workflow" node. Ce câștig cu asta: ✅ Error handling specific pe fiecare modul ✅ Pot testa fiecare parte separat ✅ Când ceva pică, știu exact unde și de ce Concret la mine: flow-ul de monitorizare OLX are 3 sub-workflows separate — trigger, procesare, notificare Telegram. Dacă Telegram are o problemă, flow-ul de procesare continuă să ruleze fără să se oprească tot. 6 luni pe Oracle Cloud Free Tier, 0 €/lună, 94% uptime la rularea simultană a 11 workflows. Voi cum vă structurați workflows-urile mai mari? Un singur flow sau le fragmentați?

Honest post because I see a lot of "just use Oracle Free Tier!" advice without context on what you're getting into. I've been running n8n self-hosted on Oracle Cloud (ARM instance, always-free) for about 6 months. Currently have 11 active workflows — real estate monitoring, lead qualification, Telegram bots, a few AI agents calling Claude and GPT. Here's what actually breaks and how I handle it: 1. RAM is the enemy — 6GB sounds fine until your n8n instance is competing with your AI model calls. I added 4GB swap on the SSD and that fixed most crashes. 2. Webhooks time out silently — Oracle's load balancer has idle timeout defaults that kill long-running executions. Set your n8n WEBHOOK_TUNNEL_URL or use a proper reverse proxy config. 3. Cron drift — Oracle VMs occasionally pause for maintenance. I run a separate heartbeat workflow that pings me on Telegram if any critical workflow hasn't fired in 30 minutes. 4. IP blocks — some sites rate-limit Oracle IPs hard (they're on known cloud ranges). Learned this with OLX scraping. Rotating residential proxy solved it but added cost. What's been rock solid: the 4-core ARM CPU handles concurrent workflows without breaking a sweat. No egress charges for my use case. Zero hosting cost. If anyone's scaling past 5-6 workflows on free tier, happy to share my docker-compose setup. What are you running on yours?