I've been watching the automation space for years. And in 2026, the debate is over. n8n won. Not because Zapier is bad. Zapier is excellent at what it does. It's fast to set up, clean UI, and works perfectly for basic workflows. But "basic" is the ceiling. And serious operators have hit it. Here's what the shift actually looks like on the ground: Many agencies and operators I know, started on Zapier. Everyone does. It's the entry point. You connect Gmail to Slack, automate a few notifications, feel like a genius. Then your business grows. Your workflows get complex. And Zapier starts saying no. No to custom logic. No to running code inside workflows. No to self-hosting your automations. No to affordability at scale. That's when they find n8n. And they don't go back. Here's what makes n8n different for serious automation work: You can write real code inside workflows JavaScript, Python, custom functions. If you can think it, you can build it. Zapier gives you dropdowns. n8n gives you a terminal. Self-hosting means you own your data and your costs At scale, Zapier pricing becomes a tax on your growth. n8n self-hosted runs on your own server. I've seen teams cut automation costs by 80% after switching. The flexibility is genuinely unlimited Multi-step AI agents. Complex conditional logic. Webhook processing. API chaining. Things that would take 15 Zaps to approximate, n8n handles in one clean workflow. The community has already made the decision The Reddit threads, the Discord servers, the YouTube tutorials, the agency playbooks. The technical community has moved. When the builders move, the market follows. Now here's the honest take: Zapier still wins for non-technical users who need something running in 10 minutes. If you're a solopreneur connecting two SaaS tools, Zapier is probably still right for you. But if you're building automation infrastructure for a business? If you're an agency offering automation as a service? If you want to build AI agents that actually work?

Does anyone have the tea on where to obtain mailboxes for $3-5 per month? 🤔 I’m specifically looking for the agency names that resell mailboxes and/or the names of the Indian resellers who can create the accounts. 😊

Has anyone built any workflows for enriching data instead of paying for Clay?

Hi everyone!! Excited to be here. I'm Jason, I have several businesses in the supplement space and an Amazon PPC agency, but recently built a lead gen SAAS tool, using n8n, APIFY, and Antigravity. So I'm quite versed in this world, but looking to learn some more and get this tool to the production-ready finish line. Look forward to learning/sharing.

Do you guys store everything in one Vector Store, or do you split them up based on use case?