Lindy vs n8n comes down to delegation versus construction. Lindy is an AI teammate you brief in plain English and pay for by the credit. n8n is a workflow engine you build yourself, with AI nodes available, and pay for by the run. If the job follows fixed rules, you need neither.
Lindy vs n8n: the short answer
Pick Lindy when the job is judgment-heavy, low-volume, and one person owns it. Pick n8n when the job repeats at volume, needs predictable steps and an audit trail, and you can live with a canvas and some debugging. If the job is rule-only, skip both and use a plain trigger-action tool.
Came for cost? Jump to pricing. Came for control? Go to what breaks.
What you are actually choosing between
Lindy's docs call it “an AI teammate that gets work done for you and your team” (Lindy docs). It lives in Slack, runs scheduled routines, and ships pre-assembled. Older roundups still call it an agent builder, but the wording has moved.
n8n is a node-based workflow engine, and it is not “no AI,” which older comparison pages often get wrong. It has a native AI Agent node: you connect a chat model and one or more tools, “and the agent decides which tools to call to complete a task” (n8n docs). n8n also announced Agents on 2026-09-25, which lets you describe an agent instead of wiring one. It is still in preview.
So both can run an AI agent. The difference is who assembles it. For the node-level distinction, see n8n AI agent vs workflow.
Two terms, defined once. A Lindy credit measures the work Lindy does, and you only spend credits while it is working. An n8n executionis one full run of a workflow, however many steps it has (n8n's definition, from its pricing page).
The capable non-coder sits awkwardly in the middle. A prompt is too loose when you need exact steps and a log. A canvas is too much plumbing when something breaks and nobody owns it.
Pricing: credits vs executions, with one worked example
The two units do not compare line for line: Lindy meters work done, n8n meters runs. So instead of setting two price lists side by side, the next block runs one job through both.
Prices come from the vendors' own pages, as of October 2026. Pricing moves, and some comparison pages still quote older Lindy tiers.
- Lindy Team starts at $29.99 per user per month for 3,000 credits. Pools step up to $49.99 (5,000), $59.99 (6,000) and $199.99 (35,000). Top-ups are $10 per 1,000 credits. Free is $50 in credits, no card, lasting 7 days (Lindy pricing).
- n8n Cloud, billed annually, US view: Starter $20 per month for 2,500 executions, Pro $50 for 10,000. The page shows euros to European visitors (EUR 20 and 50) (n8n pricing).
- n8n Community Edition is free and self-hosted. No execution cap, but you pay for hosting.
Illustrative arithmetic from published rates, not a measured run.
The job: lead or ticket triage, 20 runs per workday, 22 workdays, so 440 runs a month. About 5 steps each, one of them an LLM step.
n8n Cloud. 440 executions regardless of steps. That is 17.6% of the 2,500 on Starter and 4.4% of the 10,000 on Pro. Your LLM provider bill comes on top.
Lindy.Lindy does not publish a per-run credit cost. Every credit figure below is an assumption built on Lindy's published bands: everyday asks 2 to 250 credits, deep work 250 to 1,000, big builds 1,000 to 2,500.
- Ceiling, no assumption needed: 3,000 credits across 440 runs leaves 6.8 credits per run. The 5,000-credit tier leaves 11.4.
- Assumption A: every run is an everyday ask at the 2-credit floor. That is 880 credits a month and fits the $29.99 tier.
- Assumption B: every run costs the 250-credit band top. That is 110,000 credits a month, more than the 105,000-credit tier ($599.97). A run that heavy does not fit this job at this volume.
- Assumption C: Lindy's own band text files “triage a day's support queue” under deep work, so treat each daily batch as one task. At 250 credits a day, 22 days is 5,500 credits (the $59.99 tier). At 1,000 a day it is 22,000 credits (the $199.99 tier).
What this supports: at 440 runs the n8n meter is a fixed count, while the Lindy meter spans roughly $30 to $200 depending on run weight. It does not show n8n is cheaper in general. On n8n you pay in build and debugging time instead, and that bill never shows up on the pricing page.
Two wrinkles. Lindy bills every active user, and a teammate who @mentions Lindy in Slack takes a seat. Five users on the entry tier is 5 x $29.99 = $149.95 a month (arithmetic from the published rate). n8n Cloud tiers list unlimited users, but n8n now has a second meter: Assistant credits for building workflows, 1,600 a month on Starter. Per n8n (blog, 2026-09-30), running a workflow never uses them.
What the reviews say about the meter.Based on our analysis of 42 Lindy Trustpilot reviews collected 2026-06-07, pricing and credits was the top complaint theme, at 52% (themes are keyword-tagged and directional). One reviewer wrote: “Do not pay for this service unless you want to burn credits for errors with their core (and basic) functionality.” Weigh that carefully. Reviewers are self-selected, the sample shows complaints rather than satisfaction, and it covers one platform and is four months old. Read the Lindy reviews yourself.
Our newsletter covers tool-choice breakdowns like this, no pitch attached.
Control, reliability, and what breaks
Lindy.You choose the model per task, and approvals are built in: anything with outside impact waits for a human. When your credit pool runs out, Lindy “pauses credit-using actions and tells you” (Lindy pricing FAQ), so the failure mode is a stopped agent, not a surprise bill. That is a fair trade. It is also cloud-only, so moving away means rebuilding.
n8n. You get error workflows, execution logging, retries, and code steps in JavaScript or Python. The price of that control is that you debug it. Cloud limits to know: Starter caps a single execution at 5 minutes with 5 concurrent runs, and Pro allows 40 minutes. Support below Enterprise is forum-only (n8n pricing, October 2026).
Non-determinism.A prompt-driven agent can produce different output from the same instruction. That is a general property of language models, and it is why approvals matter more on the Lindy side. n8n's own advice fits: “Use nodes wherever the logic doesn't need a decision made” (n8n blog, 2026-08-10).
What reviewers report.In our analysis of 47 n8n Trustpilot reviews (same collection date, same caveats), the top themes were support at 23% and complexity at 19%, with pricing at 13%. One reviewer: “Very hard to debug problems since it's all UI. Credential connections to services expire quickly, making requests start failing.” So Lindy complaints are about the meter, and n8n complaints are about owning the build. The stars lean opposite ways (76% of the Lindy sample was 1-star, 55% of the n8n sample was 5-star), but both samples are small.
of 42 Lindy reviews name pricing or credits, the top complaint theme
of 47 n8n reviews name support, the top theme (complexity 19%, pricing 13%)
Integrations, hosting, and data control
Lindy's pricing page lists 1,500+ integrations plus MCP support (its docs home says 1,000+, so treat the count as unstable). Enterprise adds HIPAA/BAA, SSO/SCIM, and audit logs. No self-hosted option is listed.
n8n gives you the HTTP Request node for any API, MCP nodes, and the self-hostable Community Edition on GitHub. We are not printing an n8n integration count because published counts vary; check n8n's integrations page. Cloud data sits in Frankfurt.
Self-hosting matters if you have data residency requirements, high volume, or a lock-in worry. The honest cost is that you own the server, the updates, and the backups. We cover the decision in should you self-host n8n.
Lindy vs n8n comparison table
| Lindy | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | AI teammate, pre-assembled | Workflow engine with AI nodes |
| Billing unit | Credits, per user | Executions, per workflow run |
| Entry paid price | $29.99/user/mo, 3,000 credits | $20/mo billed annually, 2,500 executions |
| Free option | $50 credits, 7 days | Community Edition (self-hosted) |
| AI approach | Built in, model chosen per task | AI Agent node you configure; Agents in preview |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud or self-hosted |
| Integrations | 1,500+ (pricing page) | Check n8n's integrations page |
| Errors and debugging | Approvals; pauses when credits run out | Error workflows, logs, retries |
| Best fit | Judgment-heavy, low volume | Repeating, high volume, auditable |
| Main limit | Per-run cost unpublished, per-seat billing | 5 min / 5 concurrent on Starter; you maintain it |
Sources: Lindy pricing and n8n pricing, both as of October 2026.
The numbers this comparison hangs on (vendor pages, October 2026; review shares are our Trustpilot analysis, N and date as above):
- Lindy entry: $29.99 per user per month for 3,000 credits. Credit bands: 2 to 250, 250 to 1,000, 1,000 to 2,500.
- n8n Cloud: $20 per month for 2,500 executions (Starter), $50 for 10,000 (Pro). Community Edition: free, self-hosted.
- Reviews (Trustpilot, collected 2026-06-07): Lindy N=42, 52% mention pricing or credits; n8n N=47, 23% mention support.
Which one to pick, and when to skip both
Pick Lindy if the job needs judgment on messy input, runs at low volume, and one person owns it. You accept that cost is a range until you watch real usage.
Pick n8n if the job repeats at volume, needs the same steps every time, or needs a log you can audit. You will learn the canvas and debug it, or you want to self-host.
Use both if one step needs judgment and the rest is plumbing.
Skip Lindy if volume is high, credit unpredictability is a dealbreaker, or you need self-hosting or an audit trail on your own terms.
Skip n8n if nobody will own a canvas, you will not debug it, or you need a fast, contained assistant job.
If you are leaning elsewhere, Lindy vs Zapier, n8n vs Zapier, and Gumloop vs n8n cover the other routes. For the wider picture, see which AI automation tool to use or the comparisons index.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lindy better than n8n? Neither wins across the board. Lindy fits judgment-heavy, low-volume jobs with one owner. n8n fits repeatable, higher-volume jobs where you want control and an audit trail.
How does credit pricing compare to per-execution pricing? They meter different things: work done versus workflow runs. Lindy does not publish a per-run credit cost, so any comparison needs labeled assumptions, as above.
Is n8n really free? The Community Edition is free and self-hosted with no execution cap. You still pay for the server and own updates and backups.
Can a non-coder build an AI agent in n8n? Yes, with effort. The AI Agent node needs a chat model and at least one tool, and you debug the canvas yourself. n8n Agents is still in preview.
Can you use Lindy and n8n together? Yes: Lindy for the judgment step, n8n for deterministic data movement.
Does Lindy have a free plan, and is it cloud-only? Free is $50 in credits for 7 days, so it is a trial (Lindy pricing, October 2026). No self-hosted option is listed, so assume cloud only.
When should you not use an AI agent at all? When the job is rule-only. See do you need an AI agent for a quick check.
More tool-choice breakdowns like this arrive in our newsletter.