Zapier is an absolutely superb tool and the team are rightly to be commended for what they’ve achieved over the past 10 years. It’s still absolutely excellent at handling pretty much any automation workflow you can think of from the SaaS world.

However as the apps get more and more non-deterministic and agentic then Zapier’s AI on top of what it already does can sometimes feel a bit limiting. You can end up in a position where you’re looking for a workflow solution that’s been built from the ground up for AI.

Perhaps you just need more transparent branching logic, more control over your deployments and per-user authorisation for your customer facing AI agents.

Whatever you’re after really, if you’re looking for a Zapier alternative then this post looks at some of the best ones out there.

What is Zapier and what are its other categories?

Zapier connects apps and automates the flow of work between them. Its alternatives generally fall into six categories:

• Agent authorisation runtimes
• Visual automation platforms
• Self-hosted workflow software
• Developer integration infrastructure
• Enterprise orchestration
• Desktop automation

How I selected these 6 Zapier alternatives

Each product has been selected as the leading solution in its category for a particular requirement. It’s not a list of the most feature rich products by any means, it’s a list of the products that are best in class for the job they’re being used for.

1. Workato

Workato takes a fully enterprise-wide approach to automation. Its recipes are used to manage workflows, APIs and integration tasks all within a single governance framework. Its agentic “Genies” take this further by enabling AI model driven, agent based workflows.

Choose Workato if you have a central integration team that’s going to be managing the automation across the business. It provides the necessary governance and oversight to do that. On the other hand if you’ve got a team that just needs a handful of user authorised agent actions then you’re potentially paying for a lot more infrastructure than you actually need.

Key Features

• Recipes bring enterprise workflows and integration tasks all under one common set of controls.
• Agentic “Genies” use job descriptions to define the boundaries of the tasks that are model directed.
• Skills enable AI agents to be connected to the enterprise actions that they are governing.

Pros

• Reuses existing enterprise recipes and governance controls for AI driven workflows.
• Record conversations and skill invocations as jobs, giving a complete execution history.

Cons

• Procurement processes and workspace administration can make it excessive for a team that only needs a handful of connectors and an approval step.
• The breadth of platform capabilities means that there is a requirement for additional governance and configuration prior to any workflows being deployed.

Pricing

Workato has a range of platform editions available: Standard, Business MCP, Enterprise MCP and Workato ONE. Each has a different set of features and various optional add-ons.

• The self service plans use credit based pricing, Enterprise plans are custom priced.
• Credit consumption will vary depending on the complexity of the recipe. Run representative workflows during your trial to get a good idea of your usage prior to committing.

Best for: Centrally governed enterprise integration programmes across a number of departments.

2. Pipedream

Pipedream offer two complementary products that share a common auth layer. Connect provides managed auth and hosted connection flows (so it manages the auth and proxies the direct API calls).

Workflows supports event-driven automation by combining pre-built actions with custom code. You can write your steps in Node.js or Python, with additional support for Go and Bash.

Pipedream brings per-user tool execution into a more general integration platform. You’d pick it when you need auth and authorisation to work in tandem with event driven code. For a product that’s predominantly a governed AI agent tool product, Arcade may be a better fit.

Key Features

• Managed authentication and SDK components provide developers with a reusable integration and connection layer.
• MCP tool execution keeps the external user as the authorisation boundary.
• Workflows can combine pre-built actions with custom code to enable you to extend the functionality beyond the integrations that are available.

Pros

• Embeds the integrations and enables event-driven workflow development all within one platform.
• Provides runtime controls for the operation and management of event driven code.

Cons

• It’s built around developers and code. The ops side of things looking for a drag and drop visual automation canvas are likely to be pretty disappointed.
• Managed auth doesn’t get rid of the need for failure testing. You still need to test for expired auth grants and for actions that are explicitly denied prior to going live.

Pricing

Pipedream has separate pricing for Connect and Workflows.

• Connect pricing is a combination of external user count and usage credits, whereas Workflows pricing is based on compute credits.
• Development access is free, production Connect usage requires a paid plan.
• The plans are Free, Basic, Advanced, Connect and then various Business options (custom). You should check the current pricing and the number of credits included prior to buying.

Best for: Developers building embedded integrations and event driven apps where you need the flexibility of code and user authorisation.

3. Make

Make represents automation as a visual canvas of connected modules. Filters are what decide whether a record goes down a particular path and routers are what introduce the branching. Each path is shown visually so you can see exactly how a record progresses through the workflow.

Make really stands out when automation has moved beyond the confines of a simple, linear Zap. Take a lead routing scenario with four routes and a dozen field mappings as an example. That whole thing can be visible on a single canvas and that gives the operator a real way of looking at and debugging the flow.

However connections and auth are still workspace centric. Think Arcade if you need agents to be able to act in individual customer accounts, or n8n if you want more control over the execution environment.

Key Features

• Scenarios built from application modules keep the workflows visible on a single canvas.
• Explicit routes make branching logic far easier to understand and debug.
• AI Agent tools enable the model to interact with approved workflow components.

Pros

• Gives the operator an inspectable view of the complex routing and data transformation that’s going on.
• Keeps AI driven decisions within the workflow steps and components that the builder has selected.

Cons

• Large scenarios can be very difficult to maintain without some kind of consistent design and operational guidelines.
• Customer facing agents will need a separate authorisation strategy in place before they can access individual user accounts.

Pricing

Make offers credit based pricing (free tier and a number of paid plans).

• The paid plans are Core, Pro, Teams and Enterprise (with various options depending on your usage).
• Pricing is on a credit basis and most module actions consume credits. Complex scenarios with a lot of branching can therefore end up consuming many more credits than their module count would initially imply.

Best for: Ops teams who need to inspect, manage and troubleshoot their branching workflows and data transformations via a visual canvas.

4. Power Automate

Power Automate covers both cloud and desktop automation. Cloud flows make use of Microsoft’s vast connector catalogue to connect to APIs, whereas desktop flows are used to automate the web and Windows interface when there’s no API available.

Its biggest strength is support for legacy desktop software. If you’ve got a Windows app from 2009 that has no API then desktop flows can be a very attractive option indeed. For organisations who are already in the Microsoft world then the existing admin and infrastructure is a big plus.

Key Features

• Cloud flows support automated triggers and on-demand execution.
• Desktop flows can be attended or unattended which allows the automation to run with or without an operator present.
• Microsoft service integrations work within the existing tenant administration and identity controls.

Pros

• One platform that brings together API based cloud automation and interface driven desktop automation.
• Is ideal for organisations who are already managing their Microsoft services, identities and infrastructure.

Cons

• There are a multitude of licensing and capacity models so it’s very difficult to work out the total cost of deployment from the price advertised for a single plan.
• Its Microsoft-centric identity and environment model makes it a less attractive proposition as a vendor neutral runtime for customer facing products.

Pricing

Power Automate offers several licensing options:

• Premium: $15 per user/month
• Process: $150 per bot/month
• Hosted Process: $215 per bot/month
• Free 30-day trial

Microsoft also has a separate per user, per bot and hosted process licensing model.

Premium connectors may add to the cost. You need to work out the total cost of all the licences and capacity models you’re going to require before you go any further.

Best for: organisations automating Microsoft based processes or Windows apps that don’t have appropriate APIs.

5. n8n

n8n is a node based visual editor which can be extended with custom code to achieve the desired workflow. You can run it on n8n Cloud or you can self host it if you require more control over your infrastructure. Self hosted is available via npm or Docker.

One of n8n’s big pluses is the ability to run your workflow executions on infrastructure that you control yourself. That gives you complete control over where your data sits, enables you to run against your own internal systems and can be a huge benefit in certain situations where you have specific data residency or compliance requirements.

However connections in n8n are typically managed at the workflow level. If you’re looking to have an AI agent operating within individual customers’ accounts you’ll need a separate per-user authorisation layer (e.g. Arcade) on top of your workflows.

Key Features

• Standard nodes provide integrations for the more common applications, with custom nodes providing the ability to extend the functionality when the standard integrations aren’t quite sufficient.
• Code steps enable the implementation of custom logic which isn’t easily achievable via visual nodes.
• Managed and self-hosted deployment options are available so teams can pick how much infrastructure they want to manage.

Pros

• Keeps the workflow execution and data location entirely under the team’s control when self hosted.
• Gives technical teams a shared environment in which to build, manage and maintain their workflows.

Cons

• If you self host you’re taking on the infrastructure and platform maintenance yourself. You need to assign clear ownership prior to deployment.
• The custom code and nodes add an extra layer of engineering burden in terms of ongoing maintenance and compatibility updates.

Pricing

n8n offers several pricing tiers, with annual billing options:

• Starter: €20/month
• Pro: €50/month
• Business: €667/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing via the sales team.

A few things to consider:

• With paid plans it’s the number of workflow executions that is counted, not the number of individual steps. A workflow with 5 steps and one with 50 steps each would count as one execution.
• n8n Cloud and self-hosting have very different cost structures. You need to take into account the cost of the infrastructure, the cost of maintenance and the cost of operating it when comparing the two options.

Best for: Technical teams who want flexible workflow automation, the ability to write their own code and a high degree of control over their execution environment.

6. Arcade

Arcade provides an auth & tool execution layer specifically for AI agents. Apps register their tools and Arcade then checks the user’s authorisation before carrying out any action. The provider auth tokens stay completely outside of the model’s context which is a good thing in terms of security.

Traditional automation platforms (Zapier being the prime example) work on the principle that your connections and credentials are all part of a shared workspace. That model simply doesn’t work when you’re building a product for thousands of individual customers each of whom will have their own set of permissions.

Arcade deals with this by tying every tool execution to the application’s user ID. So if you’ve got 5,000 users in a product, user 4,821 can only see the permissions and connections that have been granted to their own account.

Make and n8n are actually better alternatives for the traditional back office processes that are built around fixed workflows. Pick Arcade when it’s absolutely essential that individual user identity and permissions govern every action of every AI agent.

Key Features

• Per-user authorisation ties tool execution to the application user ID so that the permissions for one customer are distinct from those of another.
• Provider tokens are injected at the time of custom tool execution so the credentials don’t end up in the model.
• MCP Gateways expose the approved tools via a single endpoint with identity aware access controls.

Pros

• Maintains individual user permissions and authorisation grants in isolation during execution.
• Supports Arcade Cloud, hybrid deployments and fully self-hosted installs (using Helm) for organisations with private infrastructure requirements.

Cons

• Adds further infrastructure and complexity when a single internal operator is responsible for all application connections.
• Arcade Cloud is based in the US so for any organisation with a different data residency requirement you’d be looking at a private deployment.

Pricing

Arcade offers several pricing options:

• Free: $0/month.
• Team: $25/month plus usage.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing.

A few things to consider:

• The Free and Team plans include allowances for authorisation events and tool calls, with further usage based costs.
• Enterprise plans provide further governance and deployment options.
• Work out your expected authorisation events and tool executions prior to picking a plan.

Best for: Multi-user AI applications where you want to authorise and have the agent carry out actions on behalf of each customer in turn.