Open source Zapier alternatives, and how to choose one

How to choose a Zapier alternative

Zapier is a hosted workflow automation tool. You connect apps, draw a trigger and a list of steps, and it runs that same sequence on a schedule or an event. A Zapier alternative is anything else that runs those automations. The useful question is not which one is cheapest, but three things: do you want it hosted or on your own machines, is your work a fixed workflow or open-ended agent work, and who ends up owning the configuration and the data.

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System. Your agents, their skills, your company memory, and every connector live in one git repo you own, and each session runs on its own cloud computer.

acme-co/            # one git repo is the company  agents/           # who does the work  skills/           # how the company does a job  memory/           # what it has learned so far  kortix.yaml       # connectors, triggers, machine image

Hosted or self-hosted

Hosted is the fastest way to start. Make runs only on its own cloud, and Gumloop is hosted too. You sign up, pick a monthly plan, and the vendor runs everything for you. Self-hosting puts the software on machines your team controls.

n8n, Activepieces, and Kortix all self-host. On n8n the self-hosted Community Edition is the free path, with paid plans for teams. Activepieces runs on your servers on every tier. Kortix self-hosts for free and also runs on its managed cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-hosting matters most when the automation touches customer data, production systems, or anything a security review will ask about.

Fixed workflow or open-ended agent work

This is the bigger decision. n8n, Make, and Activepieces are workflow builders. You draw the path: a trigger, then steps, in an order you set, and it runs the same way every time. Activepieces links a trigger to a set of steps, Make calls each one a scenario, and n8n calls it a workflow and bills per execution. A visual builder fits when the steps are known and repeat, and a canvas is easy for a team to read at a glance.

Some work will not fit a flowchart. Research a competitor, write the report, fix the failing checkout, triage the queue. There are no fixed steps to draw, because the steps depend on what the agent finds. That work runs as a session. You hand a Kortix agent a job in plain language, and it plans and runs its own steps on its own cloud computer. Gumloop covers a version of this too, as hosted agents that browse and act and fire on a schedule or an event.

Who owns it

The last question is ownership. On a hosted tool the configuration lives in the vendor's product, on the vendor's terms. On a self-hosted tool it lives on your servers. Kortix goes further: the company itself is a git repo. Agents, skills, memory files, connectors, and triggers are text you own, so you can grep the whole configuration, diff a change, and roll it back. Work reaches main through a change request a person reads as a diff first, and approval gates stay off until you set them.

If your automation is a fixed flow, a workflow builder will run it well. If the work is open-ended and you want to own the system that runs it, start with Kortix: free to begin and free to self-host. When the choice is a flow builder against an owned system, Read the comparison between Kortix and Activepieces. You can also start from the home page or the Kortix vs Zapier page.