Activepieces gives you ten hosted flows that can run all day

80 is the top free plan score of the seven automation tools we track, one point above n8n at 79, which holds rank 1 in the category. That divergence is deliberate and worth knowing rather than reporting as a bug. Generosity carries 35% of the score, and Activepieces has a free hosted door alongside free self-hosting, where n8n's only free route is a server you run. On rank, n8n wins on depth and node count. On the narrow question of how far zero dollars goes, Activepieces wins.

Freedom at 88 is the other reason for the number: a real MIT licence with no carve-outs, and a cloud free tier that is free-forever rather than a trial. Feature depth at 82 is the honest ceiling, sitting behind n8n on raw depth and behind Zapier and Make on connector count, because the piece library is younger than either.

On the hosted free tier, one number does all the work: 10 active flows (as of July 2026). Runs on those flows are unlimited, which inverts the usual free-plan arithmetic, so the question to ask yourself is not how busy your automations are but how many separate ones you want switched on at once.

The eleventh live flow costs $5 per active flow per month. That is a gentle ladder rather than a cliff, and it also means the cost of an untidy account is real: ten dormant automations you forgot to disable occupy the same allowance as ten working ones.

Two honest gaps we will name rather than fill:

• Our data does not record whether the cloud asks for a card at signup, nor what happens when you try to activate an eleventh flow. Treat both as unverified until you see them yourself.
• The connector library is younger and smaller than Zapier's or Make's. The pieces are open source so you can write your own, but if you need an obscure app today, check first.

On the self-hosted side the limits are the ordinary ones: a Docker setup, then your own updates and backups. Enterprise controls (SSO, custom RBAC, piece access controls, global connections and audit logging) sit on the custom Ultimate plan on either route.

This ladder is priced by how many automations you keep live, not by tasks, operations or executions, which makes it the easiest one in this category to forecast. Past the free 10 flows, each additional active flow is $5 a month with unlimited runs on every one of them.

Work that through and the model rewards exactly the workloads other tools punish. A single flow firing every minute all month costs $5 if it is your eleventh, and nothing if it is your fifth. The same job on Zapier's per-task meter or Make's per-operation meter would be a paid plan several rungs up. The reverse case is the warning: an agency running forty small client automations pays $150 a month for thirty flows past the free ten, which is where self-hosting the MIT build starts to look like the sensible answer.

Above the per-flow pricing sits Ultimate, custom annual pricing for SSO, custom RBAC, piece access controls, global connections and audit logging. Nobody upgrades for automation capability here, they upgrade for flow count or for compliance controls.

Yes, genuinely, and it is the only tool in this category with two free routes that both work. Ten hosted flows with unlimited runs is a real free plan rather than a demonstration, and the MIT Community Edition removes even that ceiling if you can run Docker.

Who lives here for nothing: a small business running under ten live automations, however busy they are, on the hosted tier with no server and no card decision to think about. A technical team self-hosting and paying only for the box. Who cannot: an agency or a power user keeping dozens of flows active, since $5 each adds up faster than it reads, and any organisation that needs SSO or audit logging, which is a sales conversation on either route. If a specific connector is the whole reason for your automation, verify it exists before you commit, because that is where this tool still trails the incumbents.

For the deeper engine, n8n's free plan is uncapped if you self-host, and free Activepieces alternatives covers the rest. The category is ranked at best free automation tools.