this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
79 points (91.6% liked)

Selfhosted

60074 readers
635 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts here are to be centered around self-hosting. Please ensure it is clear in your post how it relates to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or git here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
79
What are you using n8n for? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 6 months ago by dataprolet@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
56 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I see n8n everywhere and while I love automation I can't think of a use case, that couldn't be realized in Bash instead.

So I'm wondering, if you use n8n what are you using it for?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] skeptomatic@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Local hosted n8n: local AI llm agent (for privacy), that can use tools to search the web, check my emails and calendar, save memories, get Youtube transcript, etc.

Scheduled workflows to get me some stock info every morning.

Working on a research crawler with crawl4AI.

Only limitations seem to be my will to learn new stuff. I'm sure all this could be written in Python or something but I'm not a programmer.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just to be clear there are two versions. One with nuts for those who want that AI experience, and one without nuts for the anti-ai faction in the group. The n8n ai-starter kit will spin up n8n with AI. I use the plain n8n mainly because I don't have the equipment to run an in-house AI properly or rather effectively, and I don't want to connect to AI exterior of my network. A friend of mine runs the ai-starter kit and does some really impressive stuff with it, but he has all the new toys to properly run it.

[–] skeptomatic@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

2 versions? Nuts vs no nuts?
What do you mean? Your not being clear.
The AI starter kit is a docker stack, not a version or flavour of n8n.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

There is n8n with AI and there is n8n without AI. I run the n8n without AI. AI is not required to run n8n. Both versions can be run in Docker.

[–] skeptomatic@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago

I've only ever added AI to n8n workflows through ollama nodes/tools and agents and whatnot.
I haven't seen the version where an AI llm is baked in yet.
I did see we have tables now which is handy.
Like I said, I'm self self-hosted tho so, either way, don't have to use it if you don't want. I'd probably recommend anyone just install whichever is easiest unless, it's forcing you to download the llm blobs/models and you don't have the space for it.

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 1 points 6 months ago

I've done some of that stuff in Python, and n8n is just lovely, far simpler. You can also add a node that runs Python code in n8n, so you only gain simplicity, but lose almost nothing.

[–] MeatsOfRage@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 6 months ago

Only limitations seem to be my will to learn new stuff. I'm sure all this could be written in Python or something but I'm not a programmer.

I've been a programmer for 20 years. 100% of my personal projects are vibe coded now. Just throw AI at the code.