Activepieces
by ActivePieces
No-code workflow automation with self-hosting and AI-powered features Activepieces is an open-source workflow-automation platform, first released in 2022, that positions as a self-hostable alternative to Zapier and Make. The company behind it went through the Y Combinator accelerator and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Performance Scores
11 rankings evaluated
Score range: 6.6 – 8.7
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#2Best Free Automation Tools in 2026
Score: 8.2 · Best for: MIT-licensed-core self-hosting
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#2Best Open Source Automation Platforms 2026
Score: 8.7 · Best for: Best for: teams wanting a MIT-licensed-core automation platform with a modern interface
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#3Best Automation Tools for Small Business 2026
Score: 7.8 · Best for: Tech-comfortable small businesses wanting free or low-cost self-hosted automation
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#3Best Automation Tools for Startups in 2026
Score: 8.0 · Best for: Dev-heavy startups wanting MIT-licensed automation to embed or extend
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#3Best Automation Tools by Price-Performance Value in 2026
Score: 8.5 · Best for: Teams wanting self-hostable automation built on an MIT-licensed core
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#4Best Automation Tools for Developers and Engineering Teams in 2026
Score: 8.2 · Best for: Developers wanting to contribute to or extend a permissively-licensed automation platform
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#4Most Customizable AI Agent Platforms 2026
Score: 7.1 · Best for: Teams that want customization they can self-host and keep
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#5Best No-Code Automation Platforms in 2026
Score: 7.6 · Best for: Teams wanting a permissively-licensed Zapier alternative with self-hosting and predictable cloud pricing.
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#6Best Open-Source Workflow Engines for Engineers in 2026
Score: 7.3 · Best for: Businesses wanting an MIT-licensed, self-hosted automation platform for internal workflows without redistribution restrictions
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#8Best Process Orchestration Platforms 2026
Score: 6.6 · Best for: Teams wanting a self-hostable visual builder with a large connector catalogue
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#8Best AI Agent Platforms in 2026
Score: 7.2 · Best for: Open-source AI-augmented workflows with MIT licensing
Key Facts
product
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCP / AI agent support (May 2026) | 280+ pieces exposed as MCP servers, callable by AI agents in Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf | May 2026 | Activepieces product site |
technical
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration model (May 2026) | Integrations ("pieces") are TypeScript npm packages; Activepieces reports roughly 60% are community-contributed | May 2026 | Activepieces open-source page |
| License model (May 2026) | Community Edition open-source under the MIT license (free to self-host); Enterprise features under a separate commercial license | May 2026 | Activepieces GitHub repository |
Core Features
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| No-Code Workflow Builder | Provides a visual, drag-and-drop interface for building automation workflows without coding | Jul 2026 | Activepieces GitHub README |
| Webhook Triggers & Scheduling | Supports webhook triggers and scheduled runs for real-time and periodic automation | Jul 2026 | Activepieces Webhook piece |
| 200+ Pre-Built Integrations | Offers 700+ integrations (pieces), including Slack, Google Sheets, GitHub, Stripe, and Salesforce, as of July 2026 | Jul 2026 | Activepieces pieces catalog |
General
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-Hostable | Can be deployed on your own infrastructure with Docker support | Jul 2026 | Activepieces docs — Docker install |
| Git-Based Version Control | Flows are versioned natively; Git-backed Project Releases (formerly Git sync) let paid plans promote flows between environments via a Git repository, as of July 2026 | Jul 2026 | Activepieces docs — Project Releases API |
| Team Collaboration | Includes features for team-based workflow development and sharing | Jul 2026 | Activepieces pricing page |
AI Features
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-Powered Automation | Ships AI agents, an AI SDK, and MCP support — all 280+ pieces are usable as MCP servers with LLM clients such as Claude Desktop and Cursor, as of July 2026 | Jul 2026 | Activepieces GitHub README |
Support
| Attribute | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise Support | Ultimate plan includes SSO, audit logs, custom RBAC, piece access controls, and team/personal projects, as of July 2026 | Jul 2026 | Activepieces pricing page |
Strengths
- ●MIT-licensed core; enterprise features separately licensed on use or redistribution
- ●Self-hosted option removes all execution limits
- ●Cloud free tier includes 10 active flows with unlimited runs
- ●Simple vertical step builder for fast onboarding
- ●MIT core; packages/ee is proprietary and needs a paid enterprise licence for production
- ●Clean modern UI
- ●756 pieces as of July 2026
- ●Easy Docker deployment
- ●Growing rapidly
- ●Good documentation
- ●Free self-hosted option
- ●Clean modern interface
- ●Growing piece ecosystem
- ●No vendor lock-in
- ●MIT core; packages/ee is proprietary and needs a paid licence
- ●Free self-hosted unlimited
- ●Growing template library
- ●Simple vertical builder
- ●Unlimited free self-hosting
- ●Modern clean interface
- ●Growing integration library (756 pieces as of July 2026)
- ●TypeScript-based piece SDK
- ●Clean modern architecture
- ●Active contributor community
- ●756 pieces and a TypeScript pieces framework published on public npm
- ●Bidirectional MCP: a 42-tool built-in server plus flow-as-tool publishing and an external client
- ●Docker, Compose, Helm, Pulumi and five one-click hosts, with limits set by environment variable
- ●Custom RBAC, SAML, SCIM and 16 audit event types in the enterprise edition
- ●Self-hosted distribution with Docker support
- ●Cloud plans from $0-$25/month
- ●MIT-licensed community edition; enterprise features separately licensed
- ●TypeScript SDK for authoring custom integrations (pieces) with typed inputs and outputs
- ●Visual builder with branching, loops, and error handling suitable for business users
- ●Docker-based self-hosting with PostgreSQL and Redis
- ●756 pieces covering 5,549 actions as of July 2026
- ●Checkpointed run log with replay-and-skip recovery after worker death
- ●Waitpoints hold a paused run for up to 30 days
- ●Docker, Compose, Helm and Pulumi deployment with limits set by environment variable
- ●MIT-licensed core; enterprise features separately licensed
- ●Self-hostable with full control
- ●Growing AI node ecosystem
- ●Low-cost cloud option from $10/mo
Limitations
- ●150+ integrations is smaller than competitors
- ●Younger project with less community content and tutorials
- ●Advanced workflow features (sub-flows, error branches) are limited
- ●Fewer enterprise features compared to n8n
- ●Newer project (2022)
- ●Smaller integration library than n8n
- ●Fewer advanced features (branching limited)
- ●Community still building
- ●Smaller integration library
- ●Younger platform with fewer features
- ●Community-dependent for new integrations
- ●150+ integrations (smaller library)
- ●Younger project with fewer resources
- ●Enterprise features still developing
- ●Fewer integrations than established competitors
- ●Younger project with smaller community
- ●Some enterprise features still in development
- ●Fewer integrations than established competitors (200+)
- ●Smaller community than n8n
- ●Some advanced features still in development
- ●Cloud code steps run at 128 MB with require removed and no npm access
- ●Arbitrary npm needs the process sandbox, which requires privileged containers
- ●Key-value state is capped at 512 KB with 128-character keys and is not configurable
- ●The public REST API, private pieces and every governance control require an enterprise licence priced only on request
- ●Publishing a private piece means forking the monorepo, building a tarball and holding that licence
- ●Smaller integration library than Zapier, Make, or n8n
- ●Newer project with fewer enterprise references
- ●Smaller integration catalog than n8n — roughly 200 pieces versus n8n's 400+ nodes as of April 2026
- ●Enterprise features (SSO, audit logs, custom branding) are gated behind a paid license
- ●Newer project with less production deployment history than Airflow or Temporal
- ●Not plain MIT: packages/ee and the server ee directory are proprietary and need a paid licence
- ●Cloud code steps run in isolated-vm at 128 MB with require removed and no npm access
- ●No parallel fan-out or join; the tracking issue has been open since May 2023
- ●Key-value state is capped at 512 KB and is not configurable
- ●Cloud executions are capped at 10 minutes; the documented remedy is splitting flows
- ●AI agent features less mature than dedicated platforms
- ●Smaller integration library (150+)
- ●Younger community with fewer resources
Based on evaluations in 11 rankings: Best Free Automation Tools in 2026, Best Open Source Automation Platforms 2026, Best Automation Tools for Small Business 2026, Best Automation Tools for Startups in 2026, Best Automation Tools by Price-Performance Value in 2026, Best Automation Tools for Developers and Engineering Teams in 2026, Most Customizable AI Agent Platforms 2026, Best No-Code Automation Platforms in 2026, Best Open-Source Workflow Engines for Engineers in 2026, Best Process Orchestration Platforms 2026, Best AI Agent Platforms in 2026
Pricing Plans
Free
Free forever, no card; credits reset daily with a hard cap
- ✓Chat to automation
- ✓Flows, Agents, Tables, MCPs
- ✓Unlimited flows
- ✓API access
- ✓Cloud or on-prem
- !Single user
- !Daily credits with hard cap (no overage)
Plus
(or $16.00/yr)
$20/mo month-to-month; $16/mo billed yearly (2 months free). Extra credits $0.007 each, pay as you go
- ✓Monthly standard credits (3x Free)
- ✓Pay-as-you-go credit overage
- ✓Bring your own AI keys
- ✓Team analytics
- ✓Cloud or on-prem
- !Up to 5 users
- !No projects, SSO, or Git Sync
Team
(or $166.00/yr)
$200/mo month-to-month; $166/mo billed yearly. 25 users included, then $25/user/mo
- ✓5x the credits of Plus
- ✓Unlimited projects
- ✓SSO and standard roles
- ✓Global connections
- ✓Human support over email
- !25 users included, $25/user/mo beyond
Ultimate
Custom pricing; credits sized to usage and reset yearly
- ✓Releases and Git Sync
- ✓Dedicated workers, priority execution
- ✓SCIM provisioning and custom roles
- ✓Audit logs, secret managers, governance
- ✓Dedicated support
About Activepieces
Activepieces is an open-source workflow-automation platform, first released in 2022, that positions as a self-hostable alternative to Zapier and Make. The company behind it went through the Y Combinator accelerator and is headquartered in San Francisco. The product combines a visual flow builder with an open contributor model, and from 2024 onward repositioned around AI workflows and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
The core building block is a "piece," Activepieces' term for an integration. Each piece bundles the triggers and actions for one service (a CRM, a database, an email provider, an LLM API) and is published as an npm package. Pieces are written in TypeScript against a typed framework, and a large share of the catalogue is community-contributed rather than vendor-built: Activepieces reports that roughly 60% of pieces come from outside contributors. This open catalogue is the platform's main structural difference from proprietary competitors, whose connector libraries only a vendor can extend.
Activepieces ships in three forms. The Community Edition is open-source under the MIT license and is free to self-host for internal business use. Activepieces Cloud is a managed offering with a free tier and usage-based paid plans for teams that do not want to operate infrastructure. The Enterprise Edition adds governance features such as single sign-on, role-based access control, audit logs, and white-labelling under a commercial license. The split mirrors the open-core model used by n8n, where the engine is open and the enterprise governance layer is commercial.
Through 2024 and 2025 Activepieces leaned into AI agent use cases. The platform added an AI assistant for building flows, native LLM steps, and exposed a large share of its pieces as MCP servers, so the same integration catalogue that powers visual workflows can be called by AI agents in tools such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf. As of 2026 the project lists more than 280 pieces usable as MCP servers, which places it among the more active open-source projects bridging no-code automation and agent tooling.
flowchart TD
A[Need workflow automation] --> B{Data must stay in your infrastructure?}
B -- Yes --> C[Community Edition: self-host, MIT, free]
B -- No --> D{Need SSO, RBAC, audit logs?}
D -- Yes --> E[Enterprise Edition: commercial license]
D -- No --> F[Activepieces Cloud: free tier + usage plans]
C --> G[Pieces: npm packages, ~60% community-built]
E --> G
F --> G
Activepieces competes with n8n, Zapier, Make, and Pipedream. Its position is narrower and clearer than the broad incumbents: an MIT-licensed engine for teams that want to self-host, extend the connector catalogue themselves, and call those connectors from both visual flows and AI agents. It trails Zapier and Make on raw integration count and trails n8n on enterprise track record, but the permissive MIT license (more liberal than n8n's source-available Sustainable Use License) is a genuine differentiator for teams with strict licensing or resale requirements.
Editor's Note: Across 5 ShadowGen Activepieces deployments in 2025-26, the MIT license is the reason it gets shortlisted and the small core team is the reason it sometimes does not get chosen. Self-hosting the Community Edition on a single 2 vCPU / 4 GB node handled low-hundreds of daily flow runs without tuning in every case we shipped. The honest caveat: for a piece that does not yet exist you are writing TypeScript, not filing a vendor ticket, so budget contributor time if your integration surface is unusual. For mainstream SaaS connectors the catalogue is already deep enough. — Rafal Fila, ShadowGen
Integrations (12)
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Workflow AutomationSee How It Ranks
Best Durable Workflow Engines for Production in 2026
A ranked list of the best durable workflow engines for production deployments in 2026. Durable workflow engines persist execution state to a database so that long-running workflows survive process restarts, deployments, and infrastructure failures. The ranking covers Temporal, Prefect, Apache Airflow, Camunda, Windmill, and n8n. Tools were evaluated on production reliability, developer experience, scalability, open-source health, and documentation quality. The shortlist intentionally mixes code-first engines (Temporal, Prefect, Airflow) with hybrid visual platforms (Camunda, Windmill, n8n) to reflect how production teams actually choose workflow engines in 2026.
Best No-Code Automation Platforms in 2026
A ranked list of no-code automation platforms in 2026. The ranking covers visual workflow builders that allow non-engineering teams to connect SaaS apps, route data, and add conditional logic without writing code. Entries cover proprietary cloud platforms (Zapier, Make, Pipedream, IFTTT) and open-source visual builders (n8n, Activepieces). Scoring reflects integration breadth, pricing accessibility, visual editor ease, reliability and error handling, and self-hosting availability.
Questions About Activepieces
What should teams do now that Relay.app is shutting down?
Relay.app announced on 16 July 2026 that it is shutting down. Free accounts and all their data are permanently deleted after 15 August 2026 at 23:59 PT, and paid accounts after 14 September 2026 at 23:59 PT, with paying customers keeping full access at no charge until that date. Export the workspace archive well before the deadline, because generation can take up to 24 hours and the emailed download link expires after 48; for the human-in-the-loop workflows Relay.app was usually bought for, Zapier and n8n are the only platforms evaluated here where a reviewer can edit an AI draft mid-run without custom development.
What are the best self-hosted workflow automation tools in 2026?
The best self-hosted workflow automation tools in 2026 are n8n, Activepieces, Windmill, Huginn, Apache Airflow, Temporal, and Camunda. n8n leads for SaaS integration breadth, Windmill for code-first scripts, Temporal for durable backend workflows, and Airflow for data pipelines.
What are the best Zapier alternatives for power users in 2026?
The best Zapier alternatives for power users in 2026 are Make, n8n, Pipedream, Workato, and Activepieces. Make and Pipedream offer richer logic at lower cost, n8n and Activepieces add self-hosting, and Workato fits enterprise complexity.
What are the best open-source Zapier alternatives in 2026?
The best open-source Zapier alternatives in 2026 are n8n, Activepieces, Huginn, Windmill, and Apache Airflow. Activepieces leads on permissive licensing, n8n on integration breadth, Windmill on code-first scripts, and Huginn on lightweight monitoring.
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n8n vs Activepieces in 2026: Open-Source Automation Compared
A detailed comparison of n8n and Activepieces covering licensing, integrations, self-hosting, workflow builders, pricing, and community — with migration data from a real team switch.
Automation for Small Business: Getting Started
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