I believe it would be beneficial to add the option to share credentials and workflows to the community version of n8n. Currently, this functionality is only available in the enterprise plan, which may make it inaccessible to many users. However, it’s important to note that it’s crucial not only for enterprise plan users but also for those using the community plan. By allowing users to share credentials and workflows in the community version, it would enhance collaboration and streamline workflow management while ensuring security measures are upheld, thus reducing the need for workarounds.
My use case:
In our case, we host n8n and often encounter situations where we need to collaborate on workflows with colleagues or other teams. However, without the ability to share credentials and workflows directly within the community version, we resort to workarounds such as sharing JSON files or less secure methods like exchanging emails for workflow access. These methods are cumbersome and inefficient, leading to unnecessary delays and complications in our workflow management process.
I think it would be beneficial to add this because:
I believe it would be beneficial to add this feature because it would significantly improve workflow efficiency and collaboration among n8n users. Despite the availability of workarounds, such as sharing JSON files or sharing emails, these methods prove to be inefficient and consume unnecessary time. Implementing this simple functionality would eradicate these inefficiencies, allowing users to focus on their tasks without unnecessary delays. Moreover, by making this feature accessible to all users, regardless of their plan, it would enhance the overall user experience and ensure that users can fully leverage the capabilities of n8n for their workflow management needs.
Thank you for taking the time to create that very detailed feature request. All of your points are true and correct. It would, for example improve efficiency and increase the general user experience for all users. Those and similar points can probably be made for every paid feature we have right now. After all, is that the reason why we created them, as they are hopefully helpful features that companies are willing to pay for.
However, by making that and all other features free, we would not be able to build a sustainable business as we can not give away 100% of the value for free, we already do so with probably 98%+. Some people, especially businesses have to pay us, so that we can pay our team and keep on building n8n.
We know that obviously not everybody can afford our Enterprise version (after all, it is for Enterprise organizations) but many features, like sharing, are also available on n8n Cloud (starting price $/€20/month) or also self-hosted via our Startup Plan ($400/month). We think both should be affordable also for smaller organizations as well, especially compared to the value and saving n8n brings and all the value, functionality and support we already offer for free.
There can still be a point made about which features should be paid for and which should not. We think that using n8n successfully in a production environment should be allowed for free. If then, however, the deployments get larger, and multiple people are involved, that is a good point to draw the line. In discussions like that, we see also very often that people argue that the features they need should be free and things they do not require should be paid for. I think that is very human, and honestly, I myself am not immune to that. But no matter what, is it currently very unlikely that we will make collaboration available for free any time soon. I hope that makes sense.
I fully understand your points. Indeed, all features can be considered important with similar arguments. However, I would like to emphasize that, in the specific case of collaboration on workflows, I see it on a different level from the others.
I imagine that a team, even small, composed of two or three users (and in need of a larger volume of workflows), could obtain considerable benefits from using this function, without the need to share emails or JSON files. I perceive it as something simple and fundamental, possible even in the Starter plan and notably different from the other functionalities, as its absence only creates a longer and less efficient path for these small teams.
Features like Execution Search and Workflow History can be considered advantageous additions, useful for everyone either way, but I see them on a higher tier. On the other hand, resources such as having more “admin” users, Global Variables, Debug in Editor, and even “Ask AI,” are more specialized and slightly more niche; not everyone will need them. I confess I didn’t even expect “Ask AI” to be available in the free version because of that. And then, when we consider the need for Environments, Log Streaming, SSO, Version Control, External Secret Store Integration, and other features present in the Enterprise plan, I fully agree that they are unique and essential characteristics for large companies, which are certainly willing to invest in them.
Respectfully, albeit without knowledge of the history, I feel that the collaborate on workflows functionality was initially released as an incremental improvement, but due to its early introduction into the product, it became a significant differentiator at the time, thus being left out of the community version. However, I consider it a core feature for the effective use of the platform from two users onwards, unless the purpose of the free plan is exclusively for personal projects; it is useful and core for 100% of cases, unlike any other feature.
Grateful for the opportunity to express my opinion, I understand and respect the company’s business decisions. Thank you very much.
We are looking to self host our n8n, currently on the cloud pro version, but we keep running into issues where we have large JSON or even multiple binary files causing our workspace to slow down or even crash, we have done all of the recommended items to try and make the issues not so bad. I’m not sure exactly how many employees we have. We definitely can’t afford the Enterprise version currently, but we may be able to the Startup plan. Is the 20 employees a hard cutoff for being able to use the Starter plan? There are only 2 of us that would actually be using n8n. I just want to have more info before I start trying to get anything approved.
We have to self host since one of the APIs we interface with blocks your IP address range. That means that we are unable to even use the mid tier features without going all the way to enterprise plan, which isn’t possible at our size. I love n8n as a platform, but the separation in plans and features with self-hosted vs cloud makes it very difficult for us to use the product. I wouldn’t even care if we could pay for specific features or do anything other than going from free to a quadrillion dollars when self hosting.