N8N really is a great idea.
However its current implementation is complete garbage, at the very least.
In our office I and my colleague designed all sorts of process automation, we pretty much automated everything e-commerce related with WinAutomation, now MS Power Desktop, Selenium and some python scripts here and there. I know about process automation. I am playing with N8N for the last 3 days. Result: I have not created 1 (one) working automation.
The process logic is absolutely flawed - keys, nodes etc. WTF
Why are you making everything so complicated? Over complicated even. For most of the things that you need to launch 5 nodes to create one simple action? Who needs that?
For a simple write to text file action you have to use at least 3 nodes. And that is just the beginning. Good luck with fetching data from previous nodes. Data management is just pure nightmare, try to work with csv data and large files and you will see. Loops? LOL. The most inadequate loop creation I have every experienced. RAM usage is hell at times. Integrations seem promising though, that was the main reason I decided to give it a try.
The documentation is with very basic info, even the inbuilt nodes are not described in an easy and understandable way, examples are silly, I have to look in the forum for everything. I mean - for very simple stuff.
If I am willing to become a paying customer which was eventually my goal and move from all the automation software that we use to N8N - that will never happen at the current state of things. I cannot imagine a company which needs centralized automation that will choose it for production purposes when you have to create very own nodes because some of the current ones are not working as intended. Plus the team learning curve.
I expected good software and lost 3 days and I am frustrated now, sorry.
Sorry to hear you’ve had a frustrating time. It’s a complicated challenge building an automation platform, and for sure there are still rough edges. I really appreciate the feedback about what was frustrating though, this might help us find things we haven’t encountered.
On that note, would you mind giving me some info on the troubles you had with CSV files? And any insight into how loops if failing you would also really help?
Both the company and our wonderful community are working hard to make n8n better, but it’s still early days.
Sorry you lost time, and thank you for the all the insight you can give!
One year later and couldnt agree more. I thought this was dev friendly but it actually feels more restrictive. Also why does opening a module need to cover the entire screen?
On the community we of course like n8n, otherwise we weren’t here. So if we can help you out please let us know what you are struggling with.
For me I know it was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning because of how items work and such. But when I understood this I fell in love with the tool and how easy it is to develop automations.
So yes the first bit can be quite bad, but it is for a good cause.
The 2 courses available now, do actually explain pretty well how things work and should help you over the first bump.
Oh and yes, if we had more flexiblilty in some of the UI that would be great of course.
Use n8n for ~3 years, and it does the job, not easy to setup, but it was (in the past) ok.
But now I had to update old workflows and replace deprecated nodes. The workflows are “simple” status-handler with local file storage… after 6 hours i give up.
I develop since ~35 years software and I am not able to do this silly thing in n8n in an adequate time.
To do things with code nodes is absolutely horrible: single mutliple json item first last all, you get crazy! Inserting test data is complicated, testing flows works not as expected, e.g. sometimes sending mails in parallel execution is not executed. Loops are untestable because you can’t stop. You must always be careful to use the correct data from a previous node and change $json to named node access (huge problem if you change connections).
I don’t want to blame the project because I know how much hard work everybody spent on this project, but really think about the direction it has, especially the parallel data processing, is that really needed? It bloats the development of workflows.
And please install Unreal Engine Editor and look how it works. E.g. Workflows… why not transform them to functions with parameters? And variables only for the paid version, really? Ok, I understand you need to make money, but this is the wrong thing to make money.
I create now a small nodejs app, that does the job. Not perfect, not flexible, but I can implement in just a few hours (incl. Tests).
I thought n8n was something like ComfyUI for image generation. However, although I am used to C, C++, Python, JS, etc. this piece of software makes me wonder what is it good for? It is more difficult to get a workflow working than with simple python, but it took me some time to figure out.
The documentation is terrible: e.g. AI Agent. (which seems buggy by the way).
The examples are hard to find and to understand.
Yes, I have got something working but I don’t know what is really happening under the hood.
Without some excellent vloggers on youtube it is nearly impossible to get a workflow running.
Just try to get Google Gemini working with that Agent. good luck.
Maybe I should ask ChatGPT to make me a workflow.
This is my first automation tool. I cannot believe it is the best.
Sorry.
n8n has a steep learning curve, but it should be a small one.
There is video and text courses available to get going.
I think your issue was, like with many others, you wanted to dive straight in and develop your agents as fast as possible. Which is very understandable, but not the right way to do it.
It is a good idea to first understand the basics of n8n, which can be done with the courses.
ive spent days trying to get it to use my llama3.2 im running locally , this sucks ive made software for linux for about 20 yeers now , im considering just writing the code and making a gui with gtk instead i could have by now trying to get this to work , im thinking its because they want paying customers and dont whant people runningm it loccally so im considering ( rm ) all of it should anyone have to go back to college to use your software and take courses LOL
More info pages on how to get comfyui im running loccally with n8n i have the n8n comfy ui module installed but i have no idea how to use it in n8n ??? would be great
Heavily promoted by YouTube influencers, especially for being free, no-code, and loaded with all the agentic buzzwords.
I’ve spent two days trying to build a simple RAG solution that fetches two one-pager PDF files from Google Drive… and I’m still trying.
The node UI has changed, and the documentation is painfully difficult to navigate
Workflow design looks intuitive—AI Agent → Vector Store Tool → Vector Store—but the agent doesn’t even use the tool unless you explicitly mention it by name (which is not documented anywhere)
Gemini 2 + simple vector store + two one-page PDFs = hallucinations
The templates and help pages are all based on older versions!!!
Was planning to use this in a classroom demo for agentic workflows. Feeling burnt. Stay away is my suggestion.
its current implementation is complete garbage, at the very least.
