Activepieces

What is Activepieces?

Activepieces is a workflow automation builder with a Zapier-style flow editor, a growing catalogue of integrations, and a licence that lets you run the whole thing on your own hardware. Flows are built from triggers and actions, support branching and loops, and can call HTTP endpoints or run custom code when no packaged integration exists.

Best for

Teams that want a Zapier-style builder without paying per task

Why choose Activepieces

Activepieces is the automation tool for people who want Zapier's visual simplicity without Zapier's per-task pricing, and without n8n's developer-first steepness. The builder is genuinely approachable: every step shows you its inputs and outputs in plain language, which matters a great deal when you are wiring together a payment provider and a spreadsheet at eleven at night. Because it runs on your own machine, a workflow that fires fifty thousand times a month costs exactly the same as one that fires fifty.

Replaces

• Zapier
• Make
• n8n

Key features

• Visual flow builder with branching and loops
• Growing library of packaged integrations
• HTTP and code steps for anything not packaged
• Runs fully on your own infrastructure

What to watch out for

The integration library is smaller than Zapier's, and that gap shows up the moment you need something niche — you will be writing HTTP steps by hand. The project has also made deliberate commercial choices: some features are gated to the paid cloud edition, and the licence has changed direction over the years, so check the current terms before you build a business on top of it. Execution speed on a small VPS is fine for everyday automations but will feel slow if you are processing large batches.

How to deploy

• Docker

Getting started

Docker Compose is the supported path, and it is worth reading the environment file carefully before first launch — the encryption key and the database URL are the two settings you cannot change later without pain. Set the public URL variable to the address you will actually reach it on, or generated webhook links will point at localhost and silently fail. Back up the Postgres volume on a schedule once you have workflows you care about, and start with a single low-stakes automation so you learn the debugging interface before anything important depends on it.

Typical setup

Most people run Activepieces on the same small VPS that hosts the rest of their self-hosted stack, as a Docker Compose service behind their existing reverse proxy. A typical setup pairs it with a self-hosted database and storage service so workflows can move data between systems without leaving your own infrastructure. Households and small teams split the difference by keeping the cloud-only features off and accepting the smaller integration library, because the predictable cost of a ten-dollar server beats a per-task bill that grows with every passing month.

Who should look elsewhere

Skip it if your automations depend on long-tail app integrations that only Zapier carries, or if you need someone to call when a workflow breaks at 2am — this is community-supported software, and the support you get is your own log reading. It is also the wrong choice if you cannot run a container host: the whole point is avoiding per-task pricing, and a hosted instance removes that advantage.

Project health

• GitHub stars: 24,823
• Last code push: 2026-10-01
• Open issues: 664
• Status: actively developed

Figures pulled from the GitHub API and refreshed periodically.