n8n Community Edition vs n8n Cloud: the break-even
The short answer
The Community Edition has no licence fee at all, so self-hosting costs the server: about 4 to 12 euros a month. Cloud starts at 24 euros and reaches 800 euros a month at the top tier. At low volume the VPS wins on price; the cloud wins on not owning a server.
The published anchors
| Option | Price | Executions |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud, entry tier | 24 EURper month | 2,500 a month |
| Cloud, top published tier | 800 EURper month | 40,000 a month |
| Community Edition, self-hosted | 4-12 EURper month, the VPS | No cap |
One honest note on this table: the tiers between the entry and top plans move, and n8n's pricing page renders those numbers in the browser rather than in the page text, so we could not read them reliably when writing this. Check the live page for the tier that matches your execution count, then compare it against the VPS line.
How to work out your own break-even
- Count executions. A workflow that runs hourly is about 720 a month. Twenty of those is 14,400.
- Find the cloud plan that covers that number and note its price.
- Add your maintenance time at your own hourly rate, two to four hours a month, to the 4 to 12 euro VPS.
- Compare the two totals, not the two headline prices.
At the low end, a few hundred executions a month, the comparison is roughly 6 euros against 24. At that point the licence difference is trivial and the decision is really about who maintains the thing. At high volume the gap widens to hundreds of euros a month, and the maintenance hours start to look cheap.
What the cloud buys you
- Managed uptime, so a failed workflow at the weekend is not your weekend
- No server patching, no SSL renewal, no backup script to write
- A support channel, which matters the week something breaks badly
What it does not buy is more features. The Community Edition runs the same engine, with no execution cap, and the execution history limit is the main practical difference at high volume.
When to switch in either direction
Go self-hosted when volume is growing, when data should stay on your own machine, or when you already run a server. Go cloud when the person maintaining the server leaves, when you need an uptime commitment, or when the monthly difference is smaller than an hour of your time.
The full monthly bill for self-hosting is here: does self-hosting n8n cost money. If you are converting the euro prices to a budget in India, the rupee maths is here: n8n cloud pricing in India. And the underlying guide with every plan we priced: n8n self-hosting cost.
Questions people ask
Is the Community Edition free?
Yes for the software, with no execution cap. The cost is your server, about 4 to 12 euros a month, plus your own time.
When is the cloud worth it?
When the plan price is smaller than the value of the hours you would spend maintaining a server, or when nobody wants to own that job.
How do I compare tiers?
Count monthly executions first (hourly equals 720 each), find the tier that covers it, then compare its price against a VPS plus your time.