10 Best Workflow Automation Software in 2026

Workflow automation has changed. It used to be simple “if this, then that” logic. Now, it's about AI agents running entire departments. Over the last year, I tested the best workflow automation software to see which ones are actually usable and which are just hype.

Here's what I found.

What Can Workflow Automation Software Do?

Workflow automation tools like Zapier, n8n, and Make are built specifically to connect your tech stack and automate repetitive tasks that waste your time. While they’re all a bit different, they follow a simple pattern: when something happens in one app (a trigger), they perform actions in other apps.

Let's say a new lead comes in through your Google form. These tools can automatically add new leads to your HubSpot CRM, send a welcome email, and notify your sales team in Slack.

But modern automation goes way beyond simple triggers and actions. It can:

• Execute complex multi-step workflows with conditional logic and branching.
• Process data transformations, including text parsing, arrays, and date formatting.
• Run AI-powered tasks like summarizing content, analyzing sentiment, or generating personalized messages with your favorite large language model (LLM).
• Handle batch operations like scraping hundreds of websites or enriching thousands of leads.
• Include human-in-the-loop steps where a person reviews and approves the work before the workflow continues.
• Build custom interfaces, databases, and chatbots connected to your automations.

10 Best Workflow Automation Software

I evaluated each tool based on ease of use, AI capabilities, integrations, pricing, and how well they handle real-world automation needs. Here's the quick comparison:

1. Zapier

Best for: Beginners and teams wanting an all-in-one automation platform.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $19.99/month.

Zapier remains the household name in workflow automation. Gone are the days of rigid, linear step-by-step Zaps that earlier users like me remember. Now you can create sophisticated automations with databases (Tables), custom interfaces, chatbots, and AI agents all in one platform.

Zapier has also woven AI into the interface. I tested creating a custom support process by pasting a workflow description into their AI-powered Canvas builder. Five seconds later, it responded with a complete visualization of the entire process and automatically built all the assets: workflow automations, messages, and setup steps.

The Zapier Canvas feature lets you visualize, build, and automate a customer journey from start to finish.

The platform has evolved from a simple automation tool into what I'd call a fully-featured AI automation OS. When I was building a support chatbot, I simply named it "Support chatbot," and Zapier automatically generated a complete prompt with appropriate instructions, style, and conversation flow.

With 8,000+ integrations, you'll rarely hit the wall of unsupported apps. Field mapping is smooth, with the platform intelligently suggesting connections and presenting data in user-friendly formats with clear labels. Complete beginners can build working workflows within minutes.

While some more hyped platforms like n8n are catching up, I still believe Zapier is the easiest and most accessible workflow builder on the market.

Unfortunately, that comes at a price. It's all fun and games until you realize your three “simple” workflows are burning 50 tasks per run and costing you $400/month.

2. Make

Best for: Technical users, complex branching workflows, and budget-conscious power users.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $10.59/month.

Make (formerly Integromat) is my go-to when I need deep customization. The visual workflow builder offers near-limitless flexibility. This includes features like complex branching scenarios, multiple paths, conditional logic, error handlers, and sophisticated data manipulation. It's like visual programming.

But here's the thing: Make hasn't really evolved beyond workflows. While Zapier has been busy building databases and chatbots, Make has stayed true to its core strengths. You still need separate tools for data storage or conversational AI. It's like having an incredibly powerful sports car that only drives on one road.

That said, Make launched Agents in beta recently, as well as a Canvas-like experience, their first real step beyond traditional automation. Even so, I find Make agents a bit clunky and cumbersome to create. You can read my updated Make review to learn more about my experience.

The pricing is where Make delivers a knockout punch. It's roughly three to four times cheaper than Zapier across every tier. While Zapier's Starter plan gives you 750 tasks for $19.99/month, Make's Core plan provides 10,000 credits (previously called operations) for just $10.59/month. But keep in mind that some steps/operations can cost more than one credit.

The trade-off is a steeper learning curve. The visual interface can feel overwhelming at first, and field mapping becomes a technical exercise of staring at raw data structures without much context. You can spend 20 minutes figuring out why your Iterator module isn't passing data to your Array Aggregator. Make is powerful, but not forgiving. You'll undoubtedly feel more comfortable if you understand JSON and JavaScript.

3. n8n

Best for: Developers, privacy-conscious teams, and self-hosting enthusiasts. Price: Free (self-hosted) plan. Paid plans (cloud) start at $24/month.

n8n is an open-source workflow automation tool that gives users complete control with no vendor lock-in. Unlike Zapier and Make, you can host it yourself. This makes it especially popular among developers, privacy-conscious teams, and businesses that want more control.

The platform's AI capabilities are cutting-edge. It offers AI agents and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) systems that can make autonomous decisions and work with your own data. You can build conversational AI assistants within your automation workflows using an embeddable chat widget directly in the workflow canvas. It’s quite innovative!

However, n8n's heavy reliance on JSON data structures, JavaScript expressions, and technical configuration makes it more complex than alternatives. Every piece of information flowing through your workflow exists as JSON objects. To modify, filter, or transform data, you need expressions like {{ $json.customer.email.split('@')[0] }} (If that looks like a foreign language to you, n8n might not be your best choice.)

If you’re price-conscious, n8n’s free Community Edition is a steal for technically-minded users. You get unlimited executions on your own servers. The cloud version starts at $24/month for 2,500 executions, which is more generous than Make's per-operation pricing when you have multi-step workflows.

4. Gumloop

Best for: GTM teams, batch data operations, and scraping and enrichment workflows.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $37/month.

Gumloop is trying to lead the pack when comes to AI agents and the AI-first wave. But after thorough testing, I need to set expectations correctly.

First off, don't expect Gumloop to replace your traditional automation stack. It isn’t primarily for “when this happens, do that” type of automations. It's mostly a data-processing factory that operates in batches. Think scraping 50 competitor websites, having AI analyze each one for pricing info, and generating individual reports. It's laser-focused on batch data processing and scraping operations for GTM and rev-ops teams.

But it does what it does very well. The visual builder UI is the most beautiful and intuitive I've tested. Gummie, their AI assistant, can auto-build flows from natural-language prompts and help troubleshoot issues. I created a flow that monitors Reddit for brand mentions, analyzes sentiment, and sends email reports. I was impressed with the out-of-the-box results. They also recently rolled out proper autonomous AI agents that are worth checking out.

What I don’t like about Gumloop is the opaque credit pricing model. I literally spent $26 to run a single complex flow. Minor workflow modifications can dramatically change costs. But that’s expected with AI-first tools that are based on LLM credits. Fortunately, you can shave off some of the costs by using your own LLM API keys.

5. Relay.app

Best for: Teams needing human-in-the-loop workflows and collaborative automation.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plan start at $19/month.

Relay.app is an AI-first automation tool with one standout feature: built-in, human-in-the-loop controls. While other platforms treat human approval as an afterthought, Relay makes it a core part of the experience. You can add manual review points within automated workflows, ensuring people confirm or adjust actions before they continue. This is perfect for workflows that require judgment calls, such as reviewing AI-generated content before publishing or approving expense reports.

Overall, the platform is easy to use for non-technical people. I found the guide and error messages particularly clear.

However, the integration library is smaller than competitors (100+ integrations compared to thousands for Zapier). If you use niche tools, you'll likely need workarounds.

6. Lindy AI

Best for: No-code AI agent building, voice automation, and autonomous task handling.
Price: Free plan availbalbe. Paid plans start at $29.99/month.

Lindy AI takes a different approach from traditional automation platforms. Instead of creating trigger-action workflows, you build AI agents (called "Lindies") that can understand context, make decisions, and adapt to changing situations.

The platform is designed for business users without a technical background. You describe your automation needs in plain English, and Lindy interprets those instructions to create functional workflows. No need for rigid "if condition A, then action B" logic.

One of Lindy’s main selling points is Gaia, an AI voice agent. They claim it’s the fastest in the world (500+ milliseconds faster than competitors). While the demos are impressive, I’m skeptical about using a generalist tool for voice when specialized AI voice agent platforms like Synthflow or Vapi exist.

Apart from that, Lindy has its own app builder feature that lets you create custom vibe-coded apps, as you’d do in Lovable.

With 4,000+ integrations, Lindy targets teams that need AI-powered automation without extensive technical resources. The platform includes more than 100 pre-built templates covering common use cases like lead qualification, meeting recording, and email management.

The downside is that Lindy is relatively expensive in terms of credit/token usage compared to other options. The adaptive AI approach also introduces some unpredictability in agents' handling of unusual situations.

7. Pabbly Connect

Best for: Budget-conscious users, simple automations, and lifetime deal seekers.
Price: Starts at $16/month.

Pabbly Connect built its reputation on two things: being cheap and offering lifetime deals. With pricing that's a fraction of Zapier and flash sales that run almost constantly, it's no wonder 14,000+ users have signed up.

Why is it so cheap? The platform only counts action steps against your task limit. Triggers and internal steps, such as filters, routers, and delays, don't use your monthly allowance. This means you get up to three times as many workflow executions as competitors.

But cheaper raises questions. After testing, I found that Pabbly is optimized for cost, not user experience. Every step requires more manual work than competitors. Even for popular apps like Mailchimp, integrations are glorified webhooks with a UI slapped on top. Instead of "connect your account," you'll be doing several steps of manual setup.

Testing is equally tedious. Unlike competitors with sandbox environments, Pabbly requires you to generate real data in your actual apps to test scenarios. I had to create test contacts, run workflows, check results, and then manually delete test data. And I had to repeat the process for every iteration.

The app documentation can go out of date quickly, too. Mailchimp's interface changed while I was testing, and the step-by-step instructions no longer matched the screen. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. But if you don’t want to pay too much, Pabbly can get the job done.

8. Integrately

Best for: Simple one-click automations, small businesses.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $19.99/month.

Integrately focuses on one-click automation templates. They claim 20+ million pre-built automations between 1,400+ popular apps. The idea is simple: browse templates and activate them instantly without complex setup.

This is great for straightforward tasks like syncing form responses to spreadsheets or sending notifications. But all of Integrately’s pre-made integrations are basic two-step templates. Don't expect complex automations or creative examples for using two or more apps.

Also, specific integrations offer less customization than tools like Make. If you need advanced control over your workflows, Integrately might feel restrictive.

The pricing is competitive at $19.99/month for the Starter plan, significantly lower than Zapier's equivalent tier. But the platform is best for basic workflows rather than complex enterprise automations.

9. Pipedream

Best for: Developers building code-first automations and API-heavy workflows.
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $29/month.

Pipedream is a developer-first integration platform that blends pre-built integrations with the limitless customization that only code can provide. If you often feel limited by no-code tools, this might be precisely what you need.

Unlike traditional visual automation tools that abstract away the underlying code, Pipedream embraces it. You get 2,800+ pre-built integrations combined with the flexibility to write custom logic in JavaScript, Python, Go, or Bash. You can even import npm packages directly into your workflows.

The platform's serverless architecture ensures excellent performance and scalability. Workflows run on infrastructure that automatically scales, with dedicated workers available on higher tiers for improved performance.

The catch? It's pretty ugly. The UI is functional but raw, and debugging a complex 20-step workflow without visual cues is a nightmare.

The free tier is fine for testing (100 credits, three workflows), but the credit-based pricing can be restrictive for heavier use cases. Pipedream charges one credit per 30 seconds of compute time, unlike task-based competitors.

Overall, consider Pipedream a go-to platform for custom integration solutions. Let’s say you are a software-as-a-service (SaaS) owner who wants to integrate and embed 2,000+ apps into your app’s UI. Pipedream would be your fastest, cheapest, and most scalable way to achieve that. Without it, you'd be spending months building a limited number of custom integrations in-house.

10. Workato

Best for: Enterprise automation, complex integrations, and large organizations.
Price: Custom pricing (~$15,000-$50,000+/year).

Workato is the enterprise orchestration platform for organizations that need automation they can trust at scale. With a 4.7/5 rating on G2 and trusted by 21,000+ global customers, it's the top choice for large companies with complex integration needs.

The platform combines integration, automation, API management, robotic process automation (RPA), data orchestration, and agentic AI into a single secure, cloud-native platform. You get 1,200+ prebuilt connectors with deep functionality for enterprise systems like Salesforce, NetSuite, and ServiceNow.

Workato uses "recipes" to automate workflows between applications. These can be implemented for both cloud-based and on-premise solutions using their On-Premise Agent. The platform also includes Workbot for Slack and Microsoft Teams, bringing automation into chat.

What sets Workato apart is governance. You get complete control over who can access, build, or run automations with role-based access control. Detailed audit logs show who changed what and when. For organizations in regulated industries, this matters.

The obvious downside is cost. Pricing typically ranges from $15,000 to $50,000+ per year. Some enterprise deployments run at $80,000 to $180,000 annually. There's no free plan, and you need to contact sales for quotes. This isn't built for casual users.

Best AI Workflow Automation Tools

To be honest, AI is becoming table stakes in workflow automation tools. But a few tools do stand out for making AI central to the experience. Here are my top picks:

Zapier leads with AI woven throughout the platform. Their AI Copilot helps build Zaps, while Agents handle complex multi-step tasks autonomously. You can even create custom chatbots connected to your workflows. Best of all, the AI-first approach feels native, not bolted on.

n8n offers cutting-edge AI capabilities for technical users. This includes AI agents, RAG systems, and an embeddable chat widget within workflows. If you want to build sophisticated AI-powered automation with your own data, n8n delivers.

Gumloop is built from the ground up for AI operations. Every flow can use multiple LLM models. The entire platform is designed for batch AI processing, like analyzing hundreds of profiles or generating personalized outreach at scale.

Lindy AI takes the purest AI-first approach. Instead of triggers and actions, you create AI agents that understand context and make decisions. Their voice agent Gaia handles phone calls autonomously, which no traditional automation tool can match.

For most users, I'd recommend Zapier for its balance of power and accessibility. Technical teams will appreciate n8n's open-source flexibility. GTM teams focused on data scraping should consider Gumloop.

How to Choose the Best Workflow Automation Tool

After testing all these platforms, here's the framework I use to help people decide which tool to choose:

Consider Your Technical Skill Level

• Non-Technical Users: Start with Zapier. The interface is intuitive, error messages are in plain English, and you can build working workflows in minutes. Relay.app is also excellent for its simplicity.
• Technical Users: Make offers deep customization if you're comfortable with JSON and conditional logic. n8n and Pipedream are ideal if you want to write code.
• Developers: If you want to build integrations inside your own products, n8n (self-hosted) or Pipedream give you complete control with JavaScript/Python support and API-first design.

Evaluate Your Integration Needs

Check which apps you need to connect before committing:

• Zapier: 8,000+ apps, best coverage for niche tools.
• Make: 3,000+ apps with deeper functionality per app.
• n8n: 1,200+ apps, growing library with custom node support.
• Others: Smaller libraries, but they often cover common business tools.

If a critical app isn't supported, look for webhook or HTTP request capabilities (Make and n8n excel here).

Understand Pricing Models

Pricing structures vary significantly:

• Task-Based (Zapier, Integrately, Make): Pay per step or operation completed. Make also uses AI credits, so some AI-based steps/operations can cost more than one credit.
• Execution-Based (n8n): Pay per workflow run regardless of steps.
• Credit-Based (Gumloop, Pipedream): Credits consumed based on compute time or AI usage.

For simple workflows, task-based works fine. For complex multi-step automations, execution-based pricing (n8n) or Make's generous credit allowance delivers better value. Watch out with credit-based pricing, though, as predicting costs can get tricky.

Match Features to Your Use Cases

• Simple Automations (form to CRM, notifications): Zapier, Integrately, or Pabbly.
• Complex Branching Logic: Make or n8n.
• Batch Data Operations: Gumloop or custom-built n8n workflows.
• Human Approval Workflows: Relay.app.
• Developer Integrations: Pipedream or n8n.
• Enterprise Scale: Workato.
• AI Agents and Voice: Lindy AI.

Factor in Team Needs

If multiple people will manage automations:

• Zapier: Best team collaboration features (shared folders, permissions, activity logs).
• Make: Basic team features, limited permission management.
• n8n: Self-hosted gives full control, cloud version has user limits.
• Relay.app: Good for teams needing approval workflows.