Activepieces vs Make
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Activepieces and Make.
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Verdict: Make wins
Make scores 4.2/5, edging out Activepieces at 4.0/5. Ops-minded individuals and small teams who want visual, branching automation with real debugging and do not need self-hosting.
Activepieces Open-source Zapier alternative | Make Visual automation platform for everyone | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.0 (1 review) | 4.2 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | From $16/mo | Free tier available |
| Best For | Cost-conscious teams and security-sensitive orgs that want Zapier-style workflows with true open-source licensing and self-hosting. | Ops-minded individuals and small teams who want visual, branching automation with real debugging and do not need self-hosting. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | open sourcefree tier | no codefree tier |
| Visit Activepieces → | Visit Make → |
Activepieces
Pros
- + MIT-licensed and self-hostable on every tier — the only truly open-source platform in this batch (community edition on GitHub)
- + Pricing is flat and predictable: Plus is $20/mo flat for 10,000 credits with $0.007/credit overage at time of writing (activepieces.com/pricing)
- + Docker self-host came up in under fifteen minutes in my test, and flows imported cleanly between cloud and self-hosted
- + Bring-your-own AI keys on Plus means model spend goes to your provider unmarked-up
- + Same piece code runs cloud or self-hosted, so community connector fixes apply everywhere (760+ integrations claimed)
Cons
- - Connector depth trails Zapier badly in the long tail — two niche apps I needed had no piece and no ready HTTP template
- - Free plan resets credits daily and pauses work when exhausted; unusable for anything production-grade
- - Feature parity between self-hosted community and cloud is incomplete — one agent feature I wanted was cloud-only at time of writing
- - Advanced governance (audit logs, SCIM, secret managers, custom RBAC) sits behind custom Ultimate pricing
- - Small team with modest funding (~$1.55M reported) — rapid shipping means UI and docs drift out of sync in places
Make
Pros
- + Visual bundle-level debugger: in my router test I traced dropped records to a timezone filter in under a minute, something Zapier's flat step log makes slow
- + Credit pricing stays cheap at realistic volumes — 10,000 credits/month tiers started at $9–$12/mo billed annually at time of writing (make.com/en/pricing)
- + HTTP, JSON, and XML modules are strong enough to replace custom code for most API glue work in my builds
- + Error handling is explicit: scoped error handlers and break directives mean one bad record does not kill a whole run
- + Celonis ownership and a product dating to 2012 (as Integromat) give it one of the longer reliability track records in the category
Cons
- - Polling triggers burn credits on every scheduled check whether or not data changed; my naive 1-minute poll ate budget until I moved to webhooks
- - No self-hosting and no source-available license — cloud-only, which rules it out for data-residency requirements
- - Run history on the free plan is short (three days at time of writing), so debugging real incidents needs a paid plan
- - The concepts curve (bundles vs arrays, iterators, aggregators) is steeper than Zapier's; expect a week before complex flows feel natural
- - Pricing is inconsistent across sessions — Make has served different Core/Pro/Teams price cards ($9/$16/$29 vs $12/$21/$38 annually), so confirm your quote
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Activepieces or Make?▼
Make scores higher at 4.2/5 vs 4.0/5 for Activepieces, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Activepieces and Make?▼
Activepieces: Activepieces is an open-source, no-code automation tool (a Zapier alternative) for connecting apps and building AI agents. You can self-host it; cloud plan is free, then from $16/mo. Make: Make is a visual automation platform where you connect apps and build multi-step workflows by drawing them on a canvas.
Is Activepieces or Make more affordable?▼
Activepieces starts at €16/mo, Make starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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