Activepieces vs Tines
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Activepieces and Tines.
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Verdict: Tines wins
Tines scores 4.5/5, edging out Activepieces at 4.0/5. Security, IT and operations teams that need auditable no-code automation across sensitive systems with human approval gates built in.
Activepieces Open-source Zapier alternative | Tines Workflow automation platform for security and operations teams | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.0 (1 review) | 4.5 (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. | Security, IT and operations teams that need auditable no-code automation across sensitive systems with human approval gates built in. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | open sourcefree tier | free tierteam featuresapi access |
| Visit Activepieces → | Visit Tines → |
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
Tines
Pros
- + Security-native design: credential isolation, immutable audit logs, SSO on the free tier and first-class approval gates — I verified approvals work as a primitive, not a webhook hack
- + A real phishing-response workflow (enrich, branch, Slack approval, ticket write-back) went live on the canvas in under an hour in my testing
- + G2 satisfaction is exceptional for the category: 4.8/5 from ~230 reviews with high-nineties scores on ease of use, setup and support quality
- + Vendor-agnostic by design — anything with an API connects, so you are not stranded by a curated connector marketplace
- + Strong company signals: $125M Series C at a $1.125B valuation (Feb 2025), 1B+ automated actions per week, and an AI-governance (3B) story ahead of rivals
Cons
- - No published pricing above the free tier — every production evaluation runs through sales, and the AWS Marketplace vehicle is a custom contract only
- - The free edition caps at 3 live workflows (and 25,000 monthly events under older terms) — enough to evaluate, not to operate
- - No code escape hatch: deep JSON reshaping and bespoke logic get tedious in event transforms where a JS node would be three lines
- - Tines 3B (self-healing, cross-org monitoring of externally built workflows) launched July 2026 and is young — validate hands-on before betting a governance program on it
- - Category identity is blurred (SOAR, iPaaS, process automation), and non-security use cases feel secondary to the alert-driven core
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Activepieces or Tines?▼
Tines scores higher at 4.5/5 vs 4.0/5 for Activepieces, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Activepieces and Tines?▼
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. Tines: Tines is a workflow automation platform used by security and IT teams to build and run processes across sensitive systems without writing code.
Is Activepieces or Tines more affordable?▼
Activepieces starts at €16/mo, Tines starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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