The licenses may or may not be an issue depending if you are using it as is, locally, and to what extent.
The clause is if you're substantially using n8n for your solution. As long as it's partial (which it almost always is)... it's another thing.
Anyone who tries to use one workflow tool exclusively (n8n, node-red) almost always ends up needing to add other tools around it to do what n8n, node-red can't do well. For example handling more than direct AI calls.
n8n is more of a business process tool long before AI came out, and it's useful AI functionality is an addition, not the core source of the product. I see their license in terms of that since they are a more detailed competitor to zapier.
In the beginning using it for personal or small workloads helps keep costs down. When you start making money you need a supported production instance, either you're paying as an owner yourself to do it, or there is the hosted version.
Self hosting traditionally has been for enterprise, but I think startups doing it could be reflected in licenses in the future too.
node-red is great too, but is a slightly different tool.
> The clause is if you're substantially using n8n for your solution. As long as it's partial (which it almost always is)... it's another thing.
That’s not true at all. This is the relevant part of the license:
> You may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use. You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.
It has absolutely nothing to do with substantial vs partial, it has to do with commercial vs non-commercial and internal vs external.
> In the beginning using it for personal or small workloads helps keep costs down.
If you use it for small workloads and charge money for users to do that, you will be in breach of the license. Do not do this. It doesn’t matter how big or small the workload is.
> Self hosting traditionally has been for enterprise, but I think startups doing it could be reflected in licenses in the future too.
They explicitly switched to this license because they wanted to restrict commercial use. We were a startup and they quoted us $50k for a commercial license. There’s no need to speculate about this. This is not an oversight. This is what they deliberately chose.
I took a bit of time to figure out how I arrived at the impression I have. Happy to arrive at more clarity collectively, even if it is me.
1. "OR" allows 3 use cases
- internal business purposes (which is commercial behind the scenes),
- non-commercial (this reads to me like if there's customer facing access to n8n, etc),
- personal use (home lab, learning, hobby projects, etc).
For me, the internal business purposes is the first and main reason I would look at it, where n8n is a tool among other tools in the stack all being used for some of their functionality.
From: "Limitations / You may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use. "
2. Substantial - This feels like skinning n8n to make a product is meant to prevent. If there's an existing business solving their issues and either it's not substantially n8n, and the n8n part isn't a product, service, or module being sold, it could be OK.
This reads like if the complex functionality of your solution is being executed in connected systems external to n8n that it helps route through, the weighing of substantial is clearly outside.
"Our license restricts use to "internal business purposes".
In practice this means all use is allowed unless you are selling a product, service, or module in which the value derives entirely or substantially from n8n functionality. "
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Small workloads - You are correct in if it was an n8n process being packed and sold, even at small workloads, it could be a licensing issue. Conversely, if the small workload wasn't a process being sold to users.
Commercial quoting - Makes sense, again. If I want to write a workflow in n8n and just skin it, i'm substantially using their software. To me, n8n can't do everything I need so I can't imagine a scenario where that I'd hit that, but absolutely other use cases could. Additionally, the commercial license seems to be for enterprise customers - maybe an option for small business/startup (headcount, or revenue) could be available. Seems reasonable enough, and have seen it with other tools.
If substantial n8n use generated that kind of profit, I'd be happily paying for it to make sure it sticks around and is supported. It's like having an entire n8n dev team to keep n8n running for less than the cost of a developer. But I'm not there.
For me, it's rare that I would rely solely on one tool that heavily. Having base inputs (especially for AI) in text form and feeding it up so different layers could be refactored to other tools over time (such as n8n's orchestration), there can be scenarios where the work is already substantially outside of n8n. At the same time, I look at tools like n8n for what they can do, using them as is, out of the box only, and not modifying them at all, because it then can receive updates.
> Substantial - This feels like skinning n8n to make a product is meant to prevent. If there's an existing business solving their issues and either it's not substantially n8n, and the n8n part isn't a product, service, or module being sold, it could be OK.
It’s not. We wanted to incorporate n8n into our product. It would represent a small, non-essential part of our product. We weren't just skinning and reselling n8n as a product itself. But our users would be directly using an n8n instance hosted by us in a commercial context. I reached out to n8n and was told directly by them that the free license does not allow this and it required a $50k commercial license.
You seem to keep steering the discussion towards “they don’t really mean that”. Yes, they do. These are not unintentional restrictions. They wanted to make these restrictions so they could charge for commercial licenses, so that’s what they did. There is nothing hidden between the lines. There is nothing to figure out. Those are the restrictions.
Thankyou for the reminder, long term Node-RED user here, I recently looked again at n8n and wondered why I never took it to far, this is the reason. When you see a git icon and repo it's easy missed.
The license looks quite permissive though as long as you're not using n8n as the platform for your business. According to the license, if you just wrap/productize the flows you create and users don't bring their own n8n credentials or API keys, then you're good. It seems like there's a ton you can build off of it and still stay within the parameters of the license.
Yup. Always makes sense to read the actual license too. I did that today and learned n8n changed their license in 2022. So you could look at the licenses before 2022 as well.
The licenses may or may not be an issue depending if you are using it as is, locally, and to what extent.
The clause is if you're substantially using n8n for your solution. As long as it's partial (which it almost always is)... it's another thing.
Anyone who tries to use one workflow tool exclusively (n8n, node-red) almost always ends up needing to add other tools around it to do what n8n, node-red can't do well. For example handling more than direct AI calls.
n8n is more of a business process tool long before AI came out, and it's useful AI functionality is an addition, not the core source of the product. I see their license in terms of that since they are a more detailed competitor to zapier.
In the beginning using it for personal or small workloads helps keep costs down. When you start making money you need a supported production instance, either you're paying as an owner yourself to do it, or there is the hosted version.
Self hosting traditionally has been for enterprise, but I think startups doing it could be reflected in licenses in the future too.
node-red is great too, but is a slightly different tool.