AI tools, side by side
Pick up to 4 tools and compare who makes them, the free plan, what each is best at and what to watch out for. Every fact comes from the Tool Atlas, sourced and dated. A real table, so you can copy a cell.
Latest check 27 Sep 2026 What has changed
| Fact | n8n | ChatGPT | Claude |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made by | n8n (Berlin) | OpenAI | Anthropic |
| Free plan | Free to self-host (Community Edition); the cloud version has a free trial | Yes, with ads in the UK | Yes |
| Paid plans from | Cloud Starter at €20 a month billed yearly (2,500 executions) | Go at $8 a month; Plus at $20 a month | Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly |
| Best at | AI-agent workflows you can run on your own servers | The broadest all-rounder, with the biggest community of guides | Careful writing, long documents and coding |
| Watch out for | A steeper learning curve, and its fair-code licence limits reselling it | Free and Go plans show ads in the UK, and consumer chats train models unless you opt out | Usage limits reset in rolling five-hour windows, even on paid plans |
| Suits | Builders, IT and operations teams | Everyone | Professionals, builders |
| Verified | Verified 27 Sep 2026 | Verified 27 Sep 2026 | Verified 27 Sep 2026 |
A dash means we don’t track that fact for that tool (usually because there’s no single published starting price), not that it has none. Every value links back to its source on the tool’s page. Open the Tool Atlas · Download all tools as a spreadsheet →
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