n8n is a powerful workflow engine you can host yourself. pylo puts flows on top of a full backend with data model, typed API, permissions, admin UI, forms and analytics, hosted in Europe.

TL;DR

n8n is a workflow automation tool from Berlin: you build workflows visually, drop into JavaScript or Python whenever you need to and run them in n8n's cloud or on your own servers. It has 500+ integrations, strong AI agent nodes and a huge community. Data Tables give you simple storage inside n8n, but the real data usually stays in other systems and is simply connected through your workflows. pylo is a backend platform where the data model, API, permissions, admin UI, forms, analytics and flows are one system. You can build automations just as easy, but they are deeply integrated with your data, permission, analytics and anything else you can bring to pylo. If you want to self-host a flexible automation engine, n8n is a great choice. If your workflows need a data model with permissions and a UI for the people who work with that data, pylo gives you all of that from day one.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany that you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API instantly. The same permission model governs that API, the admin UI, forms, flows and the MCP server. pylo flows run business processes and automations on top of your own data model and connect to the tools you already use. With pylo you build apps, automations and products on one coherent data base across your whole team.

What is n8n?

n8n is a workflow automation platform by n8n GmbH in Berlin. A workflow combines triggers, integration nodes, logic and custom code nodes. n8n has strong AI tooling, with agent nodes built on LangChain, MCP clients and servers, chat interfaces and human-in-the-loop approval steps. Data Tables store simple data inside n8n and the Form Trigger can turn workflows into multi-page forms. n8n is fair-code under the Sustainable Use License: you can self-host the Community Edition for free for internal use or use n8n Cloud, which runs on Microsoft Azure in Frankfurt.

At a glance

A backend instead of a workflow engine

n8n is excellent at moving and transforming data between systems, but on purpose, it is not built to be the system where your data lives. Data Tables are n8n's own storage and n8n itself calls them suitable for light to moderate data storage but since they have four column types, no relations and a default limit of 200 MiB for all tables on an instance, you outgrow them quickly. When the limit is reached, workflows that write to them throw errors, so most n8n setups keep their data in a separate database, a CRM or a spreadsheet, and n8n moves it around.

In pylo the data model is the center: you add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the typed GraphQL API updates at once, without any migration or redeployment. Field types include relations, enums, JSON, public or private files, rich text, dates, booleans and number/text formatters, with validation built in. Relations work across your whole workspace, you filter across them and group aggregations by any field. pylo flows run directly on top of those records. so you benefit most when you build on top of your own data model.

pylo flows compared to n8n workflows

n8n's editor is very powerful: you can loop, branch, merge, call any HTTP API and write JavaScript or Python anywhere in a workflow. Error workflows catch failures and nodes can retry on fail. n8n bills per workflow run, however many steps it has, which makes long workflows cheap and shorter workflows more expensive.

pylo's editor brings almost as many options to structure your flows, but less pre-defined integrations. Any event in pylo can start a flow, in addition you can use cron schedules and incoming webhooks. pylo flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs and everything is statically typed. pylo ships integrations for email sending and a growing selection of third-party systems, for anything else you write your own custom flow actions in TypeScript and it slots into the builder like the built-in ones. n8n has many more ready-made nodes than pylo has integrations. The difference is that a pylo flow works on your data model directly, with the same types and permissions as the API, so the benefits are bigger, the more broadly you adapt pylo.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

n8n's permissions control who can build and run workflows, with project roles for n8n users and custom roles on Enterprise. There is no permission model for the people who use an app you build on top and no login for them either. Created form scan be public, use basic auth or require an n8n account.

pylo separates tenants at the row level. Inside a tenant, any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same rules apply to the API, the admin panel, forms, flows and MCP. With email/password, Microsoft and Google SSO and API keys, pylo also handles login for the users of your apps or pylo forms.

An admin dashboard your operations team will actually use

In n8n, non-developers mostly meet the data through forms, chat or whatever tool a workflow writes to. The editor itself is made for the people who build workflows and does not offer anything else.

pylo's admin UI is built for your whole team, no matter if they are developers or not: you compose list and detail views from predefined components, decide who sees what and show or hide fields depending on a record's state.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

n8n logs every execution with its input and output data, kept 7 days on Starter and 30 days on Pro in the cloud. That's great for debugging, but it's not meant for business reporting or compley report generation.

In pylo, every create, update and delete emits an event with the full before and after state, which you can enrich with your own event data through our API. On top of your events and regular pylo data you can build customized dashboards directly next to your data and workflows. Your data is stored forever on any plan and pylo analytics is build to handle huge data sets.

AI and MCP with guardrails

n8n puts a strong focus on AI: it has agent nodes on LangChain, MCP clients that call external servers, an MCP Server Trigger that exposes workflows as tools and an instance-level MCP server that lets Claude or Cursor create, edit and run workflows and manage Data Tables. For people who build automations with AI, that's a great setuand it also means an AI client with access changes workflows and data directly.

pylo's MCP server is made for both, developers who use agentic coding and team members who wanna analyze their data. The AI gets exactly the connected user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly, instead they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines. With the pylo MCP you also get assistance in creating flows and writing custom flow actions easily.

File handling

pylo stores files in EU-hosted object storage with public or private links, no file size limit and for any file type. Files are fields on your entities and follow the same permissions as the rest of the record. n8n handles files as binary data inside an execution and passes them between nodes, long-term storage happens in the systems your workflows connect to.

Agencies and multi-tenant work

With pylo, agencies can run many client workspaces from one user account. Each workspace is its own tenant separated by RLS and one login switches between them, with unlimited users on every plan. n8n Cloud also includes unlimited users and projects separate workflows and credentials, from 1 project on Starter up to 6 on Business. If you self-host n8n for clients, read the Sustainable Use License carefully, because it limits use to internal business purposes, so running n8n for others may need a separate agreement with n8n.

Pricing

n8n's execution model is generous: a workflow with 30 steps costs the same as one with two, so for heavy automation with many steps, n8n is usually cheaper than pylo, and self-hosting the Community Edition costs only your servers and your time to run and maintain them.

But pylo's price already includes the data model, API, admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding, which in an n8n setup you run in other tools that generate additional costs.

Every pylo plan has every feature and unlimited users, plans differ only in included usage.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany, our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location and support from the team that builds the product.

n8n is a German company too; the n8n Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure and stores data in Frankfurt, it holds SOC 2 Type 2 and offers a DPA. Its sub-processor list includes several US companies for the AI and assistant features. If you self-host, hosting, backups and compliance are in your hands.

Where n8n is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• You can self-host n8n for free and read its source code. pylo instead can't be self-hosted.

• 500+ integrations and more than 10,000 templates, far more ready-made building blocks than pylo has.

• Billing per execution, no matter how many steps a workflow has.

• Git-based source control and environments on Business and Enterprise. pylo has no versioning or rollback yet.

• A huge community with many active contributors

If you want a flexible automation engine you can run anywhere, n8n is excellent. pylo is for teams whose workflows need a real data model, permissions and a back office underneath.

Where pylo is a great n8n alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over n8n:

• A real data model. Entities, relations across your whole workspace and a typed GraphQL API, instead of four column types and 200 MiB per instance.

• One system instead of a stack. The data model, API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms, events and MCP are all one product. There's no separate database, CRM or spreadsheet to keep in sync with your workflows.

• Schema changes without a deploy. Add an entity or field and the typed GraphQL API is live immediately, without any migration or redeployment.

• Permissions and login for your users. API, admin panel, forms, flows and MCP all go through the same permission layer, down to single fields, and pylo handles authentication for the people who use your apps.

• Flows on your own data. A change on a record starts a flow the moment it happens, with retries, rate limiting, typed actions and full logs. Custom actions are plain TypeScript.

• Non-developers can work without you. Configurable admin views, state-dependent fields and a full form builder let operations teams handle their own changes.

• Analytics you don't have to instrument. pylo records every change as an event with before and after state, and dashboards sit right next to the data.

• AI access that's safe for production. MCP runs with the connected user's exact read permissions, and every write goes through human approval as a proposal.

• Nothing to operate. No servers, updates, queues or backups to run yourself. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan and hourly backups with 30-day retention.

• Built for agencies. You can run many client workspaces with separate tenants and permissions, switch between them with one login and give client teams access on every plan.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Can pylo replace n8n completely? For automations on your own data, yes. If you mainly connect many third-party tools, n8n has more ready-made nodes, though you can easily write your own connectors in pylo and we are open for any suggestions on how to extend our template catalogue. You can also keep n8n for those and let it call pylo's GraphQL API or webhooks.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Can I self-host pylo? No, but if you need specific hosting options, we can discuss them as part of the Enterprise plan.

• Does pylo scale? Yes, production workspaces already run with millions of records and ten thousands of flow runs today.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in Hetzner data centres in Germany, and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta. Request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.