5 best open-source/self-hosted automation tools

I played a lot with multiple automation tools in the last two weeks. I was focused on finding open-source and free solutions.

Here are 5 open-source/free automation tools that you can use right away. Two of these are ready-to-use Zapier alternatives.

👉 I vote for #3 and #5.

Huginn - Huginn is a system for building agents that perform automated tasks for you. It’s like creating your own personal assistant, but without the need to learn a programming language.

Hosting: Self-hosted.

2. automatisch - It is an automation tool that lets you easily create workflows in your web browser with no coding knowledge required. It's a user-friendly Zapier alternative.

Hosting: Self-hosted (for now).

3. n8n - N8n is an open-source, no-code automation tool that lets you quickly create workflows with its drag-and-drop interface. It is based on nodes so you can connect anything to everything. The best Zapier alternative I've seen.

Hosting: Desktop, hosted, & self-hosted.

4. Beehive - This is similar to how Huginn works. It's an event and agent system. Agents are triggered by events and perform their actions. There are multiple integrations (called Hives).

Hosting: Self-hosted.

5. Power Automate - Microsoft's official no-code automation tool. It allows you to create flows for automating your tasks. It also has a desktop version (included in Windows 11). You can automate almost anything with it.

Hosting: Desktop and hosted (cloud flows - not free).

I have created some flows to automate Google Chrome using Power Automate and it works really nicely. I am also using the n8n desktop version for connecting multiple services that I use.

👇 Links to these tools:
Power Automate: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/power-automate/9NFTCH6J7FHV
n8n: https://n8n.io/
Huginn: https://github.com/huginn/huginn
Automatisch: https://automatisch.io/
Beehive: https://github.com/muesli/beehive

Happy automating! 🤖 🚀 💪 ✨