Which tool fits your work?
Looking for a self-hosted Zapier alternative or n8n alternative for business data? Here is the honest comparison.
They are all good tools. SpanFlow is built for a particular job: the business data work between your own systems, on your own servers, published as something people can call.
Your servers, your data
Self-hosted with Docker from day one. Databases, files and credentials never leave your network.
Business data, properly
Batched inserts, updates and upserts into real tables; SFTP, S3 and Azure files; validation with reject paths.
Publish, not just automate
Any pipeline becomes a documented, rate-limited API — grouped into apps with their own credentials and domain.
A front end included
Forms, designed screens, AI-written pages or your own React build, all calling the same pipelines.
Conversations and campaigns
Chat flows that run your pipelines, on the web, WhatsApp and SMS.
Governed for teams
Organisations, projects, roles, permissions, versioning with rollback, audit trail and plans.
When another tool is the better choice
Honest guidance — we’d rather you pick the right tool.
Choose Zapier if…
You want quick app-to-app automations in the cloud, mostly between SaaS tools, and you don’t need to host anything yourself.
Choose n8n if…
You want a general-purpose workflow tool with a large community node library, and are comfortable assembling the API, front-end and governance pieces yourself.
Choose Workato if…
You want a fully managed enterprise iPaaS in the vendor’s cloud, with its connector catalogue and support model.
Choose SpanFlow if…
Your data lives in databases, file drops and internal systems; it has to stay on your servers; and the result needs to be an API, a form, a schedule or a conversation that other people use — with versions, permissions and a trace of every run.
Descriptions of other products are general positioning, not a feature-by-feature claim. Check each vendor’s site for their current capabilities.
Stop moving data by hand.
Start free with three projects, or talk to us about running it across your organisation.