Of late I have been playing with a lot of workflow automation projects and platforms. I realized that I could choose to adapt to a platform or an app and break my head figuring out the nitty-gritty to achieve a trustworthy workflow OR I could choose to use (or should I say, re-use) parts of existing code, applications and available services to stitch the components together to achieve the same result.
So, what do I do? Could I choose "The Road not Taken"?
Workflow automation
Possibilities are endless! Someone with limited knowledge of the available services today or with limited time might want to use an app to trigger simple operations while the cool tech savvy kid in town might want to crank up a python script to perform x y z operations to automate the mundane tasks. These appear to be two extremes, one relies completely on the available services to do the job. While the other probably knows a lot of stuff and doesn't care too much of what the world has to offer. Instead writes code to automate the day to day tasks without a thought.
While both approaches make sense and gets their respective job done, but what if there was a road not taken that uses the best of both worlds? Personally, I kind of like this approach because it aligns with the concept of shortest route to destination by using and re-using whatever is available en route to customize and stitch my workflow to meet my needs.
With this mind set I was researching, rather playing around with a bunch of workflow automation platforms. I started with IFTTT. While it helped to get some of the easy connections built rather quickly, but lacked the power of a Zapier workflow (aka zap). Soon, I switched focus to do the same thing with the zaps and realized that it did everything I wanted, but I lacked control of the blocks. I was happy with what I found, but in search of complete control on the entire workflow I looked at Integromat. This was cool and sexy. It was exactly what I was looking for, but the limitations of not being able to control the scheduling algorithm and a few other pieces turned me off. Very recently I ran into n8n. This is a powerful workflow automation tool. Like I mentioned earlier, it has the best of both worlds. I could use a pre-coded (standard) workflow like a Zap or add custom code to design a personalized node to get exactly what I am looking for.
With that thought I did a rather hasty comparison of the 4 platforms and shared the outcome below. Pardon the incomplete sentences and typos if any. It was meant to be rough notes for myself, but eventually thought it might be useful to others. Hence, sharing.
n8n stood out in my list of workflow automation platforms. It provided a nice blend of simplistic point to point operations to a playground of cranking up complex customized workflows that met a specific purpose. This is a brand new product and gradually getting there. If you don't get it right the first time, do not hesitate to RTFM and reach out to the community. They have an amazing community with a bunch of helpful folks, always willing to share and care for successful completion of your workflows.
That said, I'll bid adieu today and will be sure to post the workflows I create using n8n whenever I am ready. In the mean time if you liked or didn't like what you read, let me know. I'd love to read your feedback. If you want to collaborate, feel free to drop me a text here or twitter and we could either hunt security vulnerabilities together or build new stuff. If you are not one of those who wishes to do any of the above; do not hesitate to share.
Talk to you later, ciao!