If you’ve ever hit the limits of Zapier, Integromat, or any other automation-as-a-service platform, you know how frustrating it can be — task limits, API throttling, missing triggers. We felt the same. So we decided to go fully self-hosted with n8n, using Docker to keep things modular and scalable.
Here’s how we did it — and how you can too.
🚀 Why We Chose n8n
n8n is an open-source automation tool that lets you build workflows like Zapier, but with full control. You can run it on your own server, connect hundreds of services, trigger events with webhooks, and even write custom code when needed.
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✅ Open-source and free (under fair-code license)
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🔗 400+ integrations (APIs, databases, webhooks, queues)
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⚙️ Full workflow logic with IFs, loops, variables
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🐳 Easy to deploy with Docker or Docker Compose
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🔐 No vendor lock-in, full data ownership
🛠 How We Deployed It with Docker
We went for a Docker Compose setup to keep everything clean and reproducible.
We added HTTPS support via a reverse proxy (Caddy or Nginx) and secured access with basic auth. You can also add environment variables for Postgres, Redis, S3 storage — n8n supports advanced configurations.
🧪 Real-World Use Cases
Here are some of the things we’re using it for right now:
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Auto-send Telegram alerts when new leads arrive via webhook
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Scrape and summarize RSS feeds using GPT APIs + HTML extractors
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Backup Google Sheets to Airtable on schedule
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Daily cron workflows to send email reports
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Parse forms, clean the data, and send to CRM automatically
All this runs 100% locally or in the cloud on our VPS, without paying per task or dealing with platform limits.
⚠️ Challenges We Faced
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Initial setup requires Docker experience
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Some OAuth-based services (e.g. Google, Slack) need careful credential setup
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Updates should be tested before pulling the latest image
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Webhook URL must match your reverse proxy/SSL config exactly
But once configured, it’s rock-solid and easy to maintain.
🔍 Why This Matters
Running your own automation system is part of a broader digital independence mindset — especially for developers, tech teams, startups, or privacy-conscious users. Tools like n8n help build smarter systems, reduce SaaS dependency, and open new doors for automation.
TL;DR:
We replaced Zapier with a self-hosted automation stack using n8n + Docker. It’s open-source, powerful, and gives us full control over our data and workflows.
