N8n vs. node-red • Hacker News Board

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#21

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

_pdp_ wrote: post #10

It is worth pointing out that both of them are workflow tools first. The AI agent part is expressed though steps where a model is invoked. This opens the door to a number of issues including vulnerabilities. My personal, and my I say biased, opinion is that these tools do not deliver on the agentic promise. AI agents require a completely different approach.

There's a whole n8n subreddit where people are making customer call/customer agent flows.

Think of that what you will but it seems some of them make a profit off of it.

So, it must work somewhat?

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#22

Post by throwaway7783 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

_pdp_ wrote: post #10

It is worth pointing out that both of them are workflow tools first. The AI agent part is expressed though steps where a model is invoked. This opens the door to a number of issues including vulnerabilities. My personal, and my I say biased, opinion is that these tools do not deliver on the agentic promise. AI agents require a completely different approach.

The definition of an agent is so vague now. What is the agentic promise and why wouldn't a workflow tool with LLM steps cannot deliver on this promise? Also what vulnerability are you referring to? I have no stakes in n8n or node red, but being able to embed LLMs in a workflow and conversing with a "workflow" seems to solve a lot of agentic/assistance problems (Make a report of revenue, and send an email report to these people,for example)

What is the completely different approach you are suggesting?

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#23

Post by justinclift » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

> LLMs are non-deterministic; that is each time you run something you might get a different answer.

That's a choice. With (at least) Ollama, you can set the temperature parameter so the results will be deterministic based upon the seed value. Which you can set.

It's used for things like running test cases, but there are likely other uses too.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#24

Post by gitmagic » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

indiantinker wrote: post #13

_pdp_ wrote: post #10

It is worth pointing out that both of them are workflow tools first. The AI agent part is expressed though steps where a model is invoked. This opens the door to a number of issues including vulnerabilities. My personal, and my I say biased, opinion is that these tools do not deliver on the agentic promise. AI agents require a completely different approach.

Beginner here, I sort for agree. I think these tools are good to make a few good demos and quickly sketch something but you hit the ceiling soon where every other thing you do needs more work. There a lot of tutorials online plus the promise of AI automation as the next "get rich quick" thing. I am curious what is a good tool to build agents these days? I am checking out mastra, someone at the cafe told me about Inng…

If you want to build AI assistants for automating tasks, check out https://nelly.is.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#25

Post by guhcampos » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

I understand nothing of this article.

What does it mean by "n8n" lacks a UI? All it has is a UI, what use cases does the UI not handle? The writing is very poor and does not make sense at all.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#26

Post by bearjaws » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

Neither please god.

We used Node-Red at a previous job for integrating some third party software, total disaster, from upgrading, using JSON for code reviews, to overall performance.

Its a fun toy, leave it at that.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#27

Post by world2vec » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #7

What is an “antigenic AI” or “antigenic workflow” in this context? It’s used so consistently that I’m not sure if it’s just careless editing or if it’s something new I don’t know about.

Seems the writer made a typo in the prompt.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#28

Post by maxbaines » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

JimDabell wrote: post #16

Also very important for a lot of use-cases: Node-RED is open source, but n8n is not. https://github.com/node-red/node-red/blob/master/LICENSE https://docs.n8n.io/sustainable-use-license/ We previously looked into integrating n8n but they wanted $50k for a commercial license, which didn’t make sense for us.

Thankyou for the reminder, long term Node-RED user here, I recently looked again at n8n and wondered why I never took it to far, this is the reason. When you see a git icon and repo it's easy missed.

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#29

Post by throwaway7783 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

monatron wrote: post #5

lvl155 wrote: post #4

It pains me to see all these “node” based automators charging you an arm and a leg. I can’t wait till people see the obvious and just replace them with a few prompts to Claude Code or similar.

I self-host n8n and get a ton of mileage out of it. Doesn't cost me a dime.

Doesn't cost a dime to host n8n? Or is this only for personal use?

Re: N8n vs. node-red

#30

Post by salviati » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

bearjaws wrote: post #26

Neither please god. We used Node-Red at a previous job for integrating some third party software, total disaster, from upgrading, using JSON for code reviews, to overall performance. Its a fun toy, leave it at that.

I'd be happy to take your experience into account in case I'll need to vouch this in the future.

But unfortunately it's not very clear what shortcomings of Node-Red were a problem for you.

Could you rephrase your experience, focusing on what you believe Node-Red does wrong?