StackAI vs n8n: Agents IT Governs or Workflows You Build

The short answer: if AI agents in your company must pass a security review and reach staff through approved releases, StackAI (often searched as Stack AI) is built for that buyer: it is free for 1 seat, 2 projects and 500 runs a month, and every larger plan is quoted, checked on 26 October 2026 on the StackAI pricing page. If marketing operations will build and change its own automations, paid by card this week, n8n's Pro plan gives 10,000 executions and unlimited users for $60 a month on monthly billing (n8n pricing).

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

What StackAI changes is who signs off. Its homepage calls it the enterprise AI agent factory, built for IT teams to orchestrate, deploy, govern and scale AI, with deployment as multi-tenant cloud, virtual private cloud or on-premise, and HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 listed (StackAI). A banner on the same page announces that Asana has acquired it. The job it wins is putting a governed agent in front of many employees, such as a copy checker that reads only approved claims, published as a chat, a form, a batch run or an API (interfaces).

n8n is sold the other way round: self-serve plans, every integration on every plan, and pricing by complete workflow run (n8n pricing).

Settle these before the demo:

1. Count runs per person. For example, four marketers who each check 30 assets a month create 4 x 30 = 120 runs, a quarter of StackAI's free 500, yet the free plan holds one seat (StackAI pricing). On n8n the same 120 runs are 120 executions, inside Starter's 2,500 for $24 a month (n8n pricing).
2. List what the agent must read and write. StackAI cites 500+ enterprise integrations (StackAI); n8n cites 500+ native integrations plus any API over HTTP (n8n). Name the documents and systems before either vendor names them for you.
3. Fix the unit before a quote arrives. StackAI's usage settings track runs, credits, seats, projects and storage as separate limits (usage docs). n8n's Insights dashboard counts production executions (pricing FAQ). Ask which unit the quote is built on.

The two, area by area

What divides them

A release process, or a publish button

StackAI ships a workflow through stages such as testing and production, each with its own required approvals. A pending request leaves the current version live, and a stage set to zero approvals deploys at once (deployments and approvals). n8n keeps 1 day of workflow history on Starter and 5 on Pro, and puts separate environments, Git version control and workflow diffs on Enterprise (n8n pricing). If legal must see a change before staff do, that is StackAI's home ground.

Whose infrastructure

StackAI's Enterprise plan carries on-premise and VPC deployment, access control and SSO (StackAI pricing). n8n gets to your own servers without a sales call: the Community Edition is free, and Business is sold for self-hosting only (choose n8n, n8n pricing).

Who builds, and who uses

StackAI separates the builder from the user: an interface defines how people or applications use a workflow, with access controls of its own (interfaces). On n8n the builder usually is the user, working on the canvas, with hosted chat available for others (n8n pricing).

A human decision inside the run, on StackAI

The job: check new ad copy against approved product claims before it goes to the agency. A marketer pastes the copy into a published chat interface; the workflow compares it with a knowledge base of approved claims and flags the lines that fail. An Ask Human step then pauses the conversation with a question, the context, and a choice response such as "send as is" or "revise", and the run continues only with the person's answer (Ask Human). StackAI's docs add two cautions: showing a question is not the same as receiving approval, so keep dependent actions after the response, and an unattended schedule cannot supply that answer. On n8n, the closer match is an AI Agent node whose send tool waits for human review in Slack or Teams.

What it costs, checked on 26 October 2026

StackAI, from its pricing page: Free is $0 a month with 500 runs, 2 projects, 1 seat and community support on Discord. Enterprise is a custom quote with custom runs and seats, dedicated infrastructure, solution engineers, on-premise and VPC deployment, access control and SSO. Nothing is published in between.

n8n, from its pricing page, per month; the annual figures appeared in US dollars on some visits and in euros on others:

StackAI's footer still links its own comparison, "StackAI vs n8n", dated 4 April 2025, which says n8n has no native agent builder and no built-in LLM support in its interface (StackAI's comparison). n8n's documentation today describes an AI Agent node that picks among connected tools and human review on those tools (AI Agent node). That page is more than eighteen months old and has not caught up with n8n's AI nodes, so take what n8n can do from n8n's docs and what StackAI can do from StackAI's.

Choose StackAI if your job is

• Agents for many employees in legal, finance or customer service, released through approvals IT controls.
• Private deployment in your own cloud or on-premise, with SSO and access control.
• Publishing one workflow as a chat, a form, a batch run or an API for people who never see the builder.

Choose n8n if your job is

• Marketing operations automations built, changed and paid for by the team itself.
• A published price per run, or a free self-hosted start.
• Long flows that mix app steps, code and an AI agent.

Prove it on the free plans

StackAI's free plan, with 2 projects and 500 runs, is room for one low-risk project (StackAI pricing). n8n's Cloud trial gives 1,000 executions without a card, and the Community Edition costs nothing to self-host (n8n pricing). Build the same copy checker on both, run a week of real copy through it, and write down who had to help with the build. That note, not a feature grid, tells you which buyer you are.

When the hold-up is that nobody in marketing owns which agents get built and who approves them, that is design work rather than a platform choice, and it is what my agentic marketing work covers; I sell it.

FAQ

How many runs does StackAI's free plan include?

500 a month, with 2 projects and 1 seat and community support on Discord (StackAI pricing).

Can n8n call a StackAI agent?

StackAI documents exposing a project through an API among its interfaces (interfaces), and every n8n plan includes custom HTTP requests (n8n pricing). Neither vendor documents a ready-made connector, so treat it as an API integration you build.

Does n8n have release approvals?

Not as StackAI does. n8n lists environments, Git version control and workflow diffs on Enterprise, and multiple environments and Git on the self-hosted Business plan (n8n pricing).