Hexa vs Zapier & n8n: whose connectors, whose credentials.
Zapier, Make, and n8n are strong at automation, and repeatability is their home turf. We are not going to claim they don't repeat, they do, well. The contest is elsewhere: your AI acts on a bounded, third-party-run connector catalog you didn't build and don't control. Hexa turns anything in your stack into a governed tool your AI authors itself, with your org holding the credentials.
The catalog is the ceiling
"7,000 integrations vs 1,000" is how these tools are compared, because the connector catalog decides what's possible. When the tool you need isn't in the catalog, or the connector is written by a third party you've never heard of, you're stuck. Hexa has no catalog ceiling: describe any REST or GraphQL API and the AI authors the connector on the spot, so your niche or internal tool is callable the same day.
Self-hosting is real, but it isn't free
n8n's self-hosting is a genuine strength if you want to keep infrastructure in-house,
but the honest contrast is "an afternoon of Docker and an .env of
credentials" vs. one click. And when someone asks how to hand n8n workflows to a
non-technical teammate, the common answer today is literally "I host them for my clients
and charge per hour." Hexa's answer is: share the workflow, they run it on their own
account.
| Zapier / Make / n8n | Hexa | |
|---|---|---|
| Repeatable automation | Yes, strong | Yes |
| Reach a tool with no connector | Wait for the catalog | AI authors it from the API |
| Who wrote the connector | Often a third party | Authored against your API, in your org |
| Who holds the credentials | The platform / your self-host | Your org, per person, never in chat |
| Setup to run | Builder UI, or Docker (n8n) | One click, nothing to host |
| How the AI decides what to run | You wire the flow | Resolves the workflow from your intent |
| Per-action approval + audit | Not the model | allow / ask / deny + timeline |
If you want a visual builder to wire fixed triggers between apps, these tools are mature and good at it. If you want your AI to do the work, across any API, with your org holding the keys and a policy on every write, that is Hexa.
Any API, governed, no catalog to wait on.
Connect the tool you actually need. Free to start.