Question 1

How would you choose between n8n Cloud and self-hosted?

Accepted Answer

Do not say "it depends" — say what it depends on. Walk through three questions: 1. Where is the data allowed to go? If compliance requires it to stay in-country or on the corporate network, the conversation is over — self-hosted. 2. Who will run it? Self-hosted means updates, backups and monitoring. With nobody to do that, Cloud is cheaper — measured in people's time, not server bills. 3. What custom capability is needed? Community nodes, external npm libraries in the Code node, reaching an internal system on your own network — these argue for self-hosting. Close with: "In practice teams often start on Cloud and move to self-hosted when a requirement forces it. The reverse — starting self-hosted and failing to maintain it — hurts more."

Question 2

What is the minimum needed to take self-hosted n8n to production?

Accepted Answer

Answer as a list, justifying each item in a sentence: HTTPS and a proper domain — webhook URLs are handed to external systems, and many will not accept plain HTTP An external database (PostgreSQL, for example) — the default SQLite is for a single instance and light load Protecting the encryption key — credentials are encrypted with it; lose the key and every credential becomes unreadable Backups — the database and the encryption key together Execution data pruning — old executions bloat the database, so set a retention period Monitoring — container health and the failed-execution rate "When load grows, the next step is queue mode — separate workers running alongside the main instance."

Question 3

How would you explain the difference between the Community edition and a paid plan?

Accepted Answer

Frame the difference not as "number of features" but as team size and governance. "The Community edition gives you everything needed to build workflows — nodes, expressions, the Code node, the AI components. What paid plans add is mostly about governance in a larger organisation: SSO login, separate environments (dev/prod), projects and role-based permissions, log streaming. So working alone or in a small team, Community is entirely enough. Once dozens of people share one instance you need control over who changed what, and that is the problem the paid plan solves."

Criterion	n8n Cloud	Self-hosted
Installation	None — works right after signup	Set up with Docker / Docker Compose / npm
Maintenance and updates	n8n handles it	Your responsibility
Where the data lives	On n8n's infrastructure	On your own server — the deciding argument when data residency is required
Custom configuration	Limited to the available settings	Full control: environment variables, community nodes, npm modules
Free option	Trial only	The Community edition is free
npm modules in the Code node	Not allowed — only `crypto` and `moment` are available	Can be enabled through configuration

n8n Cloud, self-hosted and editions

📚 Sources and documentation