Lindy vs. n8n vs. Gumloop: Which AI Agent Platform for SMBs?

Three Platforms, Three Different Philosophies

Lindy, n8n, and Gumloop get lumped together as "AI agent platforms," but they're built for very different users and use cases. Picking the wrong one will cost you weeks of setup and a subscription you won't use.

Here's the honest breakdown after running production workflows on all three.

Lindy: The Non-Technical Choice

Best for: Business owners and operators who want an agent without thinking about APIs, webhooks, or data schemas.

Pricing: Free tier with 400 credits/month. Pro at $49.99/month with 5,000 credits. Business at $199.99/month.

What makes it good: Lindy's UX is the best in the category. You describe what you want in plain English and Lindy builds the flow for you. Native integrations with Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot, and Slack work out of the box. Their pre-built templates for email triage, meeting prep, and lead enrichment work on day one.

Where it breaks: Custom integrations are hard. If you use a non-mainstream tool, you're stuck with webhooks. Complex branching logic gets messy fast. Credit-based pricing can surprise you — a chatty email agent can burn through 5,000 credits in a week.

n8n: The Power User Choice

Best for: Technical operators, agencies building client workflows, and anyone who needs full control over data and logic.

Pricing: Self-hosted free forever. Cloud from $20/month for 2,500 executions. Pro at $50/month. Enterprise pricing for teams.

What makes it good: n8n is effectively Zapier with AI nodes and self-hosting. You get 400+ integrations, full JavaScript in nodes, proper version control, and the ability to self-host on a $5 VPS. The AI Agent node lets you build ReAct-style agents with tool use. For agencies, the pricing at scale is dramatically better than Lindy or Gumloop.

Where it breaks: The learning curve is real. Expect 1-2 weeks to get productive if you're new to automation. The UI is functional but not pretty. Non-technical team members will not use this without handholding.

Gumloop: The Middle Ground

Best for: Marketing and ops teams who need more power than Lindy but don't want to self-host or learn JavaScript.

Pricing: Free tier with 1,000 credits/month. Starter at $97/month with 10,000 credits. Pro at $297/month. Enterprise custom.

What makes it good: Gumloop's visual canvas is cleaner than n8n and more powerful than Lindy. Their pre-built flows for web scraping, content generation, and lead research are excellent. Loops, conditionals, and subflows all work as you'd expect. The debugging experience is the best of the three — you can click any node and see exactly what it received and output.

Where it breaks: Pricing jumps hard. The $97 tier runs out of credits faster than you expect once you're running real workflows. Integrations are fewer than n8n — about 100 native integrations, so you'll hit the HTTP node often.

Head to Head

Ease of use: Lindy > Gumloop > n8n

Power: n8n > Gumloop > Lindy

Cost at scale: n8n (especially self-hosted) > Gumloop > Lindy

Integrations: n8n (400+) > Lindy (~50) > Gumloop (~100)

Agent-native features: Lindy > Gumloop > n8n

The Decision Framework

Pick Lindy if you're a solo operator or small team, you want an agent running this week, and you use mainstream tools like Gmail, HubSpot, and Slack. Budget $50-200/month.

Pick n8n if you're technical, you're building for multiple clients, or you care about cost at scale. Self-hosting brings the per-workflow cost to nearly zero. Budget $0-100/month.

Pick Gumloop if you need real workflow power but don't want to touch infrastructure. Marketing teams and content ops teams are the sweet spot. Budget $97-297/month.

The Honest Advice

Most SMBs overthink this choice. All three platforms can run the workflows you need. Pick one, commit to it for 90 days, and ship real workflows. The platform doesn't make you successful — shipping does.