Composio vs n8n

Integration layer comparison for platform builders · February 2026 · 25 views

Composio vs n8n
TL;DR

n8n is a workflow execution engine — it orchestrates what runs and in what order. Composio is an integration and auth API — it connects to third-party services and manages credentials per end-user, but doesn't include its own orchestration. The key architectural difference: Composio handles multi-tenant OAuth natively; n8n does not. The right choice depends on whether you need a workflow engine, whose credentials are being used, and how much auth management you want to build yourself.

What each tool is

n8n is a workflow execution engine. You define a directed graph of nodes — each node calls an API, transforms data, or applies logic. Execution follows the graph deterministically. It includes a visual builder, 400+ built-in nodes, and a community plugin ecosystem.

Composio is an integration and auth management API. It exposes 800+ third-party services as callable tools with managed per-user authentication. It does not include a workflow builder or execution engine — it's the connector layer that sits underneath one. Composio's tools are optimized for complex agentic use cases. Rather than exposing a subset of an app's API, each integration provides complete coverage of the app's available actions, so agents can chain tools in unpredictable sequences without hitting gaps in functionality. It also includes a Tool Router (single MCP endpoint that dynamically finds the right tool at runtime) and a Workbench (sandboxed environment for testing and monitoring agent tool executions).

Key decision factors

QuestionComposion8n
Do you need a workflow engine? No — API-only, bring your own orchestration Yes — full DAG-based workflow builder and executor
Do your end-users each connect their own accounts? Built-in. Each user gets a user_id; credentials are scoped and isolated per user. Not natively supported. Credentials are instance-level and resolved at design time — the community has been requesting this since 2021.
How is token refresh handled? Proactive per-user refresh before token expiry. Reactive — retries after a failed request. See Token Refresh section below for details.
Who maintains integrations? Composio team maintains all integrations in-house. Built-in nodes: n8n team. Community nodes: individual authors.
White-label auth UI? Customizable Connect Link UI. Available via Embed license (custom pricing, contact sales).

Tool Router and Workbench

Two Composio-specific capabilities worth noting — n8n has no direct equivalent for either.

Tool Router (docs) — a single MCP endpoint that dynamically finds and routes to the right tool at runtime across 10,000+ available actions. Instead of manually wiring up individual integrations, the agent describes what it needs and the router selects the correct app and action. This supports multi-toolkit sessions (e.g., Gmail + HubSpot + GitHub in one agent), scoped access control per session, and reduces boilerplate significantly.

Workbench — a sandboxed environment for testing and monitoring agent tool executions in real-time. Tracks every tool call and trigger event from a unified dashboard, with built-in failover and concurrency controls. Useful for debugging multi-step agent workflows before shipping to production.

Auth management

Composio uses a three-tier model: Auth Config (developer defines OAuth app + scopes) → User ID (your end-user) → Connected Account (per-user tokens, auto-refreshed). Every API call is scoped to a user.

n8n stores credentials encrypted at the instance level using a master N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY. Credentials are shared across workflows within a project. For multi-tenant use, the community has documented three workarounds:

Token refresh

Both platforms handle OAuth token refresh, but with different approaches.

n8n refreshes tokens reactively by intercepting HTTP 401 responses — when a request fails, it uses the stored refresh token to get a new access token and retries. This applies to both built-in and community nodes. There are a few documented limitations:

Community nodes inherit this refresh behavior when they use extends = ['oAuth2Api'] and n8n's HTTP helpers. However, they cannot access internal-only parameters like tokenExpiredStatusCode that built-in nodes use to handle APIs with non-standard error codes. Nodes that make raw HTTP requests (e.g., using axios directly) get no automatic refresh at all.

Composio handles token refresh proactively — tokens are refreshed before expiry, per-user, without a failed request needing to occur first.

Integration maintenance and ecosystem

n8n has a mature open-source ecosystem with a visual workflow builder, thousands of workflow templates, and a large community. Its integration breadth comes from both built-in nodes maintained by the n8n team and community-contributed nodes (npm packages). Community nodes come in two tiers:

Community nodes run with the same access level as n8n itself — they can read environment variables, access the filesystem, and receive decrypted credentials. In January 2026, this was exploited in a supply chain attack where malicious npm packages disguised as n8n community nodes exfiltrated OAuth tokens using the master encryption key. (The Hacker News)

Community nodes can also break on n8n upgrades — some hosting configurations require reinstalling community nodes after every update. (#78823) When an author abandons a node, it stays broken until someone forks it.

Composio maintains all integrations in-house. Each tool is actively maintained, covers most of the app's API surface area, and is optimized for agent use cases — meaning tool descriptions, parameter schemas, and response formats are designed to work well with LLM function calling. This removes the supply chain and abandonment risks, but means the integration catalog is bounded by what the Composio team has built.

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Pricing

Composio bills per tool call · n8n bills per workflow execution

The two platforms use fundamentally different billing models, reflecting their different architectures.

Composion8n
Billing unit Per tool call (each API action an agent executes) Per workflow execution (each time a workflow runs, regardless of how many nodes it contains)
Free tier 20k tool calls/month for hobby use Self-hosted Community Edition is free (unlimited executions). Cloud offers a 14-day trial, no permanent free tier.
Paid plans Starts at $49/month (5k actions). Growth at $149/month (25k actions). Enterprise is custom. Cloud starts at ~$26/month (2,500 executions). Pro at ~$65/month (10k executions). Enterprise is custom.
Self-hosted option Available on enterprise plans. Free and unlimited via Community Edition. Infrastructure costs typically $5–20/month for basic setups, $300–500/month for production.
Embed / white-label Available on paid plans with Connect Link UI. Requires a separate Embed license — custom pricing, contact sales.

Note: Composio distinguishes between standard and premium tool calls, which can affect costs at scale. n8n's self-hosted option is genuinely free software-wise, but production infrastructure and DevOps overhead add real cost. Check each platform's pricing page for current numbers — composio.dev/pricing · n8n.io/pricing

Composio Getting started with Composio

If you'd like to evaluate Composio, here's the fastest path:

Python pip install composio-core
TypeScript npm install composio-core

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