What licenses count as open source is widely debated. In the case of N8N, you can do anything you want as long as you don’t sell anything you make with it without paying them. But you can modify it and give it away all you want, but if you make money you owe them money.
@@Diamonddrake No, the only people debating what open source means are corporations that want to muddy the waters so they can virtue signal. Open source means an OSI approved license.
@@AndreasSpiessthis is perfectly understandable but had been tried many times before open source rules were found out as the only sustainable solution: GPL permits forkimg and modification but forces you to publish again. I think this is fair, too. One can still sell support etc without infringing on GPL.
@AndreasSpiess Not really, but these kind of tend to hinder product development, especially integration wise, if the source is not fully opened, like in case with node-red. Also, it hints towards them potentially starting charging for hobby use, like ifttt. They just opened it partially to gain audience, and it's working out good for them, so I'd say it's pretty risky to depend on them.
@@shoguevara I agree! I think there can be some parallels to ITTT. And on the other hand there are many functions already available in Node RED and / or Home Assistant
@@shoguevara Maybe. However, I see many commercial products where bit tech pays the bills, and the starters get it free of charge (freemium). This makes it difficult for competitors to enter and does not cost much because the real money is not with us, the Makers. Linux, for example, is also usually not free for big corporations because they need different stuff and service levels...
@@AndreasSpiess Like VMware ESXi? Like API access to godaddy for users who bought less than 5 domains? Like vsan from Starwind? Those are just from top of my mind. (if it came out a bit toxic - sorry, that wasn't the intention, it's my disappointment in such approach) Don't get me wrong, I really like n8n as a product and been watching it developing for some time now (3-4 years already). But the practice itself is kind of risky and the one I choose not to use: I'll either pay or use open source. If the I'm being lured with "first dose on the house" - I tend to avoid such things. Since those dudes are trying to make me dependent and then f me up the way they see fit. I mean, when you get product you like, you want it to develop and gain popularity, in cases of products with that kind of approach are already developed and have audience - they tend to backtrack on their openness
I see a lot of anti-n8n posts but none of them mention exactly why. I have been learning and using n8n for two months and it is working great for me. If you self-host it, it is a pretty decent piece of software. I would encourage people who have not tried it before to give it a try and then decide if it sucks. I personally run it on a RPi 4 and it is running great.
Wow I just watched ep 461 to see about any new ideas for my own lab and I cant believe your subscriber count! you had just gotten 70k and that was only 1 year ago, now you are almost 500k!! So cool! I love your channel ty so much for all the great resource
@AndreasSpiess hmm not sure what to tell you in that case.. at the end of 461 which shows up as 1 year old, you show your "subscribers counter which just passed 70k" and on the screen is a counter displaying 70,099 🤷♂️
00:00 Introduction to N8N 01:06 What is N8N and how does it differ from Node-RED? 03:08 Areas of application and comparison to Home Assistant 04:13 Implementation and challenges 05:50 Templates and first tests 07:03 Amadeus API and Gmail integration 10:22 N8N conclusion and potential 11:22 AI integration and controversy 13:51 Summary and recommendations These chapters were created entirely locally on my Debian machine using open-source software (Whisper, Ollama, Qwen2.5:14b). @Andreas Use in the chapters for your video description if you want.
IMHO the best application for n8n / LangFlow (or LLM in general) is to give them tools (e.g. to use web search engines, scrape web pages, run code interpreters in a sandbox environment), equip them with self-reflection and self-critique feedback loops and then you can assign some more or less complex tasks for them.
I am sure we only scratch the surface of this tech. Today, I needed a python program for a quite tricky consolidation of files. I definded my needs, asked ChatGPT, copy-paste-run and the problem was solved in less than 10 minutes. We will see how these LLMs can be trained to understand business processes. As a long-time SAP consultant, I know that a lot of work goes into the definition of customization of business rules. AI should be good at that, and often, companies have a ton on old business transactions for its training...
Another interesting point of view from your perspective Andreas. I have tried N8N in the past, and found it not to my liking, or maybe not targeted at my needs at least. Node Red seems to cover all of my needs so far anyway. A Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you, Mrs Spiess and the whole channel viewership. Thsi comment was not create by AI - hence the expurt spilling.
:-)) My goal was exactly to save my viewers the time for investigation. When I heard about n8n, I was curious and wanted to know where it fits. Now I know. And obviously many viewers, too.
I'm watching it for months now I use it on my docker and subscribed for enterprise use, some colleague use it to transform data. I think there's a lot to make a better product, and I tried to comunicate with n8n guys but because they didn't have a ETL experience didn't get. This is my fortune, probably I'll branch it.
Andreas, I just have to know.: does all Swiss cheese have holes? Surely, in a country known for precision engineering, fastidious banking, and steadfastness there must be at least ONE kind of cheese without holes, made in your wonderful country! I had the great pleasure of visiting Switzerland in 1974. A memory I still cherish to this day. Let's hope Weihnachtsmann is generous and Schmutzli is unemployed at your home this Weinachten.
Indeed, most Swiss cheese does not have holes. But the Emmental with holes was one of the first we exported. So many people know that "Swiss Cheese has holes". Thank you for your wishes! Everybody is generous with me the whole year round, so I do not have to count on the Weinachtsmann :-). And Switzerland changed quite a bit since 1974. We were less than 6 million people back then. Now we approach 10 million. And most are not "Swiss Made". So it seems that Switzerland is still an attractive country for many people. Merry Christmas to you, too!
n8n has been around for a long time... it ain't the new kid anymore lol. node-red can do everything n8n can do and more ... I found myself going back to node-red since it is more consistent in runs
It was on my list for maybe a year. But it seems that it got quite some traction in the last months. But I might be wrong... I would not see it as a replacement for NR because it works on a different level. But I am too concerned about consistency of business processes when AI is used. I think this has to be adressed if AI should replace traditional algorithms. Hard to test if the result is always slightly different...
Hi, what about a video about this concepts?: have you read about Influxdb 3.0 (about 72h only for free personal version)? have you notice about high ram usage on influxdb 1 or 2? May be it is time to migrate to victoriametrics? what other time based databases do you know? Thanks a lot.
@AndreasSpiess i have read about Victoria metrics. It seems also to waste much less ram than influxdb. Also found info about tdengine, but poor information is both with node-red
Started with n8n few months ago. I run it self hosted via npm and connected it to Postgres and local Ollama. Connecting to Oauth services is indead very tricky. Some require ssl to connect (of courde), others reject ip)(need a domain name), others only allow the default ssl ports. Also using the webhook requires some practice. Debugging, in perticular the AI agent is tricky. They work a lot with JSON schema definitions which I find not easy to read (who came up with this idea?). It requires more skills then node red and is not realy for non technical users (n8n positions their product wrong imo). N8n has much better AI capabilities and nodered is pretty limited in AI. So will use them together. All local. All on a proxmox cluster.
I agree that you need some pretty technical knowledge. I would once try to feed a JSON record in chatGPT and ask it your question. It is astonishing how it finds errors in programs, for example. Maybe it is the same with JSON...
Hey Andreas great video, by the way you can still do oaut2 workflow inside your LAN without public access, you need a DNS record pointing to the private IP and that's it you can even set the callback as http, but let's encrypt is easy with DNS validation. Or even a self signed certificate
I tested n8n some months ago. It worked fine just installed, but UI got really slow with complex flows. It is a higher level programming environment but finally I kept using node red. Node red is rock solid even with big and complex flows.
@@AndreasSpiess A feature I liked over NodeRed is that you can access data from past nodes even if you do not include it specifically. But I consider that, for IoT, NodeRed is still The Tool. For social networks and marketing automation N8N may be suitable. IMHO, Node-Red is much more flexible and powerful, anyway
Thank you for your effort. N8N - never heared before. We will see how it develops. Using ioBroker, I als get access to the API e.g. of my BEV, Fronius portal and PV forecast (which is unfortunately mostly useless). I will see, if I need n8n at all. Hearing words such as cloud or abo makes me always hesitating or ignoring.
I compare ioBroker with HA. Both are very good in integrating internet services with home automation. I do not think, n8n will change that. However, if you have to connect internet services with internet services it might be interesting.
@@AndreasSpiess Ach so! Haha, Sorry - ich dachte, weil doch jetzt dieser so böse Mensch dort das Sagen hat und "alle" da weg gehen! Dann nehme ich natürlich mein "Soso..." zurück - hatte mich auch schon sehr gewundert. Dann mal viele Grüße in die Schweiz! :O)
I find that HA automation are still easier to configure than Node Red. Not for lack of trying either. A simple time of day + duration + disable toggle was easy in HA. Never got it right with NR. n8n looks like it tries to fill yet another niche with automations.
I was the same for a few years but recently I found another YT channel (eerily similar to yours, Andreas) which has really good tutorials about HA. I invested some time in watching a few of them *and* applying what I learned and this helped me write some complex automations in HA that I had little knowledge or desire to attempt to write in NR. For me the HA barrier of entry to write powerful automations was quite high but once I managed to get a foot in the door it became clear and easy. I still don't like that you have to either write yaml "code" or put up with so many clicks in the web UI but it can be done. You can even ask an LLM to write the yaml for you, although be prepared to have to correct it yourself :) Also, it can get pretty "interesting" when you get into HA templates and have to use a mixture of yaml, C and Jinja2 😂
Indeed, working for SAP for a long time, I know that they offer such functionality. But always focussed on themself (environment-SAP or SAP-environment). I assume that it is the same with Google or Microsoft. AFAIK n8n and similar tools want to connect all sorts of services. But if you are retired, I am sure you have nicer projects ;-)
As a "poor" maker i like these freemium models where big companies pay the bill and we can use the outcome free of charge. Most people forget (or do not know) that also Linux is not free for big corporations. And most of its development nowadays is paid by the big tech companies...
Depends on what exactly you mean by "Linux". If you meant a full software distribution based on the Linux kernel, with technical support within specified SLAs (like businesses often require) then nobody is going to provide that for free.
@@dan-nutu@dan-nutu That is what I meant. Still, some of the work put into these developments ends up in the "free" kernel. I used to work at SAP when the 64-bit version was developed. We invested many millions in Linux development back then because we were interested in this functionality for our massive systems...
Hi Andreas, I'd like to know how you created audio-tracks for different languages. Is this an automatic process or you create them yourself and upload them separately? I also cannot find this option in my youtube studio settings, maybe it is not available for small youtubers (yet)
@@kimtae858 The german track is painfully robotic and montonous , and very unswiss. The italian one is quite ok. Frightening to a certain extent, but can be very useful. AI whether it annoys us or doesn't isn't going to go away. I'm looking forward to when it extends to languages such as Chinese and Japanese Korean. I'm sure there are many people over there who have interesting stories to tell.
This is the first time my video got this "treatment". It seems they started with the bigger channels and I did not have to do anything. I still prefer subtitles. Their quality is probably also better because they are based on my English script I upload.
So schlimm ist es nicht. Gerade deutsche Zuschauer fragten immer wieder nach einer deutschen Fassung ;-) Ich persönlich bevorzuge Untertitel. Wie im Kino: Da werden in der Schweiz immer Originalversionen mit Untertiteln gespielt.
Hmm, it's only £20 a month for the starter plan if you pay for the year, so £240 (if you pay monthly it's £24 a month). Starter as no global variables, you can only have one project. You'll tinker around with it as Andreas has in this video, realise it's not for you, and give up, but they have your £240 if you signed up to the £20 a month option. I'll stick to NodeRed.
this is a scraper tool and will have same over-the-top issues as others: very short lifespan of template. If you use API nodes in Nodered you know it as well, you wonderful script stop working every time the service provider update something. You need a very strong community support to keep these API integrations working as n8n don't have any. I'll pass. Could be good for one off project but not a long term process you can rely on.
There is a big difference between scraping websites and using APIs. I only used APIs because of what you describe. APIs usually are created for stability, and they should not change too often. At least they only should be extended to be backward compatible. I am sure not all companies adhere to these standards, but many do.
@@AndreasSpiess En inglés: "I try to study all the videos you publish and apply them to my projects. They provide very valuable information. Thank you!" En español: "Trato de estudiar todos los videos que publica y los aplico a mis proyectos. Aportan información muy valiosa. ¡Gracias!"
Ein Zuschauer hat vor einiger Zeit ein Video von mir in Portugisisch synchronisieren lassen (von irgend einem Service). Ich kann kein Wort portugisisch und meine Frau auch nicht. Aber sie hat meine Stimme erkannt. Deshalb bin ich etwas enttäuscht von TH-cam. Ich hätte so etwas erwartet. Mal sehen, wie es weiter geht. Die müssen sicher auf die Performance achten bei sovielen Kanälen.
@@AndreasSpiess Dein markanter Schweizer Akzent im Englischen ist mir jedenfalls lieber als das AI generierte Hochdeutsch. Ich wünsche Dir und deiner Frau schöne Feiertage
Hi Andreas, I have never heard of it and worked with computer parts since the 1960s. Ive found that SPI functionality is lacking across the board and Im working on a better implementation. SPI? its like having to assemble your car each morning just to drive it. I got the Propeller microcontroller, OH its so great, OH its so easy to use. I cant figure it out. The Arduino and that IDE had it running in minutes after seeing for the 1st time I want to learn new systems, If I didnt have to work all the time Id be able to build really cool things
That you were unable to solve the issue already shows that n8n is not the way forward. node-red much simpler and easy to debug. I build my own chat interface inside node-red and have it connected to a local LLM while it also uses RAG, done via node-red (it reads daily rss news feeds) and summarizes the daily news. Node-RED is used in manufacturing plants, because of can/modbus capabilities and you want this to be local anway.
I never heard that somebody did such "sophisitcated" flows using an LLM with node-red. So you are quite advanced. And of course you are right, for low level stuff, NR is the way to go.
Funny, how Twitter has ceased to be a problem for me too. And for the sames reason... Happy holidays to you and your family, looking forward to your 2025 videos!
@ It has ceased to be a problem, because like him I left. For me it was the bots and nazi adjacent populism combined with Elon's propaganda that destroyed any enjoyment of Twitter.
People crying about Twitter are usually narcissists. IME it’s an excellent news source and surprisingly balanced, Elon deserves way more credit for shining a light on the media
I wonder if you could run 1 n8n node in the cloud for accessing Gmail and other cloud services, And also run one internal n8n server on you own network Then link them? Certainly something I will look at.
@@AndreasSpiess I should try this at work at see how it goes. I can see a use here for marshalling exceptional errors and other reports into Slack and email. At the moment, every utility like backups does it's own thing and it could be improved.
For the AI systems and TH-camrs, one thing it could do is learn all the contents of the historic videos either from the transcript or analysing the videos themselves. Then use that to act as a knowledge base or chatbot, it could essentially answer questions based on previous videos and knowledge.
I would connect the cloud n8n VM to tho local HA installation via wireguard vpn, if its possible on google vm cloud service. I have no experience with cloud VMs. But if it acts like usual VMs then this should be possible.
@@MrBrogley Interesting, just searched again. It is available as cloud, npm or docker. I actually prefer Software i understand. I guess i will have to to learn this docker thingy.
@@AndreasSpiess I am responsible for roughly 50 Servers with Windows, Linux, Web, DB, BMD etc. and a few hundred clients and never needed them anywhere.
I do not agree. As said in the video, it has very similar functions, just focused on internet services. And it uses the same style (visual programming with nodes and connections).
Never heard of X, just the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter. More people need to move to Blue sky and Mastodon where I don't need an account to look at posts. Then I can even integrate their feeds into HA!
@AndreasSpiess It comes in handy for me in places where data is lousy but SMS still gets through. I also integrated Meshtastic with HA for offline notifications. Maybe that's more interesting?
robrita - super, would you be so kind and share with us here a few of the best ideas you made real using it? I'm not trying to be funny here, I'm genuinely interested. Thanks
n8n is a crippleware. For instance, they require enterprise subscription, if you want to use global variables (shared between workflows)
thanks for saving my time
Oh. Ok. Then it's not for me either.
what alternative do you recommend then
Just create a file with that info or a key value store. Or an automation for global variables
Thanks for pointing that out, will stay on node red
Finally i come a across a proper zapier alternative open source
Not all viewers were convinced that it is open source (at least according the comments).
n8n is not open source, it has an anti-competitive license just like Redis.
Thank you for this info. At least I was able to get the code and run it free of charge.
What licenses count as open source is widely debated. In the case of N8N, you can do anything you want as long as you don’t sell anything you make with it without paying them. But you can modify it and give it away all you want, but if you make money you owe them money.
@@Diamonddrake Which seems to be a fair deal. I also want to participate if I help somebody make money ;-)
@@Diamonddrake No, the only people debating what open source means are corporations that want to muddy the waters so they can virtue signal. Open source means an OSI approved license.
@@AndreasSpiessthis is perfectly understandable but had been tried many times before open source rules were found out as the only sustainable solution: GPL permits forkimg and modification but forces you to publish again. I think this is fair, too. One can still sell support etc without infringing on GPL.
Hopped in to comment on their license, but people already got me covered here)
Do you see problems with the license for hobby usage?
@AndreasSpiess Not really, but these kind of tend to hinder product development, especially integration wise, if the source is not fully opened, like in case with node-red.
Also, it hints towards them potentially starting charging for hobby use, like ifttt. They just opened it partially to gain audience, and it's working out good for them, so I'd say it's pretty risky to depend on them.
@@shoguevara I agree! I think there can be some parallels to ITTT.
And on the other hand there are many functions already available in Node RED and / or Home Assistant
@@shoguevara Maybe. However, I see many commercial products where bit tech pays the bills, and the starters get it free of charge (freemium). This makes it difficult for competitors to enter and does not cost much because the real money is not with us, the Makers. Linux, for example, is also usually not free for big corporations because they need different stuff and service levels...
@@AndreasSpiess Like VMware ESXi? Like API access to godaddy for users who bought less than 5 domains? Like vsan from Starwind? Those are just from top of my mind. (if it came out a bit toxic - sorry, that wasn't the intention, it's my disappointment in such approach)
Don't get me wrong, I really like n8n as a product and been watching it developing for some time now (3-4 years already). But the practice itself is kind of risky and the one I choose not to use: I'll either pay or use open source. If the I'm being lured with "first dose on the house" - I tend to avoid such things. Since those dudes are trying to make me dependent and then f me up the way they see fit.
I mean, when you get product you like, you want it to develop and gain popularity, in cases of products with that kind of approach are already developed and have audience - they tend to backtrack on their openness
I see a lot of anti-n8n posts but none of them mention exactly why. I have been learning and using n8n for two months and it is working great for me. If you self-host it, it is a pretty decent piece of software. I would encourage people who have not tried it before to give it a try and then decide if it sucks. I personally run it on a RPi 4 and it is running great.
I am glad you share your experience. I also did not exactly understand the critics.
But:
Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch!
Thanks zu dir für so viel Arbeit für uns!
Vielen Dank. Auch dir Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch!
Thanks for this video Andreas! 🙌
My pleasure!
Wow I just watched ep 461 to see about any new ideas for my own lab and I cant believe your subscriber count! you had just gotten 70k and that was only 1 year ago, now you are almost 500k!! So cool! I love your channel ty so much for all the great resource
I do not think that I only had 70k subscribers last year (it was well above 400k). So no rapid growth, unfortunately ;-)
@AndreasSpiess hmm not sure what to tell you in that case.. at the end of 461 which shows up as 1 year old, you show your "subscribers counter which just passed 70k" and on the screen is a counter displaying 70,099 🤷♂️
At any rate your channel is great and you are appreciated 👍
I hope you have an awesome 2025! Thanks again
@@ZeroZen-r4v #461 is a replay (during my summer break). It ran for the first time in 2018 ;-)
00:00 Introduction to N8N
01:06 What is N8N and how does it differ from Node-RED?
03:08 Areas of application and comparison to Home Assistant
04:13 Implementation and challenges
05:50 Templates and first tests
07:03 Amadeus API and Gmail integration
10:22 N8N conclusion and potential
11:22 AI integration and controversy
13:51 Summary and recommendations
These chapters were created entirely locally on my Debian machine using open-source software (Whisper, Ollama, Qwen2.5:14b).
@Andreas Use in the chapters for your video description if you want.
IMHO the best application for n8n / LangFlow (or LLM in general) is to give them tools (e.g. to use web search engines, scrape web pages, run code interpreters in a sandbox environment), equip them with self-reflection and self-critique feedback loops and then you can assign some more or less complex tasks for them.
I am sure we only scratch the surface of this tech. Today, I needed a python program for a quite tricky consolidation of files. I definded my needs, asked ChatGPT, copy-paste-run and the problem was solved in less than 10 minutes.
We will see how these LLMs can be trained to understand business processes. As a long-time SAP consultant, I know that a lot of work goes into the definition of customization of business rules. AI should be good at that, and often, companies have a ton on old business transactions for its training...
Thanks for introducing me to a totally new software package, it may not be for me right now but it's great to know it is out there.
That was my goal when I decided to create this video. To get you the needed info to decice!
Thanks for the nice introduction video!
You are welcome!
Merry Christmas thank you
Merry Christmas, too!
Merry Xmas Andreas & of course to Mrs Spiess.
Thank you! Merry Chrismas and a Happy New Year to you, too!
for my IOT projects I'm sticking with Node-RED
Good decision!
Another interesting point of view from your perspective Andreas. I have tried N8N in the past, and found it not to my liking, or maybe not targeted at my needs at least. Node Red seems to cover all of my needs so far anyway.
A Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you, Mrs Spiess and the whole channel viewership.
Thsi comment was not create by AI - hence the expurt spilling.
:-)) My goal was exactly to save my viewers the time for investigation. When I heard about n8n, I was curious and wanted to know where it fits. Now I know. And obviously many viewers, too.
I'm watching it for months now I use it on my docker and subscribed for enterprise use, some colleague use it to transform data. I think there's a lot to make a better product, and I tried to comunicate with n8n guys but because they didn't have a ETL experience didn't get. This is my fortune, probably I'll branch it.
ETL knowledge for sure helps in this topic.
Andreas, I just have to know.: does all Swiss cheese have holes? Surely, in a country known for precision engineering, fastidious banking, and steadfastness there must be at least ONE kind of cheese without holes, made in your wonderful country!
I had the great pleasure of visiting Switzerland in 1974. A memory I still cherish to this day.
Let's hope Weihnachtsmann is generous and Schmutzli is unemployed at your home this Weinachten.
Indeed, most Swiss cheese does not have holes. But the Emmental with holes was one of the first we exported. So many people know that "Swiss Cheese has holes".
Thank you for your wishes! Everybody is generous with me the whole year round, so I do not have to count on the Weinachtsmann :-).
And Switzerland changed quite a bit since 1974. We were less than 6 million people back then. Now we approach 10 million. And most are not "Swiss Made". So it seems that Switzerland is still an attractive country for many people.
Merry Christmas to you, too!
can u explain n8n with duck dns ..for self hosting on windows machine.. please create a walk though vedio....it will be great, thanks
For the moment I have no such intentions (i mentioned my reasons in the video)
n8n has been around for a long time... it ain't the new kid anymore lol.
node-red can do everything n8n can do and more ...
I found myself going back to node-red since it is more consistent in runs
It was on my list for maybe a year. But it seems that it got quite some traction in the last months. But I might be wrong...
I would not see it as a replacement for NR because it works on a different level. But I am too concerned about consistency of business processes when AI is used. I think this has to be adressed if AI should replace traditional algorithms. Hard to test if the result is always slightly different...
Hi, what about a video about this concepts?:
have you read about Influxdb 3.0 (about 72h only for free personal version)?
have you notice about high ram usage on influxdb 1 or 2?
May be it is time to migrate to victoriametrics?
what other time based databases do you know? Thanks a lot.
Because I do not know a valid alternative, I still use influxDB :-(
@AndreasSpiess i have read about Victoria metrics. It seems also to waste much less ram than influxdb. Also found info about tdengine, but poor information is both with node-red
I'm still using your node red pi sd card from waaaaaaay back. Maybe it's time for an upgrade XD
As said in the video: They look and work similarly, but n8n is not a NR replacement.
Started with n8n few months ago. I run it self hosted via npm and connected it to Postgres and local Ollama. Connecting to Oauth services is indead very tricky. Some require ssl to connect (of courde), others reject ip)(need a domain name), others only allow the default ssl ports. Also using the webhook requires some practice.
Debugging, in perticular the AI agent is tricky. They work a lot with JSON schema definitions which I find not easy to read (who came up with this idea?). It requires more skills then node red and is not realy for non technical users (n8n positions their product wrong imo).
N8n has much better AI capabilities and nodered is pretty limited in AI. So will use them together. All local. All on a proxmox cluster.
I agree that you need some pretty technical knowledge. I would once try to feed a JSON record in chatGPT and ask it your question. It is astonishing how it finds errors in programs, for example. Maybe it is the same with JSON...
Hey Andreas great video, by the way you can still do oaut2 workflow inside your LAN without public access, you need a DNS record pointing to the private IP and that's it you can even set the callback as http, but let's encrypt is easy with DNS validation. Or even a self signed certificate
Thanks for the info. I am not very good at this. So I have to stick with what Google in this case asked me to do :-(
I never expected that swiss cheese would be a problem on this channel.
:-))
The AI integration is interesting. I also paid for an API key and have been looking for something to do the heavy lifting instead of python
As I wrote in another comment, I used AI to write my python program...
I tested n8n some months ago. It worked fine just installed, but UI got really slow with complex flows.
It is a higher level programming environment but finally I kept using node red.
Node red is rock solid even with big and complex flows.
Even if they use a similar concept, I think they are not made for the same purpose. So keeping NR for Home Automation is for sure a good decision
@@AndreasSpiess A feature I liked over NodeRed is that you can access data from past nodes even if you do not include it specifically. But I consider that, for IoT, NodeRed is still The Tool. For social networks and marketing automation N8N may be suitable. IMHO, Node-Red is much more flexible and powerful, anyway
Thank you for your effort. N8N - never heared before. We will see how it develops. Using ioBroker, I als get access to the API e.g. of my BEV, Fronius portal and PV forecast (which is unfortunately mostly useless). I will see, if I need n8n at all. Hearing words such as cloud or abo makes me always hesitating or ignoring.
I compare ioBroker with HA. Both are very good in integrating internet services with home automation. I do not think, n8n will change that. However, if you have to connect internet services with internet services it might be interesting.
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you! Maybe we will have some use cases for n8n, which are not covered by home automation systems, in the future.
It's crazy that this is open source
Why do you think so?
Soso, "X verlassen..." Muuuahah!🤣
Ich habe es selten gebraucht und es hat immer mehr "Spam" angezeigt...
@@AndreasSpiess Ach so! Haha, Sorry - ich dachte, weil doch jetzt dieser so böse Mensch dort das Sagen hat und "alle" da weg gehen! Dann nehme ich natürlich mein "Soso..." zurück - hatte mich auch schon sehr gewundert. Dann mal viele Grüße in die Schweiz! :O)
Amazing and interesting, however a little over complicated for me. Thnxs for sharing!
Indeed, it is complex. But compared with what would otherwise be needed, it may be easier. Merry Christmas to you!
@@AndreasSpiess Happy holidays for you and your family and the best of wishes for a very joyful new year!
Do I need to pay ? No, thank you :)
Long live to Node-RED ! :)
I did not have to pay n8n. Only ChatGPT because I used their API instead of the usual chat interface
N8N is definitely not the next level of Node RED.
It’s for different use-cases and it’s not as Node RED.
I agree. Maybe we can say: Use cases on the next level?
@@AndreasSpiess I think it's more the next Level of ITTT 😃
trying to contact you re designing pcb arial for esp32.. well more how to tune it ? can you suggest any web sites please thanks David
I made several videos on this channel and on my second channel about tuning antennas.
I find that HA automation are still easier to configure than Node Red. Not for lack of trying either. A simple time of day + duration + disable toggle was easy in HA. Never got it right with NR. n8n looks like it tries to fill yet another niche with automations.
I agree. I also use HA for simple automations. Complex automations in HA are still not easy for me. This is why they still are in NR...
I was the same for a few years but recently I found another YT channel (eerily similar to yours, Andreas) which has really good tutorials about HA. I invested some time in watching a few of them *and* applying what I learned and this helped me write some complex automations in HA that I had little knowledge or desire to attempt to write in NR. For me the HA barrier of entry to write powerful automations was quite high but once I managed to get a foot in the door it became clear and easy. I still don't like that you have to either write yaml "code" or put up with so many clicks in the web UI but it can be done. You can even ask an LLM to write the yaml for you, although be prepared to have to correct it yourself :) Also, it can get pretty "interesting" when you get into HA templates and have to use a mixture of yaml, C and Jinja2 😂
@@dan-nutu I agree. Still, I have to learn Jinja. With all these parentheses, it is not apparent. Here, I prefer the js syntax of NR...
SAP AG, Google and Microsoft has already implemented this on a large scale. Being retired I am not going back to a environment of work.
Indeed, working for SAP for a long time, I know that they offer such functionality. But always focussed on themself (environment-SAP or SAP-environment). I assume that it is the same with Google or Microsoft.
AFAIK n8n and similar tools want to connect all sorts of services.
But if you are retired, I am sure you have nicer projects ;-)
I like node red , if runs on pi and can use gpio of pi socket and others i will try out
And ui i use node mostly for the web ui
As said: It is not a node-red replacement. It just looks and works similarly. So no need to replace NR.
No thanks to greedy subscriptions!
Are you sure you need a subscription for personal use? I was able to install it without behind and outside my firewall.
@@AndreasSpiess It's a free trial, then its €20/month for the lowest tier.
@@Sgt_Hest@Sgt_Hest That is not what I used it. I used the self-hosted version.
WOW!
No shortage of negative comments!
But, if there are "subscriptions" to make it viable, that's a pretty "unpopular" business model!
As a "poor" maker i like these freemium models where big companies pay the bill and we can use the outcome free of charge. Most people forget (or do not know) that also Linux is not free for big corporations. And most of its development nowadays is paid by the big tech companies...
Depends on what exactly you mean by "Linux". If you meant a full software distribution based on the Linux kernel, with technical support within specified SLAs (like businesses often require) then nobody is going to provide that for free.
@@dan-nutu@dan-nutu That is what I meant. Still, some of the work put into these developments ends up in the "free" kernel. I used to work at SAP when the 64-bit version was developed. We invested many millions in Linux development back then because we were interested in this functionality for our massive systems...
Node-RED has built-in dashboard UI features, while n8n doesn't have this functionality.
I agree.
Hi Andreas, I'd like to know how you created audio-tracks for different languages. Is this an automatic process or you create them yourself and upload them separately?
I also cannot find this option in my youtube studio settings, maybe it is not available for small youtubers (yet)
Yeah, it's being rolled out randomly to larger channels. Most don't even know it's enabled until the complaints start.
@@kimtae858 The german track is painfully robotic and montonous , and very unswiss. The italian one is quite ok. Frightening to a certain extent, but can be very useful. AI whether it annoys us or doesn't isn't going to go away. I'm looking forward to when it extends to languages such as Chinese and Japanese Korean. I'm sure there are many people over there who have interesting stories to tell.
This is the first time my video got this "treatment". It seems they started with the bigger channels and I did not have to do anything. I still prefer subtitles. Their quality is probably also better because they are based on my English script I upload.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, quality is not good...
Soon TH-cam will also create that AI bot for you to reply to our comments, no n8n needed 😅
I did not find the video useful and only somewhat interesting. However Ill continue supporting the channel becaus i like it.
Thank you for your feedback and your continued support!
Interesting, but I'll skip this.
I think you will not be the only one ;-)
Open Source from Silicon Valley? No way :)
As said: It comes from Berlin, Germany...
Buenísimo, justo estaba buscando sobre cómo empezar con n8n, gracias
¡de nada!
:-( YT meint den text übersetzen zu müssen .... einfach nur schrott
So schlimm ist es nicht. Gerade deutsche Zuschauer fragten immer wieder nach einer deutschen Fassung ;-)
Ich persönlich bevorzuge Untertitel. Wie im Kino: Da werden in der Schweiz immer Originalversionen mit Untertiteln gespielt.
A big +1 from me for subtitles! I grew up with them and I just can't stand voice dubbing - I find it very weird and off-putting
n8n is pure evil. Is this sponsored?
Why do you think it is evil?
This is the first time I heard about it (thank you Andreas!) and I'd also be interested to learn why it is "evil". Thanks & Merry Christmas!
@@dan-nutu Merry Christmas to you, too!
Hmm, it's only £20 a month for the starter plan if you pay for the year, so £240 (if you pay monthly it's £24 a month). Starter as no global variables, you can only have one project. You'll tinker around with it as Andreas has in this video, realise it's not for you, and give up, but they have your £240 if you signed up to the £20 a month option.
I'll stick to NodeRed.
As said: I only paid ChatGPT 10 dollars. And they deserve it. Just today, it wrote me a python script for a problem. Copy-paste-problem solved ;-)
Flowise?
Never heard about it. But looks similar to n8n.
@@AndreasSpiess not similar. Flowise is more inclined towards flow builder for Langchain and other LLM frameworks.
Respect because you left X! Thanks for this video! Very useful ❤
Glad it was helpful!
this is a scraper tool and will have same over-the-top issues as others: very short lifespan of template. If you use API nodes in Nodered you know it as well, you wonderful script stop working every time the service provider update something. You need a very strong community support to keep these API integrations working as n8n don't have any. I'll pass. Could be good for one off project but not a long term process you can rely on.
There is a big difference between scraping websites and using APIs. I only used APIs because of what you describe.
APIs usually are created for stability, and they should not change too often. At least they only should be extended to be backward compatible. I am sure not all companies adhere to these standards, but many do.
gracias
De nada
@@AndreasSpiess En inglés: "I try to study all the videos you publish and apply them to my projects. They provide very valuable information. Thank you!"
En español: "Trato de estudiar todos los videos que publica y los aplico a mis proyectos. Aportan información muy valiosa. ¡Gracias!"
@@ricardostocker2012 You are welcome!
PS: Schade dass es noch keine Schwyzerdüütsche Spur gibt. Auf italienisch klingst du viel besser als auf auch Hochdeutsch
Ein Zuschauer hat vor einiger Zeit ein Video von mir in Portugisisch synchronisieren lassen (von irgend einem Service). Ich kann kein Wort portugisisch und meine Frau auch nicht. Aber sie hat meine Stimme erkannt. Deshalb bin ich etwas enttäuscht von TH-cam. Ich hätte so etwas erwartet. Mal sehen, wie es weiter geht. Die müssen sicher auf die Performance achten bei sovielen Kanälen.
@@AndreasSpiess Dein markanter Schweizer Akzent im Englischen ist mir jedenfalls lieber als das AI generierte Hochdeutsch. Ich wünsche Dir und deiner Frau schöne Feiertage
@@HelmutQ Vielen Dank! Ja, Schweizerdeutsch wird wahrescheinlich noch eine Weile warten müssen ;-) Ich wünsche euch ebenfalls schöne Festtage!
Not going to jump to anything i have to redo years of flows
It is more an addition than a replacement.
Hi Andreas, I have never heard of it and worked with computer parts since the 1960s. Ive found that SPI functionality is lacking across the board and Im working on a better implementation. SPI? its like having to assemble your car each morning just to drive it.
I got the Propeller microcontroller, OH its so great, OH its so easy to use. I cant figure it out. The Arduino and that IDE had it running in minutes after seeing for the 1st time
I want to learn new systems, If I didnt have to work all the time Id be able to build really cool things
As mentioned in the video, n8n is not made for low level stuff line SPI...
@@AndreasSpiess Thanks Andreas
That you were unable to solve the issue already shows that n8n is not the way forward. node-red much simpler and easy to debug. I build my own chat interface inside node-red and have it connected to a local LLM while it also uses RAG, done via node-red (it reads daily rss news feeds) and summarizes the daily news. Node-RED is used in manufacturing plants, because of can/modbus capabilities and you want this to be local anway.
I never heard that somebody did such "sophisitcated" flows using an LLM with node-red. So you are quite advanced. And of course you are right, for low level stuff, NR is the way to go.
nope, n8n is all but useless. back to NR!
Goal reached! You did not have to spend more than a few minutes to get to an educated decision!
I suppose you invested your time once to save it once for each of us - similar to what you did a while ago with that Helium thing Thank you!
Funny, how Twitter has ceased to be a problem for me too. And for the sames reason...
Happy holidays to you and your family, looking forward to your 2025 videos!
For which reason? No need to answer, I don't care. This channel is not about Twitter or X.
@ It has ceased to be a problem, because like him I left. For me it was the bots and nazi adjacent populism combined with Elon's propaganda that destroyed any enjoyment of Twitter.
People crying about Twitter are usually narcissists. IME it’s an excellent news source and surprisingly balanced, Elon deserves way more credit for shining a light on the media
@@____________________________.x Thank you for proving my point. You couldn't share your opinion without resorting to name calling.
@@HelmutQ It ceased to be a problem, because I too left.
I wonder if you could run 1 n8n node in the cloud for accessing Gmail and other cloud services,
And also run one internal n8n server on you own network
Then link them? Certainly something I will look at.
This should be possible. At least I read that somebody described such a setup.
@@AndreasSpiess I should try this at work at see how it goes. I can see a use here for marshalling exceptional errors and other reports into Slack and email.
At the moment, every utility like backups does it's own thing and it could be improved.
For the AI systems and TH-camrs, one thing it could do is learn all the contents of the historic videos either from the transcript or analysing the videos themselves. Then use that to act as a knowledge base or chatbot, it could essentially answer questions based on previous videos and knowledge.
I agree, that would be a lot of knowledge! Maybe youtube will do it once.
I'm sure they will at some point. I can't wait for the moment when we will have the same capability with the very large body of work documents!
Hä? Node-Red is Next-Level from n8n. And Node-Red is fully open-source not like n8n.
Thank you for sharing your opinion!
@@AndreasSpiess Just saying :p
Looks a bit like IFTT
I agree.
Why did you leave X?
Because I did not use it often and got too much unnecessary stuff.
YT can be pretty bad in this regard, too!
isn't it pronounced nathan?
I do not think so.
You can expose some ports of your local raspberry pi or other linux box relatively safely using fail2ban
I would connect the cloud n8n VM to tho local HA installation via wireguard vpn, if its possible on google vm cloud service. I have no experience with cloud VMs. But if it acts like usual VMs then this should be possible.
I am sure there are a ton of possibilities. I just do nok know enough about them :-(
jmirodg - be careful, fail2ban doesn't secure the exposed services, it just blocks access to some after a while. That can be waaaaay too late
Self hosted n8n needs a Enterprise license. IDK how much that could be. I will keep paying my employees instead.
That is not true. You can self host community edition for free.
The community-edition can be self-hosted without a license ...
@@MrBrogley Interesting, just searched again.
It is available as cloud, npm or docker.
I actually prefer Software i understand.
I guess i will have to to learn this docker thingy.
Indeed, Docker is a very valuable thing to know.
@@AndreasSpiess I am responsible for roughly 50 Servers with Windows, Linux, Web, DB, BMD etc. and a few hundred clients and never needed them anywhere.
n8n really has nothing to do with Node Red, right? Clickbait. Sorry Andreas, not what we expect from you.
I do not agree. As said in the video, it has very similar functions, just focused on internet services. And it uses the same style (visual programming with nodes and connections).
Never heard of X, just the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter. More people need to move to Blue sky and Mastodon where I don't need an account to look at posts. Then I can even integrate their feeds into HA!
For the moment, I have no need for another short message service :-(
@AndreasSpiess It comes in handy for me in places where data is lousy but SMS still gets through. I also integrated Meshtastic with HA for offline notifications. Maybe that's more interesting?
th-cam.com/video/h2JC2m5xeXU/w-d-xo.html
???
@@AndreasSpiess Long this year you made a video on buscan. I think this video is interesting.
@@bitosdelaplaya Aha. Thank you!
no thanks
it's not new!! been using it for almost 5 years now😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
Cool. So you were way faster than me ;-)
robrita - super, would you be so kind and share with us here a few of the best ideas you made real using it? I'm not trying to be funny here, I'm genuinely interested. Thanks