Why I Chose n8n Over Zapier for Production Lead Automation (₹0 vs $828+/Year)

Why I Chose n8n Over Zapier for Production (₹0 vs $828+/year) TL;DR: Built production lead automation for an aviation training school: 3 workflows, 28+ nodes, 50+ leads/month, 99.7% reliability n8n software cost: ₹0 forever. Zapier would charge $828+/year (and scale exponentially) Code flexibility was the dealbreaker: one JavaScript node vs 6-7 separate Zapier steps for the same validation logic The Problem I needed to build a lead automation system handling real revenue with near-zero failure t