Workflow automation
Hooktopus vs n8n.
n8n is the engineer-friendly Zapier. Still a workflow tool — still priced for workflows, not data pipes.
Hooktopus $19 · n8n Cloud Pro (200k executions) $50
The honest version
When each tool is right.
Use n8n
When workflow flexibility matters more than per-event cost.
You want self-hostable workflow automation with a node-based builder. n8n is excellent there.
Use Hooktopus
When the job is webhook → BigQuery, full stop.
You don't want to manage a workflow tool. You want webhook → BigQuery → dbt and nothing else.
Feature by feature
What each tool ships.
| Feature | Hooktopus | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Tiered, $0–$299/mo | Per-execution tiers |
| Cost for 100k events / mo | $19 | ~$50 (Cloud Pro) |
| BigQuery native JSON type | Yes | Node-dependent |
| dbt model generation | Yes | No |
| Schema drift alerts | Yes | No (build it yourself) |
| Replay from archive | Yes — R2-backed | Manual via execution history |
| Self-hostable | Cloud only (v1) | Yes |
| Visual workflow builder | No | Yes |
| Domain focus | Webhook → warehouse only | General workflow automation |
The truth
Both tools can be right.
n8n is technically capable of what we do. We're more focused, ~2.5× cheaper at 100k, and you don't run anything. Different products solving overlapping problems for different buyers.
What you get with Hooktopus
The opinionated short list.
Built for the analytics engineer
The buyer we serve is the AE who lives in dbt + BigQuery + Hex/Metabase. Our defaults match that shape.
Tiered, predictable pricing
Plan tiers, not metered. You always know your bill. Hard cap blocks writes but never loses events.
dbt-first, not dbt-bolt-on
Hooktopus generates the SQL and the sources YAML. It's the only competitor where dbt is part of the install, not the support docs.
Switch or evaluate
Migration takes about 15 minutes.
Start a free workspace, paste a n8n-compatible URL into your source, and check BigQuery. No migration tools required.