Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Windmill

n8n is a workflow automation platform for technical teams that combines a visual workflow builder with the ability to add custom code. It supports hundreds of integrations and can also be used to build AI-powered automations and agent-style workflows.

Key Features

• Visual, node-based workflow editor with triggers, actions, and branching logic
• Code steps for custom logic (JavaScript and Python) and extensibility via custom nodes
• Large integration ecosystem (hundreds of connectors) plus reusable workflow templates
• Webhooks and API-based automation for event-driven workflows
• AI-native tooling to build AI agent workflows and connect to your own data/models
• Enterprise-oriented capabilities such as RBAC, audit logs, and SSO options (deployment dependent)

Use Cases

• Automate business processes across SaaS tools (CRM updates, ticket routing, notifications)
• Build internal integrations and data sync pipelines between systems using APIs and webhooks
• Orchestrate AI-assisted workflows such as enrichment, summarization, and agent-driven tasks

Limitations and Considerations

• Licensed under a fair-code model (source-available), which may restrict certain commercial use cases
• Some advanced enterprise features depend on the chosen edition and deployment setup

n8n is a strong fit for teams that want low-code speed without giving up the control and flexibility of writing code. It works well for both simple automations and more complex, integration-heavy workflows.

Appsmith is an open-source low-code platform for building internal applications such as admin panels, operational tools, and dashboards. It combines a drag-and-drop UI builder with database/API connectivity and JavaScript-based customization for developer-friendly control.

Key Features

• Drag-and-drop widgets to build responsive app interfaces
• Connectors for databases and REST/GraphQL APIs
• JavaScript for data transformation, app logic, and workflow automation
• Version control workflows with Git for change management and deployments
• Access controls and governance features such as roles/permissions and audit logging
• Enterprise authentication options including SSO (OIDC/SAML) and user provisioning support

Use Cases

• CRUD admin panels and back-office operations tools
• Business dashboards and reporting interfaces on top of existing data sources
• IT and service-management style internal apps with workflow automations

Limitations and Considerations

• Advanced features like SSO, provisioning, and governance may depend on the chosen edition and deployment configuration

Appsmith is a strong fit for teams that want to ship internal software faster without losing the ability to customize behavior in code. It’s especially useful when apps need to integrate multiple data sources and follow structured deployment workflows.

ToolJet is an open-source, AI-native low-code platform for building and deploying internal tools such as dashboards, admin panels, and business applications. It provides a visual builder with deep integrations so teams can ship operational apps faster while keeping control of data and infrastructure.

Key Features

• Visual app builder with responsive UI components (tables, forms, charts, lists, and more)
• Multi-page apps and real-time collaborative editing
• Built-in ToolJet Database (a no-code database built on PostgreSQL)
• Integrations with many data sources, including databases, REST APIs, SaaS tools, and object storage
• Workflow automation with triggers (schedules, webhooks, and in-app events) and visual logic (conditions, loops)
• Extensibility via custom connectors/plugins and a CLI
• Security capabilities such as encryption, granular access control, and optional SSO support (availability varies by edition)

Use Cases

• Building internal admin panels and operational dashboards over existing databases
• Creating CRUD apps and lightweight business tools (approvals, inventory, request tracking)
• Automating multi-step internal workflows that call APIs and transform data

ToolJet fits organizations that want a self-managed, extensible internal tools platform with a visual UI builder, integrated data connections, and workflow automation. It is commonly deployed with containers and scales from small teams to larger enterprise environments.

Windmill is an open-source developer platform for building internal tools, APIs, background jobs, and workflows by turning scripts into reusable building blocks. It provides auto-generated UIs, webhooks, and scheduling so teams can ship operational automation and apps quickly while keeping execution and access control on their own infrastructure.

Key Features

• Turn scripts into APIs, webhooks, scheduled jobs, and shareable auto-generated UIs
• Low-code workflow editor to compose scripts into multi-step flows
• App builder for creating richer internal UIs on top of scripts and workflows
• Multi-language script support (notably Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash, SQL, and GraphQL)
• Built-in secrets/variables management with workspace-level encryption for stored credentials
• Sandboxed execution using nsjail for stronger isolation in multi-tenant deployments
• Git-based development workflows via CLI and repository synchronization
• PostgreSQL-backed job orchestration with stateless API and scalable workers

Use Cases

• Building internal tools (admin panels, ops dashboards, backoffice utilities)
• Automating operational workflows (scheduled maintenance tasks, data syncs, incident runbooks)
• Exposing controlled internal APIs and webhooks backed by scripts

Limitations and Considerations

• Some distribution binaries/images may include non-open components; fully open-source builds come from compiling the repository sources
• Community Edition includes limits on certain enterprise features (for example, SSO user limits)

Windmill fits teams that want a script-first approach to internal tooling and automation with a fast workflow engine and a built-in UI layer. It combines developer-friendly coding with low-code composition to scale from quick scripts to production-grade orchestrated workflows.

µTask is a lightweight automation engine for cloud workflows. It models business processes in YAML and executes them with a PostgreSQL backend. It emphasizes simplicity, security through encryption, and extensibility via Go-based plugins.

Key Features

• Requires only a PostgreSQL database to operate
• All data is encrypted and visible only to authorized users
• Workflow definitions are expressed in declarative YAML
• Extensible: developers can implement custom actions in Go
• Asynchronous execution with an auditable, encrypted state trail

Use Cases

• Kubernetes ingress TLS certificate provisioning workflow
• New team member bootstrap and onboarding automation
• Payments API asynchronous processing with risk checks and human-in-the-loop

Conclusion µTask offers a practical YAML-driven automation engine for cloud workflows, with PostgreSQL persistence and a pluggable Go-based action layer. It provides a Docker-based quickstart and a graphical dashboard to monitor tasks.

Source: µTask README on GitHub

RapidForge is a single-binary web server that turns scripts into production-ready internal tools, APIs, webhooks and scheduled jobs. It provides a web UI and visual page builder so teams can expose CLI tools and scripts as endpoints or pages without framework boilerplate.

Key Features

• Convert Bash or Lua scripts into HTTP endpoints and webhooks with environment-variable injection for request data
• Built-in cron-style scheduler with execution history, audit logs and job management
• Visual drag-and-drop page and form builder that maps form fields to script variables
• Embedded Lua VM for in-script logic and compatibility with existing shell tooling
• Secure credential storage and first-class OAuth flows; credentials auto-injected into scripts
• Single-binary deployment model with minimal runtime dependencies and straightforward Docker packaging
• Web UI for creating endpoints, scheduling jobs, managing logs and configuring auth

Use Cases

• Expose internal CLI tasks or monitoring scripts as authenticated HTTP APIs or webhooks
• Schedule backups, data exports or maintenance tasks and review execution history in the UI
• Build simple internal admin pages and forms that drive shell scripts or integrations

Limitations and Considerations

• Some features (key-value store) rely on a local SQLite runtime; administrators must ensure sqlite3 or equivalent is available when using packaged installers
• Project is lightweight and focused on internal tooling; it may lack enterprise-grade integrations or scaling features found in larger workflow platforms

RapidForge is best suited for teams that want to rapidly expose existing scripts as services or build small internal tools without adopting a full application stack. Its single-binary approach simplifies deployment and reduces operational overhead while providing built-in auth, scheduling and auditability.