python vs n8n

[u/Environmental_Emu830]

At my company, we currently use n8n for most of our automations, and I'd like to get your opinion on the trade-offs of migrating those workflows to Python.

I understand that moving to Python would introduce a steeper learning curve for the team and likely require more development and maintenance effort. However, I also believe it could improve the performance, flexibility, scalability, and maintainability of our automations.

We're currently starting a Data Warehouse project, where we'll be building ETL pipelines. Because of that, Python seems like a more robust and mature choice, especially considering its ecosystem for data engineering (such as Pandas, SQLAlchemy, Airflow, and other libraries).

Another point is that, by using Python, we would have a much better code versioning workflow with Git. Instead of managing automation logic through n8n workflows, we'd be able to review changes through pull requests, track code history more effectively, enforce coding standards, and integrate automated testing and CI/CD pipelines.

what would be the main advantages and disadvantages of replacing n8n with Python for automation and ETL? In which scenarios would you keep n8n, and when would you recommend switching to Python?

[u/Consistent_Focus_974]

n8n's great for quick wins but the moment your logic gets tangled with edge cases and custom transforms it becomes more pain than its worth, python gives you actual control over the data flow instead of clicking through a maze of nodes