What are n8n integrations?
n8n is an open-source automation platform that lets you connect apps, APIs, databases, and AI models using a visual workflow builder. n8n integrations are the apps and services you connect inside n8n. Instead of writing backend scripts, you combine nodes (the workflow “building blocks”) to perform tasks automatically.
Each integration appears as one or more nodes that act as actions or triggers. The catalog includes over a thousand integrations, and support for any REST API means your possible node combinations are essentially unlimited.
n8n integrations cover a wide range of use cases. Analytics, communication, storage, marketing, developer tools, payment systems, and productivity are just a few examples of what teams automate in their day-to-day.
How do n8n integrations work?
n8n uses a visual workflow builder where each integration appears as one or more nodes. A workflow begins with a trigger. The trigger could be a new form submission, an incoming webhook, an updated Airtable row, or a completed Stripe payment. Once the trigger fires, the workflow moves through the nodes you’ve connected on the visual editor.
You connect nodes by dragging lines between them and choosing what each step should do. Logic-like conditions, loops, filters, or error handling can be added where needed. Once the workflow is set up, you can trigger it manually or set it to execute automatically whenever the trigger event happens. This gives you a flexible way to connect tools, transform data, and chain tasks across different apps.
Best n8n integrations for business processes
The n8n ecosystem includes over 1,200 supported integrations, but some apps appear in nearly every workflow. The list below covers some of the n8n most popular integrations, each with a simple example of how it's used in real automations.
Slack
Often used for notifications and team updates.Use case: Send an alert to a channel when a new Stripe payment succeeds or when an AI step finishes running in your workflow.
Google Sheets
A flexible option for logging, storing, and organizing data.Use case: Add new form submissions to a spreadsheet or store AI-generated summaries for later analysis.
Airtable
Useful when you need a structured database with more flexibility than traditional spreadsheets.Use case: Create a new record when a customer fills out a form, then enrich the entry using an LLM.
Notion
Ideal for documentation, content, and task management.Use case: Automatically generate a Notion page from a survey response or feedback collected through another system.
OpenAI and other LLM providers
Commonly used as AI nodes in n8n, especially for text processing, classification, and summarization. Often improved with LLM grounding to keep outputs consistent and tied to source data.
Use case: Analyze customer messages, categorize them, and pass the result to a support or CRM tool.
GitHub
Popular among developers who automate small parts of their workflow.Use case: Create an issue automatically whenever a bug report comes through a form or internal system. GitHub workflows rely on regular updates to keep issues, commits, and pull requests aligned across teams.
Stripe
A key integration for SaaS, subscriptions, and online stores.Use case: When a payment succeeds, notify your team, add the customer to your CRM, and log the event in Sheets.
HubSpot
Marketing and sales workflows.Use case: Add new leads from form submissions, update lifecycle stages, or enrich contacts with AI-generated insights. AI steps are frequently added to enhance lead quality scores or extract structured insights before storing them in the CRM.
Webhooks
The most flexible option in the entire n8n integrations list, because it connects to any service with an API.Use case: Receive input from a custom system, run transformations, and route the output to multiple tools. Teams often combine webhooks with custom nodes when they need to adapt data structures or handle non-standard APIs. These routing patterns also appear in AI orchestration.
AI gateways and orchestration layers
Increasingly common as teams scale multi-model workflows and explore how to build an AI agent.Use case: Route LLM prompts through an AI Gateway, apply safety checks, then pass results back into an n8n pipeline.
Categories of n8n integrations
n8n groups its 1,200+ integrations into categories like AI, Communication, Data & Storage, Developer Tools, Marketing, and more. Let’s take a look at how these integrations are typically used in automation workflows.
These categories differ slightly from n8n’s directory. They’re grouped by how tools are typically used inside automation workflows, making the overview easier to navigate.
Productivity tools
Tools that help organize information, manage content, and structure data.Examples include Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, and Microsoft 365. As teams scale, these tools often expand into workflows that connect more apps across different departments. They also help users map automations directly to business processes.
Many teams also use Google Drive for file-based tasks, where documents or exports need to be stored and synced.
Typical uses:
- Logging form submissions
- Creating structured records
- Transforming or enriching data
- Generating documentation from AI outputs
Data processing
Some integrations can clean, transform, and prepare data before sending it to other services or AI models. Examples include Airtable, Postgres, Google Sheets, and HTTP Request.
Typical uses:
- Parsing and restructuring API responses
- Cleaning or validating incoming data
- Converting formats for analytics or other downstream tools
Communication platforms
Messaging and notification systems used to keep teams updated.Examples include Slack, Discord, Telegram, and email services.
Typical uses:
- Alerts for payments, errors, or new information
- Daily or weekly reports
- Notifications when AI classification or summarization is complete
These notifications often act as the bridge between n8n and other apps involved in operational monitoring.
Developer & project management
These integrations connect engineering work with various applications used for planning, tracking, and collaboration. Examples include GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Asana.
Typical uses:
- Creating issues from incoming reports
- Syncing pull requests
- Automating task creation
- Pulling metrics into a dashboard
Custom code
For users who need deeper control, n8n supports custom JavaScript through Function and Function Item nodes. Custom code allows teams to build in extra logic or handle edge cases that standard integrations don’t cover.
Typical uses:
- Mapping, transforming, or reformatting complex data structures
- Running conditional logic or calculations not supported by built-in nodes
- Handling edge cases or preparing data for an external integration
Marketing and CRM
Tools that manage leads, campaigns, analytics, and customer insights. Examples include HubSpot, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ads.
Typical uses:
- Syncing contacts
- Triggering email campaigns
- Enriching leads with AI in marketing automation
- Collecting metrics across platforms
E-commerce and payments
Nodes can be used in online stores and subscription-based products.Examples include Stripe, WooCommerce, and Shopify.
Typical uses:
- Post-payment processes
- Updating CRM entries
- Triggering onboarding sequences
- Tracking order and inventory updates
Some stores also rely on custom nodes when connecting niche payment gateways or handling non-standard API responses during checkout.
Google Drive
Used for storing exports, shared documents, and workflow outputs that need to sync across teams.
Typical uses:
- Backing up reports or exports
- Storing files received from forms or webhooks
- Organizing workflow outputs in shared folders
How to set up integrations in n8n?
Setting up an integration in n8n is pretty straightforward: add a node, connect your credentials, configure the action or trigger, and test the output before adding it to your workflow. Here are the steps to set up an integration in n8n:
Step 1. Add the integration node
Find the integration you want to use in the sidebar and drag its node onto the canvas.
Step 2. Connect your credentials
Open the node, choose Add credentials, and connect your account to the service. n8n stores these securely and lets you reuse them across workflows.
Step 3. Configure the node
Choose what the node should do, for example, send data, fetch records, create an entry, or trigger on a new event.
Step 4. Test the output
Run the node on its own to make sure the data structure, fields, and response look correct before continuing.
Step 5. Add it to your workflow
Connect the node to the rest of your automation, run a full test, and activate the workflow once everything behaves as expected.
Tips for using n8n integrations effectively
Using n8n becomes much easier when your workflows follow a few simple principles. These practices help keep your automations stable, scalable, and easier to maintain, especially if you’re combining tools or building more advanced n8n AI integrations. Here are some top tips for keeping your n8n integrations and workflows ship-shape.
Start with small, testable workflows.
Build the core steps first, make sure the data moves correctly, and only then expand the chain. This makes debugging far easier than starting with a large, complex setup.
Use environment variables for security-sensitive data.
API keys, tokens, and credentials should be stored as environment variables instead of hard-coded inside nodes — this improves security and makes it easier to move workflows between environments.
Add clear logic steps.
Filters, conditions, and error branches help you control how data flows through your workflow nodes. They prevent unnecessary API calls and keep workflows readable.
Test nodes individually.
Run each node step-by-step in the editor before activating the full workflow. This helps identify issues early, whether you’re working with a simple CRM update or a more complex AI-related sequence.
Document your workflows.
Even small automations benefit from notes describing what each step does. This becomes essential when workflows involve multiple tools, custom APIs, or model calls. Nodes have a Notes field where you can describe what it does. You can hide notes or set them to appear in the workflow as subtitles.
Monitor execution history.
The execution logs help you spot repeated failures, API rate limits, or unexpected payloads. This is especially useful in setups that rely on multiple external apps or n8n nodes.
Use sub-workflows for repeating patterns.
If several automations share similar steps, like cleaning input data, formatting text, or calling a model in agentic AI use cases, group them into a reusable sub-workflow. It saves time and reduces errors.
Keep workflows modular.
Avoid packing too many unrelated tasks into a single automation. Smaller, focused workflows are easier to maintain and troubleshoot.
These practices help ensure your n8n automations run reliably, scale well, and remain easy to modify as your stack or processes evolve.
Troubleshooting common n8n issues
Most problems in n8n come down to authentication errors, incorrect node settings, or unexpected data formats. Here are the issues users encounter most often when working with integrations in n8n, along with the simplest ways to address them.
Authentication failures
Tokens expire, permissions change, or incorrectly stored credentials are usually the cause. Reconnect the account, confirm token scopes, and make sure keys are stored in environment variables rather than inside node fields.
Workflows not triggering
If a workflow doesn’t start, the trigger node may not be active. Check whether the workflow is switched on, verify the webhook URL, and look at the incoming event logs to see whether n8n is receiving data.
Incorrect or unexpected data formats
APIs return data in different shapes. When a node fails because the structure changed, inspect the output and add a Set or Function node to clean or transform it before passing it along to your integrations.
API rate limits
Some services restrict how many requests you can send within a timeframe. If you receive rate-limit errors, add a Wait node or reduce the frequency of your trigger.
Node execution errors
If a single step is failing, open the execution log and run that node individually. This helps identify whether the error is coming from n8n, the external service, or the data you’re passing in.
AI-related failures
When using n8n AI integrations, errors often come from model availability, incorrect parameters, or payload size limits. Confirm the model name, adjust the request size, or retry through a routing layer if you're using an AI gateway.
Version or configuration issues
After updates, some nodes may behave differently. Review the release notes and confirm that environment variables, node settings, and API keys still match what the new version expects.
Most issues can be fixed by isolating the failing node, reviewing the incoming and outgoing data, and testing each step in sequence. The execution history is your best reference point whenever something goes wrong.
