Workflow automation with AI agent nodes
MouRio vs n8n
n8n is a genuinely good visual automation tool with a huge integration library, and it self-hosts. The difference shows up when the workflow stops being an automation and becomes a process someone is accountable for.
Last reviewed 19 August 2026. Based on n8n’s publicly documented capabilities.
What n8n is
n8n is a workflow automation platform: a visual canvas, several hundred integrations, and AI agent nodes, available as a hosted service or self-hosted under a fair-code licence. Pricing is based on monthly workflow executions rather than per step or per user, and enterprise capabilities such as SSO/SAML/LDAP, log streaming, multiple environments, external secret stores and Git-based version control sit in the higher tiers.
Cost
How each one charges you
n8n meters monthly workflow executions, so the automations that run most cost most — and an agent that loops is many executions. MouRio is a fixed annual subscription with no metering of any kind, so volume, concurrency and agent count do not change the number.
| Capability | MouRio | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| How you are charged | ||
| Pricing basis | Fixed annual subscription | Per monthly workflow execution |
| What is metered | None — not per agent, per user, per query or per message | Workflow executions |
| Model usage | Billed to you directly by your model provider, at your negotiated rate | Your own provider keys, billed directly to you |
| Users and workflows | Unlimited | Unlimited — executions are the metered unit |
| What drives the bill up | ||
| What makes your bill grow | Nothing — the subscription is flat | Execution volume |
| Cost of a high-traffic workflow | No change | Every run draws on the execution allowance |
| Repeat work gets cheaper, not just cappedA useful conversation is saved as a reusable skill and reruns at ~12% of the tokens it took to discover — so the same task costs less the second time | Yes | Each execution is metered the same |
| Budget predictability | Known at signature for the full year | Varies with volume |
| Cost that never appears on an invoice | ||
| Engineering to build governance, approvals and auditRegistry, policy enforcement, replayable lineage, approval routing | Included in the platform | Enterprise tier adds SSO, environments and log streaming; per-agent policy is yours to design |
| Team time to run and upgrade the platform itself | Vendor-maintained | Yours when self-hosted |
| Ongoing maintenance as systems change | Reconfigure in the studio | Yours, including upgrades |
| Cost of moving off the platform later | Low — agents and policies are configuration in your tenant | Moderate — workflows are n8n artefacts |
We do not publish n8n’s prices. Their pricing changes and depends on your agreement, so any figure here would be out of date or wrong for you — ask them for a quote. What is comparable, and what usually decides the business case, is the structure above: what you are charged for, and what makes the number grow.
Where they differ
What actually changes if you pick MouRio
Governance depth, not governance presence
n8n's enterprise tier covers the platform controls an IT team expects: SSO, RBAC, environments, secrets, log streaming. What it does not carry is per-agent authority — an allow-list of tools this specific agent may call, which of its actions require a named human approver, and a record of that policy being evaluated on each action.
Built for agents, not adapted for them
n8n began as workflow automation and added AI agent nodes. MouRio began at governed reasoning and adds deterministic steps where they belong. That shows up in what happens on an unfamiliar input, and in whether the record explains the decision or only lists the steps.
Evidence rather than execution logs
Both record what ran. MouRio additionally records what the agent was given, what it retrieved, each policy evaluation and every human intervention, replayable months later against a retention policy you set — which is what a risk function asks for and an execution log cannot supply.
Fully disconnected deployment
MouRio can run with no egress at all, which matters in defence, public sector and some regulated environments. Self-hosted n8n on a paid tier uses a licence key that checks in with n8n's licence server, so a genuinely air-gapped deployment needs a conversation with them first.
Side by side
MouRio vs n8n
Where a capability depends on edition, configuration or add-ons, it is marked partial rather than claimed either way.
| Capability | MouRio | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Governance & control | ||
| Runs entirely inside your own tenantYour cloud, your VPC, or on-prem — data and keys never leave your boundary | Yes | Yes |
| Runs next to your systems, with no egress round-tripNo leaving the network and passing inspection on every hop — lower latency per step, and a multi-step agent compounds the saving | Yes | Yes |
| Model-agnosticSwap or mix model providers without rebuilding agents | Yes | Yes |
| Step-by-step replay of any runRe-open a completed run and inspect every prompt, tool call and decision | Yes | Execution logs |
| Human approval gates before an action executes | Yes | Partial |
| Governed agent registryOwner, version, policy pack and lifecycle status for every agent in production | Yes | Build it yourself |
| Building | ||
| Visual canvas | Yes | Yes |
| Breadth of the connector catalogueA catalogue number, not a coverage number — what matters is whether YOUR systems are connected, and how quickly a missing one is | Focused on systems of record | Very large |
| New connector built for a system you needAgainst a documented API | Weeks | Community or self-built |
| AI agent nodes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-agent orchestration with cross-agent policy | Yes | Partial |
| Shadow mode before autonomous execution | Yes | No |
| Running it in a regulated enterprise | ||
| SSO / SAML / LDAP | Yes | Enterprise tier |
| Space-scoped multi-tenancy with credential isolation | Yes | Partial |
| Per-agent tool allow-lists | Yes | No |
| Named human approvers on designated actions | Yes | Partial |
| Runs with no outbound connectivity at all | Yes | Partial |
Objections
What buyers ask us on this comparison
For the data path, largely yes — and we will not pretend otherwise. Self-hosted n8n keeps your data in your network just as MouRio does. The differences are elsewhere: per-agent policy enforced at execution time, replayable evidence built for an auditor rather than a debugger, and, on paid self-hosted tiers, n8n's licence key checking in with their licence server, which matters only if you need a genuinely disconnected deployment.
Other comparisons
- vs Copilot StudioLow-code copilots on Power Platform
- vs Palantir AIPOntology-led AI on Foundry
- vs Bedrock AgentsCloud-native agent primitives
- vs UiPathRPA moving into agents
- vs AgentforceAgents inside the Salesforce platform
- vs LangGraphOpen-source agent orchestration framework
- vs DifyOpen-source LLM app builder
See it against your own process, not a demo script.
Bring a real workflow you are considering n8n for, and we will show you exactly how MouRio handles it.