Automatisch

What Automatisch does

Automatisch presents itself as an open source Zapier alternative, and its model will be familiar to Zapier users. A flow starts with a trigger step in one app, such as a new form response, a new GitHub issue or an incoming webhook, followed by one or more action steps in other apps, such as posting to Slack or adding a row to Google Sheets. You build flows in a web interface by choosing apps, connecting accounts and mapping fields, with no code required.

Alongside third-party apps, built-in helpers cover common needs: webhooks, a scheduler, generic HTTP requests, filters, a formatter for text, numbers and dates, delays, and a small data store for keeping values between runs. The documentation lists about 80 apps, including Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets, GitHub, GitLab, HubSpot, Notion, Stripe, Telegram, Typeform, WordPress and several AI providers.

Data and privacy

The project’s case for itself is data ownership. Its README argues that businesses in healthcare, finance or under the GDPR may not want to pass customer data through an external automation service, and self-hosting keeps both the flow data and the stored account credentials on your own servers. Credentials are encrypted with AES using a key you provide, so that key must be backed up with the database.

Anonymous telemetry is on by default. According to the documentation, it covers metadata about flows, steps, connections and executions, without the payload data, plus instance diagnostics sent every six hours. You can turn it off with an environment variable.

Self-hosting Automatisch

The repository’s Docker Compose file starts the main service, a worker, PostgreSQL and Redis. The installation guide also describes running the published Docker image as separate main and worker containers, and offers a Render blueprint. You must set and keep the encryption, webhook and app secret keys. The first login uses a sample account whose email and password you should change immediately.

License and editions

The code is AGPL-3.0 except for files with .ee. in their name, which fall under the Automatisch Enterprise license. That license allows development and testing but requires a paid license, priced per user seat, for production use. In the code, the enterprise files include SAML single sign-on, API tokens, permissions, forms, AI agents and the MCP server.

Hosted version

The homepage mentions a cloud option, but at the time of review we could not find a working sign-up and the cloud address returned an error. Treat Automatisch as a self-hosted product.

Limitations

According to the documentation, flows currently run on a 15-minute interval, with instant triggers planned where services support them. That is a real difference from tools that react to events within seconds. The catalog of about 80 apps is far smaller than Zapier’s. Development has slowed: when we reviewed the project, the most recent commits dated from January 2026.

Who it suits

Automatisch suits small businesses that want a simple Zapier-style tool on their own server for a handful of common apps, and that can live with a polling interval. If you need more integrations, faster triggers or a hosted plan, Activepieces covers the same ground with a larger catalog. See the workflow automation guide and the Zapier alternatives for comparisons.