Updated February 2026. This article has been reviewed and updated to reflect the latest information.

Self-hosting n8n is one of those decisions that sounds more intimidating than it actually is. You are running an open-source workflow automation platform on infrastructure you control, instead of paying n8n Cloud to host it for you. That is the entire concept.

The reality of setting it up is straightforward if you know what you are doing. The reality of doing it well, in a way that stays reliable and secure over months and years, is where the nuance lives.

We have deployed self-hosted n8n for a range of Australian businesses at this point. Some are five-person teams running a handful of automations. Others are regulated enterprises processing thousands of workflow executions per day. The setup principles are the same; the scale and security requirements are different.

This guide covers what you need to decide whether self-hosting suits your business, which hosting approach to pick, and what ongoing maintenance actually looks like. If you want to skip straight to a specific deployment method, we have detailed walkthroughs for Docker, Fly.io, and Coolify.

What Self-Hosting n8n Actually Means

When you self-host n8n, you are running the n8n application on a server you manage. That server could be a virtual private server (VPS) from a provider like Vultr or DigitalOcean, a container running on a platform like Fly.io, a machine in your office, or a Kubernetes cluster in AWS. The point is that the software, the data, and the execution environment are all under your control.

n8n’s Community Edition is licensed under a sustainable use licence that is free for most business use cases. You do not pay n8n for the software itself. You pay for the infrastructure to run it, and you take on the responsibility of keeping it running.

This is fundamentally different from n8n Cloud, where n8n handles hosting, updates, backups, and uptime. You pay a monthly subscription and they deal with the operational side. Both approaches work. The question is which one makes sense for your specific situation.

Self-Hosted n8n vs n8n Cloud: An Honest Comparison

We deploy both self-hosted and cloud-hosted n8n depending on the client. Neither is universally better. Here is how they compare on the things that actually matter.

Cost

n8n Cloud pricing starts at around $30 AUD per month for the Starter tier, which gives you 2,500 workflow executions. The Pro tier runs around $75 AUD per month for 10,000 executions, and the Enterprise tier is custom pricing.

A self-hosted n8n instance on a decent VPS costs between $10 and $40 AUD per month for the server, depending on the provider and specs. There is no execution limit. You can run 100 workflows or 100,000 workflows and the hosting cost stays the same. Your only constraint is the server’s compute resources.

For a business running a few simple automations, the cost difference is negligible. For a business running hundreds of workflows processing thousands of executions per day, self-hosting can save $500 to $2,000 AUD per month compared to n8n Cloud at equivalent scale.

Control

Self-hosting gives you full control over the n8n version, the database, the server configuration, and every environment variable. You can pin a specific n8n version if a new release introduces breaking changes. You can tune PostgreSQL settings for your workload. You can install community nodes that are not available on n8n Cloud.

n8n Cloud manages all of this for you, which is convenient until you need something non-standard. We have had clients hit limitations with n8n Cloud around custom SSL certificates, specific Node.js dependencies for code nodes, and community node availability.

Compliance and Data Sovereignty

This is where self-hosting becomes non-negotiable for many Australian businesses. n8n Cloud processes your workflow data on n8n’s infrastructure. For businesses in healthcare, finance, legal, or government, that can create compliance issues.

We will cover this in detail in the next section, because it deserves its own discussion.

Maintenance

n8n Cloud handles updates, backups, and uptime monitoring. Self-hosting means you handle all of that, or you pay someone to handle it for you. This is an ongoing commitment, not a one-time setup. If you are not prepared for it, n8n Cloud is the more sensible choice.

Data Sovereignty: Why It Matters for Australian Businesses

Data sovereignty is not an abstract compliance checkbox. For Australian businesses handling personal information, health records, financial data, or government contracts, where your data is processed and stored has real legal implications.

The Australian Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) govern how personal information is handled. If you are disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient by sending it through a cloud platform hosted outside Australia, you need to take reasonable steps to ensure that recipient complies with the APPs. That creates obligations that many businesses either ignore or do not fully understand.

For organisations operating under the My Health Records Act, the Prudential Standards from APRA, or handling data subject to Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) requirements, keeping data processing within Australian borders is not optional. It is a baseline requirement.

Self-hosting n8n on Australian infrastructure, whether that is a VPS in a Sydney data centre or a server in your own office, means your workflow data never leaves the country. The API calls your workflows make, the data they process, the execution logs they generate: all of it stays on infrastructure you control within Australian jurisdiction.

We have deployed self-hosted n8n for clients in financial services, healthcare technology, and professional services specifically because their compliance frameworks ruled out cloud-hosted automation platforms. If your business operates in a regulated industry, self-hosting is almost certainly the right path. For a deeper discussion on why organisations choose this approach, read our post on the benefits of self-hosting n8n.

If you are unsure whether your data handling requirements mandate self-hosting, book a call with our team and we can walk through it with you. We have done this assessment for many Australian businesses.

Hosting Options for Self-Hosted n8n

There are several ways to run self-hosted n8n. Each comes with different trade-offs around complexity, cost, and flexibility.

VPS with Docker (Most Common)

This is our default recommendation for most businesses. You rent a virtual private server from a provider like Vultr, Hetzner, or DigitalOcean, install Docker, and run n8n as a container. Total setup time for someone experienced is under an hour.

We have a full walkthrough in our guide to hosting n8n with Docker.

Best for: Most businesses. Predictable cost, straightforward management, easy to back up and restore.

Typical cost: $10 to $40 AUD per month depending on server size.

Fly.io

Fly.io is a container hosting platform that handles a lot of the infrastructure management for you. You deploy n8n as a container image and Fly.io handles networking, TLS certificates, and global distribution. It sits between a raw VPS and a fully managed platform.

We cover the specifics in our guide to hosting n8n on Fly.io.

Best for: Teams that want simpler infrastructure management without going to full cloud hosting. Also useful if you need n8n accessible from multiple regions.

Typical cost: $15 to $50 AUD per month depending on machine size and persistent storage.

Coolify (Self-Hosted PaaS)

Coolify is an open-source platform-as-a-service that you install on your own server. It gives you a Heroku-like experience for deploying and managing applications, including n8n. You get a web dashboard for deployments, automatic SSL, and basic monitoring, all running on infrastructure you control.

Our guide to hosting n8n with Coolify walks through the full process.

Best for: Teams managing multiple self-hosted applications who want a unified management interface. Particularly useful if you are also running other tools alongside n8n.

Typical cost: $15 to $40 AUD per month for the underlying server. Coolify itself is free.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is the right choice for large-scale deployments where you need auto-scaling, high availability, and enterprise-grade infrastructure. n8n publishes official Helm charts, and the queue mode allows you to distribute workflow execution across multiple worker nodes.

Best for: Enterprise deployments with high execution volumes and strict uptime requirements.

Typical cost: $100 to $500+ AUD per month depending on cluster size and provider.

Bare Metal

Running n8n directly on a physical server, whether in a data centre or your office. This gives you maximum control but also maximum responsibility.

Best for: Organisations with existing on-premise infrastructure and in-house IT teams. Sometimes required for specific compliance frameworks.

Typical cost: Varies enormously. Server hardware, power, cooling, and network costs are all on you.

Minimum Server Requirements

n8n is not resource-hungry for small to medium workloads. Here is what we recommend based on our deployment experience.

Small (under 20 active workflows, light execution volume):

1 vCPU
2 GB RAM
20 GB SSD storage
Estimated cost: $10 to $15 AUD per month

Medium (20 to 100 active workflows, moderate execution volume):

2 vCPU
4 GB RAM
40 GB SSD storage
Estimated cost: $20 to $40 AUD per month

Large (100+ active workflows, high execution volume, AI workloads):

4+ vCPU
8+ GB RAM
80+ GB SSD storage
Estimated cost: $50 to $100+ AUD per month

One thing we always tell clients: start small and scale up. It takes five minutes to resize a VPS. It is much better to start with a $15 per month server and upgrade when you need to than to over-provision from day one.

We also strongly recommend using PostgreSQL as your database instead of the default SQLite. SQLite works fine for testing and very small deployments, but it degrades noticeably once you have more than a handful of active workflows. PostgreSQL can run on the same server or as a managed service. The cost difference is minimal and the reliability difference is significant.

Security Considerations

Self-hosting means security is your responsibility. Here are the areas you need to address.

Authentication

n8n supports basic authentication, LDAP, and SAML for enterprise deployments. At a minimum, enable basic authentication so your n8n instance is not accessible to anyone who finds the URL. For organisations with existing identity providers, LDAP or SAML integration ensures proper access control and audit trails.

Encrypted Connections

Every self-hosted n8n instance should run behind HTTPS. Use a reverse proxy like Caddy or Nginx with a Let’s Encrypt certificate. There is no reason to run n8n over unencrypted HTTP in production. Ever.

Firewall Configuration

Lock down your server. The only ports that should be open to the internet are 80 and 443 for the web interface and webhook endpoints. SSH access should be restricted to known IP addresses or protected with key-based authentication. Everything else should be closed.

Credential Encryption

n8n encrypts stored credentials using an encryption key you set via the N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable. Set this during initial setup and back it up securely. If you lose this key, you lose access to every credential stored in your n8n instance.

Network Isolation

For sensitive deployments, consider running n8n on a private network segment with a VPN requirement for access. The webhook endpoints can be exposed through a reverse proxy while keeping the main interface behind the VPN. We configure this for most of our clients in regulated industries.

Maintenance Responsibilities

This is the part of self-hosting that people underestimate. Setting up n8n takes a day. Maintaining it is an ongoing commitment.

Updates

n8n releases new versions regularly, often multiple times per month. Some updates include important security patches. You need a process for testing and applying updates. We recommend maintaining a staging environment where you test new versions before applying them to production. Pin your n8n version in your Docker configuration and update deliberately, not automatically.

Backups

You need automated backups of your PostgreSQL database and your n8n configuration. At a minimum, daily database dumps stored off-server. We set up automated backup scripts that run nightly and retain 30 days of backups for every client deployment. Test your restore process periodically. A backup you have never tested restoring is not a backup.

Monitoring

You need to know when n8n goes down before your team starts complaining that their automations are not running. Set up uptime monitoring using a service like Uptime Robot or Better Stack. Configure n8n’s built-in error workflow feature to send alerts when individual workflows fail.

Log Management

n8n generates execution logs that grow over time. Configure execution data pruning to automatically clean up old execution data. Without this, your database will grow indefinitely and eventually slow down your instance.

Cost Breakdown: Self-Hosted vs Cloud at Scale

Here is a realistic comparison in AUD for different business scales.

Small business (500 executions per month):

n8n Cloud Starter: ~$30 AUD per month
Self-hosted VPS: ~$15 AUD per month
Verdict: Marginal difference. n8n Cloud is probably easier unless you have compliance requirements.

Growing business (10,000 executions per month):

n8n Cloud Pro: ~$75 AUD per month
Self-hosted VPS: ~$25 AUD per month
Verdict: Self-hosting saves around $600 AUD per year with no execution limits.

Scaling business (50,000+ executions per month):

n8n Cloud Enterprise: Custom pricing, typically $300+ AUD per month
Self-hosted VPS: ~$40 to $80 AUD per month
Verdict: Self-hosting saves $2,500 to $5,000+ AUD per year. At this scale, the cost difference funds the maintenance overhead.

These figures do not include the cost of someone maintaining the self-hosted instance. If you do not have in-house technical capability and need to pay for managed support, factor in $200 to $500 AUD per month depending on the support level. Even with managed support, self-hosting at scale is typically cheaper than n8n Cloud once you pass a few thousand executions per month.

When to Self-Host vs When to Use n8n Cloud

Self-host if:

You operate in a regulated industry with data sovereignty requirements
You process sensitive personal, financial, or health information in your workflows
Your execution volume makes cloud pricing uneconomical
You have in-house technical capability or a partner to manage the infrastructure
You need custom community nodes or specific server configurations

Use n8n Cloud if:

You want to get started quickly without managing infrastructure
Your execution volume is low to moderate
You do not have compliance requirements around data location
You do not have in-house DevOps capability and prefer not to outsource it
You want guaranteed uptime and automatic updates

There is no shame in starting on n8n Cloud and migrating to self-hosted later. Several of our clients have done exactly that. They started on cloud to validate their use cases, then moved to self-hosted once their execution volumes grew and they had a clearer picture of their requirements.

Getting Started

If you have decided that self-hosting is the right approach, here is the path we recommend.

Choose your hosting method. For most businesses, a VPS with Docker is the right starting point. Read our Docker deployment guide for the step-by-step process.

Provision your server. Start with a small VPS with 2 GB RAM. Choose a provider with Australian data centres if data sovereignty matters to you. Vultr has a Sydney location. DigitalOcean has a Sydney region. AWS and Google Cloud both have ap-southeast-2 in Sydney.

Set up the foundations. Install Docker, configure PostgreSQL, set your encryption key, and configure a reverse proxy with SSL. This is the step where most issues occur if you are doing it for the first time.

Secure the instance. Configure firewall rules, enable authentication, and set up SSH key access. Do not skip this step.

Configure backups and monitoring. Automated database backups and uptime monitoring from day one. Not after your first data loss.

Build and test your workflows. Start with one or two workflows and validate that everything is working before migrating your full workload.

Set a maintenance routine. Monthly update checks, quarterly backup restore tests, and regular review of execution logs and server resources.

If you would rather have someone handle all of this for you, that is what we do. We have deployed self-hosted n8n for a range of Australian businesses and we offer both one-time setup and ongoing managed support. Get in touch and we will scope out what makes sense for your situation.

For more on our n8n services, visit our n8n consulting page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is self-hosted n8n free?

The n8n Community Edition is free to use under the Sustainable Use Licence for most business use cases. You pay for your hosting infrastructure (typically $10 to $80 AUD per month depending on server size) but there are no per-execution charges or licence fees for the software itself. The Enterprise Edition, which adds features like LDAP, SAML, and advanced role-based access control, requires a paid licence from n8n.

How much technical knowledge do I need to self-host n8n?

You need basic comfort with the Linux command line, Docker, and server administration concepts. If you can SSH into a server, edit configuration files, and follow a deployment guide, you can set up self-hosted n8n. Ongoing maintenance requires understanding Docker container management, database backups, and basic networking. If that sounds unfamiliar, consider either using n8n Cloud or working with a consultant who can handle the infrastructure side.

Can I migrate from n8n Cloud to self-hosted without losing my workflows?

Yes. n8n allows you to export workflows as JSON files and import them into a different instance. Credentials need to be re-created on the new instance for security reasons, and you will need to update any webhook URLs that external services are calling. We have handled this migration for several clients and it is straightforward with proper planning.

What happens if my self-hosted n8n instance goes down?

Your workflows stop executing until the instance is back online. Webhook-triggered workflows will miss incoming events unless you have a queueing mechanism in front of them. Scheduled workflows will run their next scheduled execution once the instance recovers, but they will not retroactively run missed schedules. This is why uptime monitoring and a maintenance plan matter. If downtime is unacceptable for your use case, consider a Kubernetes deployment with redundancy or a managed support arrangement where someone is responsible for getting your instance back online quickly.

Is self-hosted n8n compliant with Australian data privacy regulations?

Self-hosting gives you the ability to comply, but compliance depends on your overall implementation. Running n8n on Australian infrastructure addresses data sovereignty concerns, but you also need to ensure proper access controls, encrypted connections, audit logging, and data retention policies are in place. The platform itself does not make you compliant; how you configure and manage it determines compliance. If your organisation is subject to specific regulatory frameworks like the APPs, APRA standards, or health records legislation, we recommend getting specific advice on your deployment configuration.

How often does n8n need to be updated?

n8n releases updates frequently, sometimes weekly. Not every update requires immediate action. We recommend checking for updates monthly and applying security patches promptly. Always test updates in a staging environment before applying them to production. Pin your n8n version in your Docker Compose file so updates only happen when you deliberately choose to apply them.

How to Self-Host n8n: A Practical Guide for Australian Businesses