How to self-host n8n: Docker, editions and the Sustainable Use License

You can self-host n8n for free with Docker, run your workflows on your own server and keep your data in-house, but the free edition and the license both come with conditions. On October 23, 2026 n8n recommends Docker Compose, its free Community edition lacks features such as SSO and Git version control, and its Sustainable Use License allows internal business use but not selling n8n itself as a service. This guide covers what you need, how to install it, what the free edition leaves out and what the license allows, based on n8n's official documentation and license read on October 23, 2026.

Self-host or n8n Cloud

n8n's own documentation is frank about who should self-host: it requires knowing how to set up servers and containers, manage resources, secure the server and configure n8n, and mistakes can lead to data loss, security issues and downtime. If you are not used to managing servers, n8n recommends its Cloud service, which has a 14-day free trial. Self-hosting makes sense when you want full control, need to keep data on your own infrastructure or want to run n8n for free. Our comparison of n8n, Zapier and Make covers whether n8n is the right tool at all.

What you need

• A server or computer with Docker. Docker Desktop works on Mac, Windows and Linux; on a Linux server without a desktop, install Docker Engine and Docker Compose.
• At least 4 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs for n8n's recommended Compose setup, which includes a sandbox for running generated code that needs more headroom than a typical container.
• A domain and HTTPS if the instance must receive webhooks from the internet.
• Time for maintenance. n8n releases a new minor version most weeks; stable is for production and beta may be unstable.

Install it

n8n's quickest test is a single container:

docker volume create n8n_data
docker run -it --rm --name n8n -p 5678:5678 -e GENERIC_TIMEZONE="Europe/Madrid" -e TZ="Europe/Madrid" -v n8n_data:/home/node/.n8n n8nio/n8n

Then open http://localhost:5678. The volume matters: it keeps your workflows, credentials and the instance's encryption key across restarts. GENERIC_TIMEZONE sets the time zone for schedule triggers, so set it to yours.

For anything beyond a test, n8n now marks that single-container page as outdated and recommends its Docker Compose guide: you create a project folder, a .env file with your secrets and the compose.yml that n8n publishes, then start everything with one command. Out of the box it uses the built-in SQLite database. For a production instance with more than a handful of users or workflows running around the clock, n8n says to use PostgreSQL instead, and its guide shows how to add a Postgres service.

What the free edition leaves out

Self-hosted n8n comes in four editions that run the same software:

• Community: free, with almost the complete feature set, and what n8n runs without a license key.
• Registered Community: still free; registering your email unlocks folders, debugging in the editor and custom execution data.
• Business and Enterprise: paid plans whose license key unlocks the rest.

The Community edition does not include custom variables, environments, external secrets, external storage for binary data, log streaming, multi-main mode, projects, SSO with SAML or LDAP, sharing of workflows and credentials, or Git version control. The sharing limit is the one small teams notice first: only the instance owner and the person who created a workflow or credential can access it. Queue mode and logging are included.

What the license allows

n8n is not open source in the usual sense: most of its code is under the Sustainable Use License, and files marked .ee require an n8n Enterprise license. The Sustainable Use License lets you use and modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and distribute it only free of charge for non-commercial purposes. In practice:

• Automating your own company's work, or personal projects: within the license.
• Giving a copy to others: only free of charge and for non-commercial purposes.
• Selling n8n to others, for example as a hosted service: outside the license's terms, so you would need a separate agreement with n8n.

This is our reading of the license text, not legal advice; read it, or ask n8n, before building a business on it.

Before you go live

1. Back up the data volume and the encryption key. n8n generates the key on first launch and uses it to encrypt the credentials stored in its database, so keep a copy somewhere safe.
2. Put it behind HTTPS. Our advice is not to expose port 5678 directly to the internet.
3. Use PostgreSQL once real work depends on it.
4. Update deliberately: pin a version, read the release notes and test before upgrading.
5. Treat inputs as untrusted. If workflows pass emails or web pages to a language model, prompt injection applies, as it does to any agent.

Self-hosted n8n is one of the cheapest ways to automate work at scale, as long as someone owns the server. If nobody does, the Cloud plan is the better deal.