Project of the Week: n8n

AI

After an outcry, OpenAI swiftly rereleased 4o to paid users. But experts say it should not have removed the model so suddenly.

OpenAI’s decision to replace 4o with the more straightforward GPT-5 follows a steady drumbeat of news about the potentially harmful effects of extensive chatbot use. Reports of incidents in which ChatGPT sparked psychosis in users have been everywhere for the past few months, and in a blog post last week, OpenAI acknowledged 4o’s failure to…

AI

‘Cheapfake’ AI Celeb Videos Are Rage-Baiting People on YouTube

“They’re tweaking my voice or whatever they’re doing, tweaking their own voice to make it sound like me, and people are commenting on it like it is me and it ain’t me,” Washington recently told WIRED, when asked about AI. “I don’t have an Instagram account. I don’t have TikTok. I don’t have any of…

AI

GPT-5 Doesn’t Dislike You—It Might Just Need a Benchmark for Emotional Intelligence

Since the all-new ChatGPT launched on Thursday, some users have mourned the disappearance of a peppy and encouraging personality in favor of a colder, more businesslike one (a move seemingly designed to reduce unhealthy user behavior.) The backlash shows the challenge of building artificial intelligence systems that exhibit anything like real emotional intelligence. Researchers at…

AI

OpenAI Designed GPT-5 to Be Safer. It Still Outputs Gay Slurs

OpenAI is trying to make its chatbot less annoying with the release of GPT-5. And I’m not talking about adjustments to its synthetic personality that many users have complained about. Before GPT-5, if the AI tool determined it couldn’t answer your prompt because the request violated OpenAI’s content guidelines, it would hit you with a…

The fair-code workflow automation platform that’s democratizing integration development

Introduction

n8n has revolutionized how developers and non-developers alike approach workflow automation. With over 129,000 GitHub stars and a unique fair-code license model, n8n represents a fresh take on the integration platform space. Unlike traditional no-code tools that lock you into proprietary systems, n8n gives you the power of visual workflow building with the freedom of self-hosting and code extensibility.

What makes n8n particularly compelling is its approach to community-driven development. We analyzed their collaboration patterns on collab.dev and uncovered some remarkable insights about how they’ve built one of the most community-centric projects in the automation space.

Key Highlights

Community-powered development: 78% of contributions come from community members, showing incredible external engagement

Perfect review standards: 100% review coverage ensures every contribution gets proper evaluation

Efficient processing: 3h overall wait time with 7h 51m review turnaround balances speed and thoroughness

Minimal automation overhead: Only 4% bot-generated PRs keeps development human-focused

The n8n Community Phenomenon

The standout metric here is absolutely stunning: 78% of n8n’s pull requests come from community contributors. This level of external contribution is rare for any project, but it’s especially impressive for a commercial open source company. Most venture-backed projects struggle to maintain even 30-40% community contribution as they scale.

This isn’t just about quantity either. With 100% review coverage and a 91% review rate, n8n maintains rigorous quality standards while embracing this high level of community involvement.

Balancing Speed and Quality

n8n’s 3-hour overall wait time combined with an 8-hour median review turnaround shows a team that’s optimized for both responsiveness and thoroughness. They’re not rushing decisions, but they’re also not leaving contributors waiting indefinitely.

The 25-hour median merge time reflects the careful consideration that goes into integrating community contributions. When you’re dealing with workflow automation that businesses depend on, taking time to properly evaluate changes makes sense.

The Fair-Code Advantage

With only 18% core team contributions, n8n has effectively inverted the typical open source model. Instead of a core team doing most of the work with community contributions around the edges, they’ve created an ecosystem where the community drives the majority of development.

This approach likely stems from their fair-code licensing model, which creates stronger incentives for community participation while maintaining commercial viability.

Automation Philosophy

The 4% bot-generated PRs and 8.3% overall bot activity show that n8n keeps automation focused and intentional. For a platform that’s all about automation, they’ve chosen to keep their own development process fundamentally human-centered.

Conclusion

n8n demonstrates that it’s possible to build a successful commercial open source project while maintaining genuine community ownership of the development process. Their metrics reveal a project that’s truly community-driven, not just community-supported.