🤖 Automation Stack Advisor Agent

AI-powered consultant that analyzes 16,000+ real automation workflows and actors to recommend the perfect platform for your use case

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🎯 The Problem

You want to automate something. Maybe it's email marketing with AI personalization. Maybe it's web scraping. Maybe it's a complex workflow with APIs and databases.

But you're stuck asking yourself:

• Should I use n8n or Apify?
• Which platform has solutions for my specific use case?
• What tools are actually proven to work?
• How complex will this be to implement?

You could spend hours browsing marketplaces, reading docs, and comparing solutions.

Or you could just ask this AI agent.

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💡 Why This Exists

The Inspiration

After analyzing 6,000+ n8n workflows and 10,000+ Apify actors for research, I realized:

1. People struggle with platform choice - n8n vs Apify, Make vs Zapier, build vs buy
2. Marketplace data tells the truth - What's actually being used reveals what works
3. Generic advice doesn't help - "It depends" isn't an answer when you need to ship

The Solution

This AI agent doesn't give you generic advice. It:

• ✅ Analyzes real marketplace data from both n8n and Apify
• ✅ Finds actual solutions people have already built
• ✅ Recommends based on proven popularity (views, runs, users)
• ✅ Provides implementation guidance (difficulty, time, cost)

It's like having a consultant who's actually studied thousands of automation projects and can tell you what works.

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🔥 What Makes This Different

Traditional Approach:

You: "Should I use n8n or Apify for email automation?"
Generic AI: "Both platforms can handle email automation. It depends on your 
             specific needs, technical expertise, and budget. Here are some 
             general considerations..."

This Agent:

You: "Should I use n8n or Apify for email automation?"
This Agent: "Analyzed 10 n8n workflows and 10 Apify actors.
             
             RECOMMENDATION: Use BOTH platforms
             
             n8n has direct email integrations (Gmail Node, OpenAI Node for 
             personalization). Found 10 relevant workflows.
             
             Apify provides data acquisition (Google Search Results Scraper 
             with 49M+ runs, Leads Generator for targeted lists).
             
             Implementation: 2-4 hours for n8n, 1-2 hours for Apify.
             
             Check out: n8n's OpenAI Node, Apify's Leads Generator"

See the difference? Data-driven. Specific. Actionable.

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🚀 How It Works

Behind the Scenes

1. You ask a question about automation needs
2. Agent calls 2 analyzers:
   • n8n Marketplace Analyzer - Searches 6,000+ workflows
   • Apify Store Analyzer - Searches 10,000+ actors
3. AI analyzes the data:
   • Filters for relevance to your use case
   • Compares popularity metrics (views, runs, users)
   • Evaluates complexity and implementation difficulty
4. You get a recommendation:
   • Platform choice (n8n, Apify, or both)
   • Specific workflows/actors to use
   • Pros/cons for your use case
   • Time and difficulty estimates

The Intelligence

Powered by:

• CrewAI - Agentic framework for structured analysis
• GPT-4o-mini - Fast, cost-effective reasoning
• Real marketplace data - Not hallucinated examples

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📖 How to Use

Input

{
  "query": "I want to automate email marketing with AI personalization. Should I use n8n or Apify?",
  "modelName": "gpt-4o-mini"
}

Query can be anything like:

• "I need to scrape real estate listings daily and store them"
• "I want to build a chatbot that pulls real-time data"
• "Should I use n8n or Apify for social media automation?"
• "I need to process 10,000 PDFs with AI extraction"

Output

{
  "query": "Your question",
  "recommendation": "Detailed analysis with platform recommendation, specific tools, pros/cons, implementation guidance",
  "n8nWorkflowsAnalyzed": 10,
  "apifyActorsAnalyzed": 10,
  "tokensUsed": 53115,
  "modelUsed": "gpt-4o-mini"
}

The recommendation field contains:

• ✅ Platform recommendation (n8n, Apify, or both)
• ✅ Number of relevant solutions found
• ✅ Specific workflows/actors with names and stats
• ✅ Pros and cons for your use case
• ✅ Implementation difficulty estimate
• ✅ Time to implement estimate

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💼 Use Cases

For Developers

• "Should I build this automation or use a no-code tool?"
• "What's the proven solution for X that people actually use?"
• "How complex will implementing Y be?"

For Product Managers

• "Which automation platform should we standardize on?"
• "What tools do our competitors likely use for Z?"
• "What's the effort estimate for automation project X?"

For Entrepreneurs

• "I have this idea - which tool can actually do it?"
• "What's the fastest way to automate my business process?"
• "Should I hire a developer or use no-code?"

For Automation Agencies

• "What stack should I recommend to this client?"
• "Show me proven solutions for their industry"
• "Give me implementation time estimates"

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📊 Example Recommendations

Query: Email Marketing with AI

Result: Use both platforms

• n8n: OpenAI Node + Gmail Node (2-4 hours)
• Apify: Leads Generator + Google Scraper (1-2 hours)

Query: Web Scraping E-commerce

Result: Use Apify

• Found 50+ proven scraping actors
• Amazon Scraper: 100M+ runs
• Implementation: 1-3 hours

Query: Complex Workflow Automation

Result: Use n8n

• Found 100+ integration workflows
• Visual editor for complex logic
• Implementation: 4-8 hours

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💰 Pricing

$4.99 per consultation

What you get:

• Analysis of 20 real marketplace solutions (10 n8n + 10 Apify)
• AI-powered recommendation tailored to your use case
• Specific tools with names, stats, and links
• Implementation guidance and time estimates

Why this price?

• Replaces 2-3 hours of manual marketplace research
• Uses real data, not hallucinated examples
• Covers AI costs (GPT-4o-mini + 2 actor runs)
• Much cheaper than a consultant ($200+/hour)

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🛠️ Technical Details

Architecture

User Query → Agent → [n8n Analyzer + Apify Analyzer] → Data Processing → AI Analysis → Recommendation

Components

• Framework: CrewAI
• LLM: OpenAI GPT-4o-mini (128K context)
• Tools:
  • n8n Marketplace Analyzer (Apify Actor)
  • Apify Store Analyzer (Apify Actor)
• Data Processing: Extracts only essential fields (name, views, runs) to avoid context limits
• Output: Structured recommendation in markdown format

Why This Stack?

• CrewAI: Best for structured multi-step analysis
• GPT-4o-mini: Fast and cost-effective for this task
• Apify: Reliable infrastructure for actor execution
• Data pre-processing: Prevents context window issues

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🔧 Configuration

Model Options

• gpt-4o-mini (default) - Fast, cheap, good quality
• gpt-4o - Slower, more expensive, best quality

Analysis Depth

• Analyzes top 10 workflows from n8n
• Analyzes top 10 actors from Apify
• Focuses on most popular/relevant solutions

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❓ FAQ

How accurate are the recommendations?

Very accurate. The agent analyzes real marketplace data - actual workflows and actors that people use. It's not making up examples; it's citing proven solutions with view counts and run statistics.

Does it support other platforms besides n8n and Apify?

Currently focused on n8n and Apify because I have built-in analyzers for these platforms. However, the methodology could extend to other platforms (Make, Zapier, etc.) with additional analyzers.

What if I need more detailed analysis?

The agent is designed for quick, actionable recommendations. For deeper consulting, consider:

• Running multiple queries with different angles
• Using the specific workflows/actors found as starting points
• Contacting the tool creators directly

Can I use this for competitive analysis?

Yes! Ask questions like "What tools do competitors use for X?" and the agent will show you what's popular in the marketplace.

How recent is the data?

The analyzers scrape marketplaces in real-time during each run, so you're getting current data on what's available and popular.

What if both platforms have no good solutions?

The agent will tell you honestly if neither platform has proven solutions for your use case. This is valuable information - it might mean you need custom development.

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🌟 Built With

This agent is part of a larger research project:

1. n8n Marketplace Analysis - Scraped 6,000+ workflows
2. n8n Workflow Generator - Fine-tuned Llama 3 on n8n data
3. Deployment Journey - From curiosity to production
4. This Agent - Practical tool using that research

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👨‍💻 Author

MHL (Mustapha LIAICHI)

• AI Engineer at Sweet Spot Consulting Ltd
• Founder: n8nlearninghub.com
• Community: r/n8nLearningHub (1,000+ members)

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📝 License

This actor is available for public use on Apify Store.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

• n8n - For building an amazing workflow automation platform
• Apify - For the infrastructure and actor ecosystem
• CrewAI - For the agentic framework
• OpenAI - For GPT-4o-mini

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🚀 Getting Started

New to Apify? Sign up here to get started with web scraping and automation. Apify offers a generous free tier perfect for testing this actor.

Why Use Apify?

• ✅ Serverless infrastructure (no DevOps needed)
• ✅ Free tier with 100 compute units/month
• ✅ Built-in proxies, storage, and scheduling
• ✅ 2,000+ ready-to-use actors in the store

Try Automation Stack Advisor now →

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Last updated: December 2024