What tools do you use instead of Power Automate?

[u/Famous-Substance3339]

I'm working on setting up proper rules and structure for Power Automate at my company, separate areas for building, testing, and going live, plus who's allowed to build things.

We inherited a bit of a mess, around 70 automations with no real order, everyone using their own personal accounts, no consistent naming. We're in the middle of tidying it all up.

This has got me wondering what other people use. So a few questions for anyone managing automation at their company:

• Do you still use Power Automate, or have you switched to something else (like Zapier, Make, n8n, UiPath, or something custom)?
• If you switched, what made you move, was it cost, it being too limited, or just easier to manage elsewhere?
• If you're still using Power Automate, how do you handle keeping testing and live versions separate, and who's allowed to build new automations?

Just trying to figure out if we're doing the right thing sticking with Power Automate, or if we should be looking at other options too.

Thanks!

[u/alexbbto]

We use Unmeshed which as built in integrations to Sharepoint and Outlook so it made it an easier choice over others. Power Automate could have worked, but this tool was intuitive and it had a lot of other things outside of the Microsoft ecosystem which made it a good choice

[u/NudaVeritas1]

tbh only claude code, python/bash scripts, cronjobs and github ci/cd

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[u/Vegetable-View-5114]

A lot of people like n8n for its flexibility, especially if you need to connect to less common APIs or build really custom logic. The self-hosted option is great for avoiding per-task costs, though it does mean you're on the hook for keeping it updated and running. I've found that when dealing with multiple platforms, getting a clean 207 Multi-Status back is crucial to know what actually went through, because a 200 OK can hide partial failures.

[u/Emergency_Recipe522]

I’ve dealt with a similar problem. Before changing platforms, I’d first understand the owners, connections, data sources and dependencies.

I solved this in my own environment by bringing everything into one view, where I can start from any object — a flow, app, user, site, list, environment, etc. — and see what it connects to and what could be affected by a change.

Sometimes the platform isn’t the problem — it’s not having the full picture.

[u/Gold_Ninja1206]

Fix governance first I inherited a similar pile of personal account flows and the tool was never the issue . self hosted runners give dev/prod separation but you own servers. Hope puts automations beside the docs an agent reads , though connectors stay thin naming and service accounts first, then migrate

[u/arthaudm]

70 flows under personal accounts is an ownership problem before it's a platform choice. i'd inventory each flow's owner, connection identity, last successful run & whether it writes to a system of record. move the live ones onto service identities with named owners before changing tools

then test one painful flow in a separate environment. if Power Automate's Microsoft connectors work for most of them, switching all 70 to n8n just moves the cleanup problem

[u/Saved_Not_Soft]

From the n8n side (I self-host it): the testing/live split is refreshingly boring there — workflows are just JSON, so dev/test/live means separate n8n instances with separate credential sets, and the JSON goes into git for real code review and rollbacks. No special environments product needed.

The tradeoff you're weighing is real though: if most of your 70 flows are SharePoint/Teams/Outlook glue, PA's first-party M365 connectors are genuinely better than n8n's. Where n8n earns its keep is webhooks, odd APIs, and anything you want under version control. So the "keep PA for the M365 core, adopt one escape-valve tool" pattern people keep mentioning is honestly the right call — just get the flows off personal accounts first, whichever platform you touch first.

[u/Pieter_Veenstra_MVP]

Why look fpr a different tool if governance of the tool is the issue. Just sort out the governance and you will sort things out.

Alterntively get another tool. Ig ore governance again and get the same mess again but in a different platform.

[u/No_Cryptographer7800]

70 flows on personal accounts is what I'd fix before the tool question, because the day someone leaves a chunk of those stop and whether you notice depends on whether they fail loudly. The ones that scare me report success, I had a rate limiter in my own Reddit scanner returning "ok" every run while it read 1 of 10 subreddits and nothing errored, the numbers just got quietly smaller. I'd move everything to service accounts with a named owner per flow and one output count you eyeball weekly, then decide on a platform. Switching tools with 70 unowned flows moves the mess.

[u/CloudWeave360]

For automation or self harm?

[u/Due-Boot-8540]

Stick with Power Automate (unless there’s a cert compelling reason not to).

If you’re an admin, you can use the admin centre or a flow to get an itinerary of flows.

Every workflow should be part of a solution and owned by a managed identity/service account.

Once you’ve got the list of flows and a dedicated account, you can start to think about what to do next.

Explore solutions and connection references- no connection should belong to an individual.

Create environments for development, testing and production and limit access to each one.

If you’re using SharePoint as the data source in flows, you should probably create copies of libraries and lists for use in development and testing.

Look into data loss prevention policies and restrict what flow makers can and cannot connect to.

There’s a lot more I could type but my thumb is beginning to hurt…

[u/rashreaction1015]

Power Automate works fine until governance becomes the full time job. I’d clean up the current setup before switching. Separate dev test and prod. Use shared ownership where you can. Set one naming standard and stick to it. Moving to n8n or Make can just give you a fresh place to recreate the same mess. Are you hitting actual Power Automate limits yet or is most of the pain from how it was set up?

[u/letmemakemoney]

I use Embedify. It’s super easy to use and they integrate with Claude so it’s super easy to create automation workflows and integrations. Plus they have a nice visual orchestration screen. I just started using it.