Is n8n Dead? Claude Agent Skills vs. n8n: The Ultimate AI Automation Showdown

In the rapidly evolving world of AI, a new contender has emerged that is making everyone question the future of workflow automation. Claude Agent Skills has arrived, allowing users to complete complex tasks by simply writing a few lines of description. Naturally, the automation community is buzzing: Is this the end for established tools like n8n?

As someone deeply rooted in the n8n ecosystem, I wanted to find the truth. I put both tools to the test in a real-world “head-to-head” battle to see which one truly reigns supreme.

What Exactly are Claude Agent Skills?

Think of Agent Skills as a way to package professional expertise into discoverable AI functions. Instead of just chatting with an AI, you are giving it a specific “skill” it can call upon whenever needed.

The heart of every skill is a file called skills.md. This file acts as an instruction manual for the AI, telling it what to do, which scripts to run, and which templates to use. These skills aren’t running constantly in the background; they are loaded “on-demand” based on your natural language commands.

The Anatomy of a Skill

A standard skill directory typically looks like this:

  • •
    skills.md: The core instructions and metadata (name, description, usage rules).
  • •
    reference/: (Optional) Reference materials like legal documents or manuals.
  • •
    examples/: (Optional) Sample tasks to help the AI understand the desired output.
  • •
    scripts/: Shell or Python scripts for executing specific actions.
  • •
    templates/: Input or output formats for the AI to follow.

Setting Up Your Lab: How to Install Claude Code

If you want to try this yourself, the most convenient way is through the claude-code CLI. Here is the step-by-step setup:

  1. Install Node.js: Visit the official Node.js website and install the version compatible with your OS. Verify it by typing node -v in your terminal.
  2. Global Installation: Run npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code (via npm global install). Check your version with claude -v (I used 2.0.76 for this test).
  3. Project Initialization: Create a folder (e.g., claude_skills) and run the claude command inside it.
  4. The “Domestic” Alternative: If you can’t access Claude Pro directly, you can use Zhipu AI (GLM-4) as a substitute. You’ll need to apply for an API key from their developer portal and inject it into your environment variables (PowerShell for Windows users).

The Real-World Test: Automated News Scraping & Delivery

I designed a task to push both tools: Visit the “Quantum Bit” (Liangziwei) website, scrape the 3 latest news items, summarize them using AI, and send the summary to a Feishu (Lark) group.

Scenario A: The Claude Agent Skill Path

I designed a skill that uses the Playwright plugin to control a browser.

  • •
    The Workflow: Claude identifies whether the URL is an article or a homepage. If it’s a homepage, it scrapes the latest links, extracts the text, summarizes it into a structured Markdown file, and then asks for permission to send it to Feishu.
  • •
    The Experience: It felt like magic. However, it wasn’t a “one-click” success. Claude encountered some errors with paths and interface connections, but its self-healing capability was incredible—it diagnosed the errors and fixed itself.
  • •
    The Cost: It took nearly 3 minutes and consumed a significant amount of tokens due to the constant reasoning and error-fixing.

Scenario B: The n8n Workflow Path

I built a classic node-based flow:

  1. RSS Node: Pulls the feed from Quantum Bit.
  2. Limit Node: Keeps only the top 3 items.
  3. HTTP Request Node: Fetches the HTML source code.
  4. HTML Extract Node: Uses a CSS selector (.article) to pull the text while excluding ads and images.
  5. AI Agent Node: Summarizes the clean text.
  6. Feishu Node: Sends the final message.
  • •
    The Experience: Extremely fast. The whole process took only 49 seconds. Because the logic was pre-defined, there was zero “guesswork” from the AI, making it highly stable and token-efficient.

Comparison Table: Performance at a Glance

Feature Claude Agent Skills n8n Workflows
Execution Speed ~3 Minutes (Slow) 49 Seconds (Fast)
Token Cost High (Constant reasoning) Low (AI only for summary)
Robustness High (Self-correcting) High (Structured logic)
Concurrency Low (Step-by-step) High (Parallel processing)
Learning Curve Low entry / High ceiling High entry / Consistent

The Metaphor: The Excavator vs. The Wizard

To truly understand these tools, let’s use an analogy.

Learning n8n is like learning to drive an excavator. At first, it’s intimidating. You have to learn what every lever (node) does. But once you master it, you have a powerful, independent machine. It doesn’t rely on “magic”—it just works, handling heavy-duty, repetitive tasks with industrial efficiency.

Using Claude Agent Skills is like being a wizard. On the surface, you just say a “spell” (natural language), and the task is done. But to cast complex spells, you need deep technical “mana.” You need to understand Python, shell scripts, and environment configurations. If you don’t understand the underlying technology, the spell will fail or “backfire” with errors you can’t fix.

Which One Should You Use?

The truth is, Claude Skills and n8n are partners, not rivals.

  • •
    Choose n8n for High-Frequency, Structured Tasks: If you need to scrape 500 e-commerce sites daily for price updates, n8n is the clear winner. Its running cost is nearly zero, and it has no rate limits on local nodes.
  • •
    Choose Claude Skills for Fuzzy, Exploratory Tasks: If you need to analyze 20 different competitor reports to find potential risks, n8n will struggle. Claude thrives here because it uses reasoning to handle non-structured data and “think” through the problem.

In short: n8n relies on tools and processes; Skills rely on models and reasoning.

FAQ: Your Top Questions Answered

Will Claude Agent Skills replace n8n?

No. They serve different roles in the automation ecosystem. n8n is for enterprise-grade stability and cost-efficiency, while Skills are for flexible, AI-heavy reasoning tasks.

Is Claude Agent Skills easier for beginners?

Yes, the entry barrier is much lower because you can use natural language. However, the “ceiling” is very high—to do anything complex, you actually need more technical knowledge (coding/CLI) than you do for n8n.

Can I run n8n for free?

Yes, you can install n8n locally using Docker, and the costs are minimal, especially compared to the high token usage of Agent Skills.

What happens if the AI makes a mistake in an Agent Skill?

The beauty of Agent Skills is their self-correction. During the test, when Claude hit a road-block, it analyzed the error and attempted a different path until it succeeded.