Platform
The workflow engine
What Activepieces is, how it differs from n8n, and why Gravity runs on it.
What is Activepieces
Activepieces is an open-source workflow automation platform. A workflow (called a flow) starts with one trigger and runs a chain of steps. Each step comes from a "piece": a TypeScript npm package that describes one app or capability, with its triggers, actions, input properties, and authentication. Gravity runs its own Activepieces instance; every published agent on the marketplace is an Activepieces flow underneath.
Activepieces vs n8n
n8n is a comparable automation tool, and Gravity's first workflow engine actually parsed n8n exports. The platform has since moved fully to Activepieces. The differences that matter for us:
| Aspect | Activepieces | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Integration unit | A piece: a versioned npm package. New pieces install into a running instance at runtime, no redeploy. | A node, bundled with the n8n release. Custom nodes require packaging into the instance. |
| License | MIT (permissive) for the core and community pieces. | Fair-code (Sustainable Use License); not fully open source, with limits on commercial hosting. |
| Multi-tenancy | Built-in platform and project model: each user gets an isolated project with their own flows and connections. | Primarily single-team; multi-tenancy requires enterprise or separate instances. |
| Templates | Flows export and import as clean JSON templates. | Workflow JSON exists but is tied closer to instance state. |
Why Gravity chose it
The reasons Gravity chose Activepieces map directly to these rows: each consumer gets a private clone of an agent inside their own project; our custom pieces (the Publish Gate and the metered AI piece) ship as public npm packages and install at runtime without forking every deployment; and the marketplace itself is built on template export and import, where a builder uploads the exported JSON of their flow.