How Can I Install n8n on the AWS Free Tier?

Below is an official guide from the n8n documentation that explains how to self-host n8n on AWS using EKS. This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions—from creating a Kubernetes cluster with eksctl to cloning configuration files, setting up persistent storage, and deploying n8n along with its Postgres database backend.

Key parts of the tutorial include:

• Cluster Creation:
  The guide shows you how to use eksctl with a command like the following to create your cluster:

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  eksctl create cluster --name n8n --region <your-aws-region>

  This step sets up the Kubernetes environment required to run n8n.

• Cloning Configuration Files:
  After creating the cluster, you clone the n8n Kubernetes configuration repository with:

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  git clone https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n-kubernetes-hosting.git -b aws
  cd n8n-kubernetes-hosting

• Database and Persistent Storage Setup:
  The guide details how to configure Postgres with appropriate persistent volumes and environment variables so that your data persists across pod restarts.

• n8n Deployment & Service Exposure:
  Finally, you deploy both n8n and Postgres using Kubernetes manifests, and the guide explains how to expose n8n via a load balancer, ideally by configuring DNS to route your subdomain to the cluster.

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Using the Free Tier:

While this AWS-focused guide doesn’t specifically target the Free Tier, you can use it in that environment by carefully selecting Free Tier-eligible resources. For example:

• EC2 Instances:
  Choose small instances that qualify for the Free Tier. Keep in mind that while running Kubernetes with EKS, the control plane and networking (such as load balancers) might incur additional charges.

• Resource Management:
  Adjust the resources allocated to containers in your deployment manifests as needed. The sample manifests provided in the guide set memory requests and limits for n8n, which you can reduce to minimize costs.

Before proceeding, verify AWS Free Tier limits on services like EKS and load balancers to ensure that you stay within the free usage boundaries.

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For a complete walkthrough, refer to the “Hosting n8n on Amazon Web Services” guide in the n8n documentation. This guide covers all the steps required to get your n8n instance running on AWS, and with some tweaking, you can adapt the instructions for a Free Tier environment.