I Built a Visual Flow Engine in Rust - Here's Why I Ditched Node.js

The Problem I've been using Node-RED and n8n for years. They're great tools, but every time I hit a complex workflow — hundreds of nodes, real-time data, high throughput — the same issues kept showing up: Memory bloat under sustained load No real plugin isolation (a bad plugin crashes everything) JSON-over-WebSocket bottlenecks in the editor Heavy deployments with tons of npm dependencies I kept thinking: what if a flow engine was built from scratch with performance and safety as first-class citizens? So I built z8run — an open-source visual flow engine written in Rust. What is z8run? z8run is a self-hosted alternative to n8n and Node-RED. You get a drag-and-drop visual editor, a REST API, WebSocket real-time sync, and a plugin system — but the entire backend is compiled Rust. The core idea: build, connect, and automate anything — visually, without sacrificing performance or security. Key Features Single binary — no runtime dependencies. Download, run, done. Rust + Tokio async runtime