The Best AI Workflow Automation Tools | Orbit Award Nominees
We’re officially in nominees season for the Orbit Awards: AI Workflow Automation.
This category is the “how did I ever do this manually” corner of AI. The tools that connect the messy middle. They route requests, hand off tasks, chase down follow ups, update systems, and generally keep work moving while you’re doing literally anything else.
The products in the running are @n8n, @Taskade, @Zapier , @Trace , @Relay.app , @Gumloop , @Lindy, @Wordware, @Airtop .
Now we want the stories behind the automations. Which one is running your daily ops? Which one replaced a dozen tabs and a recurring headache? What workflow did you set up once and never looked back?
Drop your real use case in the replies. And if you want to really nudge the results and have your fave walk away with the crown, leave a review on the product’s Product Hunt Hub.
Replies
For me it’s a mix.
Zapier wins on simplicity. I love how easy it is to set up things like:
When someone buys a product or books a call → instant follow-up email
Automatic invoice sending
But it's much more expensive compared to the rest.
@Make is my go-to when I want more flexibility for a much lower cost.
n8n stands out with its unique templates (you can find online templates everywhere or ask Claude to create a new one). I use it heavily for reporting workflows.
Some real automations I rely on daily:
A workflow that sends me a daily email with the Top 5 Product Hunt products
After every call, my AI meeting assistant (Grain) sends the notes to Zapier, and I receive an email with clear next actions and follow-ups
Two services in this space stand out for me. They occupy different spaces in my toolbox:
I use @Relay.app to spin up quick automations to process emails, grab website data, and other small personal or internal projects; the tight integration with Google Workspace makes it nearly frictionless build these kinds of automations.
I use @n8n for more robust production automation prototyping, and web app backend orchestration; when I need to be close to the code or build with scale in mind, n8n is my go-to.
Relay.app
In Germany, we're still getting paper mail, if you can believe it. I have a feed scanner (Ricoh ScanSnap) at my house's entrance, which I use to scan all incoming paper mail. It stores the scan as PDF in Google Drive in the root folder of my document hierarchy. @Relay.app triggers on that, converts the first page of the PDF into an image (because Ricoh's OCR is abysmal), and sends the image to Gemini for analysis. Relay gets back a document title and where in my folder hierarchy it should be sorted in. I then get a mail from Relay (human-in-the-loop feature) with a form that lets me double-check title and folder and tweak if necessary (hardly ever). Once I submit the form, Relay renames the file and moves it to its destination folder. It saves me a ton of time. Stuff like this is so easy to set up in Relay! Highly recommend.
@Relay.app is the one I set up and then promptly forgot about—in the best way. I use it to route inbound client requests, assign the right next steps, and nudge follow-ups automatically. It replaced a mix of manual checklists, Slack pings, and “I’ll remember to do this later” moments. The big win is how readable and intentional the workflows feel—great for daily ops where you want automation and clarity. Set it once, trust it, move on.
I have used a lot of automation tools, and @Relay.app is definitely the best!
It's fast to setup, no show stoppers and it does a lot for you. It just makes everything easier.
It's nice as someone who helps others make their work easier to also have someone that makes my work easier, thanks @Relay.app !
WILDLY difficult set to choose between...
I'm certified with @Zapier and love them to pieces, and Wade is a great founder. Their new agentic and chatbot based offerings slap, and can even live as their own standalone apps. That said, I haven't seen as much innovation on the AI side, so, for THIS category, 4/5 stars.
@Taskade makes pretty stuff, but chokes every time I try to do something more involved... 1/5 stars, sorry bout it :( I wanted to love them!
@Relay.app is god-tier, Jacob seems rock-solid, and their own agentic play is my favorite out of this set - 5/5 stars
@Gumloop is the best NEW contender on this list, and the way they handle partner-made templates/their directory is the best out of any of these. I also like that you can play with the editor without a login. A little more time and a few more integrations and these folks could eat the incumbents' lunches... 4/5 stars
@Lindy is the most SURPRISING of this set to me... it's a platform that handles seemingly anything you throw at it, blowing others like @Replit and - shockingly - even @Claude Code out of the water, in my experience, when it comes to "zero to deployment" (CC better at incremental stuff than Lindy tho) - I recently built a new personal homepage with Lindy - www.greyseymour.xyz - and was amazed at its design sensibilties and overall ease of use... the only drawback is that it sorta started choking towards the end, and took extra handholding (this seems endemic to the product category, and is the reason I won't use tools like Replit anymore!)... still, a 4.5/5 stars!
@Airtop and @Trace both look cool, I'll need to check them out, I may update this comment if I have particularly compelling experiences with them. @Wordware is over my head, though, haha.
If I had to rank 'em...
@Relay.app
@Lindy
@Gumloop / @Zapier
@Taskade
@Airtop, @Trace
@Wordware
These numbers all change case-by-case though... Zapier is THE 5/5 option in some cases, where Lindy isn't. Relay really does stand above the others in my mind, though.
Relay.app is the easiest to use automation tool! I’m so glad I found it!
@relay wins on simplicity of use, and availability of Integrations. for most use cases you can develop much faster with relay than with the feature-busy make and zappier.
SignOff
I have been loving using @Relay.app for competitive analysis and running other jobs to clean and improve that data.
Huge fan of what @Relay.app is doing and how easy the product is to use. The customer experience with them has been amazing...even quickly turning around a couple of integrations for me to level up the capabilities.