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
I started using @Relay.app and it has radically changed the way I work. As a solopreneur, I need to simplify my routine as much as possible and @Relay.app helps me automating e-mail related workflows, summarazing / classifying information, and preparing various strategies for commercial approach and problem solving. Beyond that the support provided and continuous training - platform updates are amazing. I feel well taken care of by them, and think they still will improve their platform even further.
@zapier is my go-to. Especially with the addition of AI steps, workflows go from determinism to reasoning and that's been a huge unlock for me. I use it to triage inbounds, create JIRA tickets from Slack messages, write & share meeting prep documents, and even give me feedback on my priorities.
vibecoder.date
N8N is good but their python support is lacking.
That being said, I am the type of person who would rather orchestrate an automation in python and with some claude code magic. (Or 2 years ago, python and a lot more time)
The sentiment around Zapier is the same as last year. Great tool, accessible, high price.
After struggling with another AI Automation system for over a month, we gave Relay.app a try and had the system up and running n less than three days. It was configurable and did not fight us like the other system did. Its knowledge base helps with fringe cases and the functionality is excellent. Support is also responsive and very helpful.
Nice! Love @Relay.app. Using it to truly turn my Notion workspace into an orchestration layer across my many endeavors. Not to mention synchronizing client guest lists & sponsor organizations with their Webflow site, plus a few nice quality of life automations to deal with simple yet monotonous changes like applying templates or page icons in bulk.
I'm a tech advisor for small business and I loooooove relay.app. I recommend it over the others if and when my clients need to integrate or automate apps that relay has connections to BECAUSE Zapier, IFTT, Make and many others are not user friendly enough for a non-technical small business owner, and many of them get more expensive more quickly than relay does!
I also use relay.app as much as I can for my own business automations because the customer service you get from this small, keen team is better than you get with others.
I've been loving @Relay.app and recommending it all over the place.
Using it for a number of automation/AI workflows.
Email & Calendar processing and analysis
Tight HubSpot integration that's super easy to use
Today I built an autoresponder process; when I send an email campaign, it takes all the auto responses and updates Hubspot accordingly (eg: person is gone)
Sales agent helps me prepare for meetings, creates agenda, updates meeting agendas etc.
Customer Success agent analysis health of a client and drafts a custom email to recommend a CS meeting
Custom Rest API integrations to Zoom and our Connectwise PSA
AI search rankings
YouTube channel SEO recommendations
Slack community is great, I keep an eye on it every day.
Support is super responsive on email.
And I an SUPER impressed by how quickly they incorporate feedback into the product. Often in hours!
The founder Jacob also puts out great content for free on webinars and YouTube videos that have sparked lots of great inspiration for me.
I have tried most every vibe-coding tool in the market in my capacity as an AI consultant and Relay.app is one of the easiest to use. It is my go-to tool of choice for live workshops for AI workflows due to its ease of use and quality of integrations. Plus Jacob has many tutorials on its youtube channel which learning fun and easy. Highly recommend!
I've tested them all, and went with @Relay.app . It sits in a sweetspot of complexity vs simplicity. N8N is an overkill for most of my applications, Zapier is too simple and limiting, especially with loops.
While not perfect, Relay.app gets most of the jobs done.
I'm a huge fan of @Relay.app - previously I found workflow automation clunky and too difficult to set up and maintain, but Relay has a modern, intuitive design and the ability to just get started with a template but go deep with customization in terms of models, actions etc.
I've used Relay to help me with automating research prompts - throw in some snippets of ideas, have an automation pick them up, add additional context and return a report. It's super helpful! A huge shout-out to Jacob who regularly hosts webinars to help new customers build helpful AI Agents.