FAQ

General

1. What is Workflow Builder? Workflow Builder is a frontend SDK for building visual workflow editors inside your own product. It lets you embed a drag-and-drop workflow designer into your SaaS while keeping execution, pricing, and business logic fully in your backend.

2. Is Workflow Builder a product or an SDK? It is a white-label SDK, not a standalone SaaS product. You receive source code that becomes part of your application and can be customized to your domain.

3. Who is Workflow Builder for? Workflow Builder is built for SaaS companies adding workflow capabilities, AI/automation product teams, and engineering teams building visual configuration tools. It is not for end users looking for a ready-made automation tool.

4. Why use Workflow Builder instead of building a workflow editor ourselves? Building a basic drag-and-drop canvas takes days. Turning it into a production-ready workflow editor takes months. The complexity hides in details that only surface during real usage:

   • Edge routing that avoids overlapping nodes
   • Undo/redo across node moves, property edits, and connection changes
   • Keyboard shortcuts and accessibility (WCAG compliance)
   • State management that stays performant at hundreds of nodes
   • Serialization and deserialization with schema validation
   • A properties panel driven by configuration, not hardcoded per node type

   Workflow Builder ships all of this out of the box. You skip the infrastructure work and go straight to building the nodes and logic that are specific to your product.

5. How is Workflow Builder different from n8n, Make, or Zapier? n8n, Make, and Zapier are SaaS platforms with hosted execution for running workflows as a service. Their frontends are tightly coupled to their execution engines, databases, and APIs. You cannot extract the visual editor as a standalone component.

   Workflow Builder is a frontend SDK designed for teams that need an embedded workflow editor to build their own automation or AI-powered products. It serializes workflows to JSON that your execution engine consumes however you choose. There is no database and no runtime. The Community Edition is licensed under Apache 2.0. The Enterprise Edition uses a perpetual commercial license. Both editions allow embedding in your own product.

   If you need an embeddable editor inside your own product with your own execution layer, Workflow Builder gives you that without inheriting another product’s architecture.

6. How does Workflow Builder relate to React Flow? Workflow Builder is built on top of React Flow (@xyflow/react). It extends React Flow with a production-ready workflow editor layer: a node library, schema-driven properties panel, design system, serialization, and plugin architecture.

   If you’ve evaluated React Flow directly, Workflow Builder is the answer to “what would it take to turn React Flow into a shippable workflow editor.” You keep full access to React Flow’s API underneath - custom node renderers, viewport controls, edge routing - while starting from a complete editor rather than a blank canvas.

7. What does the workflow JSON output look like? Workflows serialize to a flat JSON structure with four fields:

   {
     "name": "My Workflow",
     "layoutDirection": "DOWN",
     "nodes": [
       {
         "id": "440ccd46-...",
         "type": "node",
         "position": { "x": 18, "y": 144 },
         "data": {
           "properties": {
             "label": "Start Workflow",
             "title": "Trigger",
             "subtitle": "Initiate workflows"
           },
           "type": "trigger",
           "icon": "Lightning"
         }
       }
     ],
     "edges": [
       {
         "source": "440ccd46-...",
         "target": "da47caa9-...",
         "type": "labelEdge",
         "data": { "label": "Our website" }
       }
     ]
   }

   Node and edge types follow React Flow conventions. The data.properties object is where your custom per-node configuration lives - it maps directly to whatever your execution engine expects.

8. How do I add custom nodes? Custom nodes are React components registered via a JSON Schema definition. The schema drives the properties panel automatically - you define fields, validation rules, and defaults, and Workflow Builder generates the configuration UI. See the Add Custom Node Type guide for a step-by-step tutorial.

9. How customizable is the UI? Workflow Builder is a fully white-label SDK, so you can adjust:

   • Colors, typography, layout
   • Dark / light mode
   • Node visuals
   • Panels and controls

   Once embedded, Workflow Builder can look and feel like your branded product.

10. Can Workflow Builder support AI agents? Yes. Workflow Builder is execution-agnostic - each node in the visual diagram maps directly to a step your backend processes. Teams use it to design agent pipelines, prompt chains, decision trees, and tool-calling flows. You define custom node types for your AI operations (LLM calls, retrieval steps, tool use) and Workflow Builder handles the visual modeling and configuration UI. Execution, retries, and orchestration stay in your backend.

Technical

11. How do I install Workflow Builder? Workflow Builder is not distributed as an npm package. You receive access to the source repository and clone it directly. See the Quick Start guide.

12. What technologies and libraries are used? Workflow Builder is built on a modern, modular tech stack:

    • Overflow UI - headless, unstyled React components for building customizable and accessible UIs.
    • JSONForms - enables dynamic creation of node properties through JSON Schema.
    • React - the frontend library for building the editor UI.
    • Zustand - lightweight state management, integrated with React Flow.
    • React Flow (xyflow) - the diagramming library for the canvas.

13. Can workflows be created programmatically? Yes. Because workflows are JSON, you can generate, modify, and version them programmatically via your APIs.

14. How many nodes can the canvas handle? For most workflow editors - up to a few hundred nodes - no special optimization is needed. Complex automation diagrams work well up to approximately 500 nodes.

    Performance depends on node complexity, edge count, routing strategy, and browser capability.

15. Does Workflow Builder send data to external servers? No. Workflow Builder is a frontend SDK that runs entirely in your application. It does not collect telemetry or send workflow data to any external server. All data stays within your infrastructure.

    This makes it suitable for environments with strict data residency requirements - healthcare, finance, government - where no third-party data processing is acceptable.

16. Can the canvas, nodes, and panels be used independently? Yes. Workflow Builder is built as a set of composable React components, not a monolithic application. You can use the canvas with your own sidebar, replace the properties panel with a custom implementation, or embed only specific components into an existing layout.

    Since you have the source code, you control which parts to use and which to replace. The plugin architecture provides defined extension points without requiring you to modify core components.

17. What do we need to develop ourselves? Workflow Builder handles the visual editor. You are responsible for building the execution engine, scheduling and retries, billing and limits, permissions logic, and AI calls and integrations.

Updates and Versioning

18. What happens when a new major version is released? Your integration does not break when we release a new version. You own the source code - it is in your repository, not pulled from a registry. New releases are delivered as source updates that you can review, diff, and adopt at your own pace.

    If you have customized nodes, styles, or plugins, those changes live in your codebase and are unaffected by our releases. When you choose to upgrade, you merge our changes into your fork the same way you would handle any dependency update - with full visibility into what changed.

19. How do I prevent users from breaking production workflows? Workflow Builder gives you the building blocks; safeguards are implemented on your side. Common patterns teams use:

    • Draft vs production environments
    • Workflow locking and versioning
    • Role-based permissions controlling who can edit or publish
    • Backend validation before execution

    Because you own the source code and the execution layer, you decide which guardrails fit your product.

Licensing

20. What types of licenses do you offer? Workflow Builder is available under two licensing models. Full ownership - OSS or perpetual license.

    • Community Edition - open source under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows commercial use.
    • Enterprise Edition - a production-ready, fully supported version built for organizations that need reliability, performance, and long-term scalability. Includes advanced features, dedicated support, customization options, and integration paths for real-world systems.

    This allows teams to start with the open-source edition and upgrade when their product requires advanced capabilities or enterprise support.

21. Do we own the source code? Yes. You can modify, extend, and maintain it.

22. Is pricing subscription-based or one-time? Enterprise is a one-time license fee (EUR 6,990). Community is free under Apache 2.0.

23. Are there any usage limits or revenue sharing? No built-in limits. No revenue sharing.

24. Can we resell Workflow Builder as part of our SaaS? Yes, under the commercial license.

25. Is there a free trial or demo? Try the interactive demo at app.workflowbuilder.io.