Zapier vs Canonic vs Integromat: Which connector to use and when

It’s no secret that both Zapier and Integromat have dominated the integration space in the past couple of years. Both platforms offer tons of features and the promise to reclaim lost time. However, a lot of people are looking for more advanced features providing them more control over their integrations, and final output. Many different reasons contribute to this, with some of the popular ones like:

• Creating more and more complex integrations
• Managing your entire Backend with Integrations in one place
• Get a powerful automation platform for a fraction of what you currently pay

In this article, we’ll cover some of the basic differences between Canonic and Integration platforms like Zapier and Integromat and other things, including:

• What Canonic brings to the table in comparison to Zapier and Integromat
• How to go about transitioning from one to the other?

The overlapping features and use-cases can be confusing and that is why we plan to shed some light on what Canonic does, and how it does it differently from Zapier and Integromat.

What are the main differences between Canonic and Zapier and Integromat?

The first thing you’ll notice is that, unlike the other platforms, Canonic takes care part of the entire Backend cycle i.e. creating a database to deploy your APIs and workflows. Workflows become a part of your backend, and the transfer of data/context between them is easy and secure.

Unlike both platforms, Canonic offers a graph-like interface to build your backend tables and workflows. Terminology stays closer to dev language with words like — table representing database tables, and APIs representing APIs/API workflow created by the user.

By charging the user on the basis of API consumption and other limits, integration or operation-specific limitations are removed. This provides the user with the flexibility to build and pay the cost of the complete solution instead of paying multiple services part of it.

In addition, we have an openly Free plan, which provides you with 5K API calls/day to thoroughly explore the platform and its features.

Under the hood: What makes Canonic different?

Canonic can do a lot more than other services.

Let’s take a look at how Canonic improves some of the possibilities of Zapier and Integromat:

• Advanced Scheduling: Canonic allows you to schedule however way you like it. You can schedule any integration based on a trigger, or date and time, including if it should be executed once or repeatedly. Canonic also provides Cron-based time input for complex projects.

• The minimum time for intervals between runs is 1 minute in Integromat, and 5 minutes in Zapier — In Canonic, it’s none!
• No limit on working with Files, including storing multiple files.

While Zapier and Integromat are great for simple integrations and a few complex workflows, Canonic offers a whole different view of these integrations and workflows by combining these with your backend, providing you with a complete overview of the backend.

Let’s look at some of the Canonic’s more advanced features:

• Ability to connect external databases or data sources directly like — Postgres, Google sheets, Stripe, Hubspot, Shopify, etc.
• The dynamic ability to build any sort of trigger
  - Based on Time
  - Based on Integration Triggers
  - Based on Database Triggers
  You are just spoilt for choice!
• Connect multiple integrations with each other without losing context
• Built-in code editor to help you write as complex logic as suited to your business needs.
• Build Webhooks, APIs, Integrations, triggers — all in One Dashboard, removing the need to use and pay different services, and look at different dashboards.
• API docs for integrating these APIs/backend with your project are autogenerated. You can handoff these documents to your engineers to start with the integration.

• Fetch additional data from different services like Stripe/Hubspot before processing begins.
• Multiple Environments to test your APIs/Integrations before pushing them to production.

These features provide the user with a complete toolset to manage databases, APIs, Integrations on a single platform, saving the hassle of taking care of multiple platforms.

Now let’s say you’ve decided to switch! How to go about it?

Smooth transition from Zapier/Integromat to Canonic

Both Zapier and Integromat offer tons of Integrations, which you can virtually replace by using Webhooks, APIs, or using built-in code editor itself inside Canonic.

Since Canonic works at a much broader level than Zapier and Integromat, you can essentially cut down a lot of the back and forth between different services. You can start by using:

• Connecting your external database
• Building Workflow from API tab

Canonic allows the exchange of data between services without compromising the security and context of the data exchanged. To help you transition, we’ve created a library of sample templates and examples based on different use-cases that you can directly clone and get started.

We are celebrating #30DaysOfCanonic! Every day we will cover guides, how-tos, and blog posts on what you can build on Canonic. Learn More