Been running n8n with Ollama for a few months now for work automation. Wanted to share what I’ve learned since it’s not super well-documented.
The setup is just Docker Compose with n8n + Ollama + Postgres. n8n’s HTTP Request node talks directly to Ollama’s REST API — no custom nodes needed.
What I’m running:
- Email digest every morning (IMAP → Ollama → Slack)
- Document summarization (PDF watcher → Ollama → notes)
- Lead scoring from form webhooks
Zero API costs, everything stays on my server. If anyone wants the workflow templates I have a pack: https://workflows.neatbites.com/
Happy to answer questions about the setup.
I do something similar with the base model m4 Mac mini. It’s my inference box right now, it handles Immich ML, photo prism AI, and runs Ollama talking to a small web app I call to summarize things. It’s summaries are shit. The bigger the model, the more it hallucinates. So I settle for 1B and 4th grade responses