Huginn

Huginn is a self-hosted automation system for creating “agents” that watch the web and your services, collect and transform data, and trigger actions based on events. It’s often used as an open alternative to IFTTT/Zapier-style workflows, with strong support for web scraping, scheduling, and event chaining.

Key Features

• Agent-based workflows where agents emit events that other agents can consume
• Large catalog of built-in agents (e.g., Website/Change detection, RSS, JSON/API, Email, Weather, etc.)
• Web scraping and extraction using CSS selectors/XPath (via a dedicated Website Agent)
• Scheduling and periodic execution for polling-based integrations
• Event transformation and filtering (templating/interpolation, de-duplication, and conditional logic)
• Actions and outputs such as email, HTTP requests/webhooks, and notifications
• Web UI to configure agents, view event logs, and debug data flow
• Optional user multi-tenancy (multiple users on one instance) and agent sharing/import/export

Use Cases

• Monitor websites for changes (price drops, new postings, status updates) and send alerts
• Aggregate feeds/APIs into a unified stream, filter/enrich, then forward via webhooks
• Automate personal ops tasks (periodic checks, reminders, and lightweight integrations)

Limitations and Considerations

• Many integrations are polling-based; real-time triggers depend on available agents/webhooks
• Requires careful handling of scraping targets (rate limits, site changes) and secrets management

Huginn is well-suited for users who want transparent, customizable automation with event pipelines and web scraping. Its agent model and UI make it practical for building reliable personal or small-team automations without relying on third-party workflow services.