Building a Self-Hosted Newsletter Setup with n8n & Gemini

Key Takeaways Custom workflows beat platform lock-in by giving you 100% data ownership, custom styling control, and zero platform fees. n8n Webhook CORS configuration is crucial when making client-side submissions; restricting origins in production prevents unauthorized cross-site mutations. Database defaults don't fire on upsert updates. When re-subscribing users, you must explicitly regenerate verification tokens in your workflow to avoid security vulnerabilities. Direct REST API requests to Gemini offer granular payload control over native n8n AI model nodes, enabling strict JSON output constraints. Robust HTML templates require deep sanitization. Sanitizing LLM output fields (titles, URLs) prevents Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in email clients. Hosting can be practically free. For small to medium lists, self-hosting n8n on a home server like a Raspberry Pi combined with cloud free tiers reduces monthly SaaS bills to zero. When I launched this blog, I knew