What it is
Dify lets you build AI apps on a canvas: chatbots, agents, multi-step workflows and RAG pipelines (search over your own documents). It handles prompts, model providers, a knowledge base, tools and logging, and publishes each app as a web page or an API. Version 1.18.0, released on 23 October 2026, lets an agent node choose which workflow branch runs next, packs an app and its resources into one portable file, and adds a command-line client, difyctl.
You can self-host the Community Edition with Docker Compose or use Dify Cloud from LangGenius, the company behind it. The licence is Apache 2.0 with extra conditions: you need a commercial licence to run it as a multi-tenant service, where each workspace counts as a tenant, or to remove the Dify logo and copyright from the console.
Our review
Dify covers more of an LLM app in one console than its open-source rivals, and its licence is the clause to read first. With about 159,000 GitHub stars and five releases since mid-July 2026, it bundles visual workflows, agent nodes, a document knowledge base, model management across many providers and built-in logs. Every app is also an API, so a developer can call what a business user built.
The licence is generous for internal use and strict for resale. A company may run Dify as the back end of its own product, but hosting separate workspaces for customers counts as multi-tenancy and needs written permission from LangGenius, as does removing the logo from the web front end. Contributors also agree that LangGenius may make the licence stricter later. Langflow, under MIT, carries none of these conditions.
Self-hosting is heavier than the README's minimum of two CPU cores and 4 GiB of RAM suggests. The default Docker Compose stack runs the API, background workers, the web front end, Postgres, Redis, a code sandbox, a plugin daemon, an SSRF proxy, Nginx and a vector store, and the 1.18.0 notes ask operators to back up first and upgrade several images together. The security record is busy as well: 13 GitHub advisories published in 2026, including cross-tenant file preview and data disclosure bugs in July and an unauthenticated server-side request forgery in May.
Dify Cloud is cheap for a small team and thin on governance. Professional is $590 a year per workspace for 5,000 message credits a month, three members and 50 apps; Team is $1,590 for 10,000 credits, 50 members and 200 apps. SSO appears only on Enterprise. LangGenius reports SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 audits for a second year, but we found no published commitment on where Cloud data is stored, which pushes EU-bound teams towards self-hosting or an Enterprise deployment in their own cloud.
Where it earns its place
An IT lead at a 300-person manufacturer
Give HR and operations a policy chatbot over internal PDFs that they maintain themselves
Self-host the Community Edition on one VM, connect an approved model provider and let a business owner manage the knowledge base. No licence fee for single-company use; the running cost is model tokens plus someone applying upgrades and security patches.
A backend engineer at a B2B SaaS company
Ship an AI feature whose prompts product managers can change without a deploy
Build the workflow in Dify and call it through the app's API from the product. The licence allows this as a back-end service; giving each customer their own Dify workspace would count as multi-tenancy and need a commercial deal.
A three-person agency building chatbots for clients
Prototype client chatbots without running servers
Dify Cloud Professional at $590 a year per workspace covers three members, 50 apps and 5,000 message credits a month; once credits run out, apps use your own model API key. Hosting several clients on one self-hosted instance would need a licence.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Run docker compose up -d from the repo's docker folder on a machine with at least 2 CPU cores and 4 GiB of RAM and Docker Compose 2.24 or later. Source installs need Python 3.13 from 1.18.0; Dify Cloud needs only a sign-up.
- Integrations
- Model providers and tools come as plugins from the Dify Marketplace, plus MCP servers and your own APIs. Every app exposes an API, and 1.18.0 adds OpenAPI and the difyctl command-line client.
- Data and privacy
- Self-hosted data stays in your Postgres, vector store and file storage. LangGenius reports SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022 and GDPR compliance for Dify Cloud; a fixed hosting region is not published. SSO, RBAC and support SLAs are Enterprise features.
- Cost at scale
- Self-hosting costs a VM, model tokens and staff time for upgrades. On Cloud, Team is $1,590 a year per workspace for 50 members and 10,000 message credits a month; SSO or several workspaces means Enterprise, whose price is not published.
- Limits
- About 1,100 open issues and pull requests; major upgrades such as 1.18.0 require upgrading API, worker and agent images together; the new Agent Knowledge Base is a beta that needs its own service and database.
What's good
- Workflows, agents, RAG and logs in one console
- Non-developers can build and publish apps
- Every app is also an API
- Free to self-host for single-company use
What's not
- Multi-tenant hosting needs a commercial licence
- Heavy multi-service Docker stack to run and upgrade
- 13 security advisories in 2026 so far
- SSO only on Enterprise
Best for
Teams building internal chatbots and RAG apps that non-engineers will maintain.
Alternatives
Dify: common questions
- Is Dify worth it?
- Dify gives business teams a complete LLM app builder they can edit themselves, on a licence that only bites when you resell it as a hosted service. We rate it 4.5 out of 5.
- How much does Dify cost?
- Self-hosted Community Edition free (modified Apache 2.0, one workspace). Dify Cloud: Sandbox free (200 one-time message credits), Professional $590/workspace/year, Team $1,590/workspace/year (annual billing, which Dify says saves 17%), Enterprise by quote.
- What are the downsides of Dify?
- Multi-tenant hosting needs a commercial licence; heavy multi-service Docker stack to run and upgrade; 13 security advisories in 2026 so far; sSO only on Enterprise.
- Who is Dify best for?
- Teams building internal chatbots and RAG apps that non-engineers will maintain.
- How much does Dify cost for a team or in production?
- Self-hosting costs a VM, model tokens and staff time for upgrades. On Cloud, Team is $1,590 a year per workspace for 50 members and 10,000 message credits a month; SSO or several workspaces means Enterprise, whose price is not published.
- Is Dify safe for company data?
- Self-hosted data stays in your Postgres, vector store and file storage. LangGenius reports SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022 and GDPR compliance for Dify Cloud; a fixed hosting region is not published. SSO, RBAC and support SLAs are Enterprise features.
- What are the best Dify alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Langflow, n8n and AnythingLLM.
Answers checked Oct 23, 2026.
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