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Dify
Open-source and Cloud platform for building agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, and multi-step AI apps with a visual editor and publish-to-API path. Dify raised a $30 million Series Pre-A in March 2026 led by HSG.
Product and platform teams that need to design, test, and publish agentic workflows and RAG apps with a visual canvas and optional self-hosting.
Teams that only want a pure Python agent framework with no UI, or enterprises that refuse any workflow builder abstraction.
Verdict
Dify is a good fit when your team wants to turn prompts, tools, and knowledge bases into inspectable agentic workflows. Cloud plans publish workspace pricing so small teams can start without a sales call; Enterprise and VPC paths remain quote-led. Practitioners like the visual builder and self-host option; complex multi-repo agent frameworks may still prefer LlamaIndex or CrewAI-style code-first stacks.
Score Breakdown
How Dify scores in the categories that matter to its buyers.
Pricing
Dify publishes Cloud workspace plans on dify.ai/pricing. Community Edition remains free to self-host. Figures below are USD list signals as of September 2026; Enterprise is sales-quoted.
| Plan / SKU | Meter | Price (USD) | What stands out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sandbox | workspace | Free | Limited credits and apps for trials |
| Professional | per workspace / year | $590 | Small-team Cloud production path |
| Team | per workspace / year | $1,590 | Higher seats, apps, and knowledge quotas |
| Enterprise / self-host commercial | annual | Custom quote | SSO, VPC, SLAs, commercial license |
The Field at a Glance
How Dify compares with other Multi-agent / swarm tooling vendors we reviewed, by Overall Score and relative typical engagement cost.
Dify scores 7.5 in Multi-agent / swarm tooling, under LlamaIndex (8.1) and Agno (8.0), and ahead of deepset (7.1) and CrewAI (6.9). Relative cost lands mid-band for this subcategory.
Use-case matrix
| Use case | Fit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Visual agentic workflow builder | Strong | Core Dify product. |
| RAG / knowledge pipelines | Strong | First-class knowledge tooling. |
| Self-host + Cloud options | Strong | Community + Cloud + Enterprise. |
| Pure code-first Python agents only | Mixed | CrewAI and LlamaIndex are code-first Python frameworks. |
| Haystack-style NLP framework depth | Mixed | deepset sells a Haystack-based NLP framework. |
| Desktop RPA bots | Poor | Dify does not automate desktop applications. |
Review Excerpts
Excerpts from public reviews and forum discussions of Dify, plus representative buyer views drawn from public information. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites were excluded.
“I have tried most of those and tend to go back to dify.ai. Open source, connects to remote endpoints, test up to 4 models at a time. I can create workflows that use multiple models to achieve different goals.”
“We prototype retrieval and tool-calling flows on the canvas, then publish them as an API for the application team.”
Representative buyer view
“Large multi-service agent systems get hard to follow on a single canvas, so we keep the heaviest orchestration in code.”
Representative buyer view
Where customer reviews couldn't be found, our analysts attempted to give a voice to buyer sentiment, drawing on real information from review sites, forums, and product documentation.
Based on: Dify’s website
Company Facts
- Founded
- 2023 (CB Insights)
- Headquarters
- Menlo Park, California, United States (CB Insights)
- Total funding raised
- $30M (CB Insights)
- Key investors
- Mizuho Leaguer Investment, Alt-Alpha Capital, HongShan, Nyx Ventures, 5Y Capital (CB Insights)
- Customers
- KAKAKU (CB Insights)
- Website
- dify.ai
Key Leadership
Luyu Zhang
Founder and CEO
Methodology
This page is an independent evaluation of Dify for buyers comparing options in multi-agent & swarm tooling. AI Industry Reviews accepts no sponsorships, advertising, or pay-for-placement fees. Dify did not pay for this review.
What we scored
The headline number is an Overall Score on a 0-10 scale. Eight criteria fall under it in two groups.
- Buyer outcomes (for multi-agent & swarm tooling)
- Visual agent / workflow builder
- RAG & knowledge pipelines
- Self-host + Cloud path
- Production ops & publishing
- Company & commercial
- Innovation & product leadership
- Project management & communication
- Pricing
- Contract fairness
Pricing measures whether the price looks fair for the value delivered, including packaging and renewal friction that show up in real buying cycles.
Score Composition
| Input | Weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 40% | A proprietary read of what practitioners say about likes, complaints, and day-to-day use, including public review sites, forums, and private chat rooms. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites are out of scope. |
| Product | 35% | Hands-on look at screens and workflows. |
| Pricing | 15% | Whether the price looks fair for what you get. |
| Docs & training | 10% | Docs, tutorials, and training material. |
How we balanced the evidence
The Overall Score is the simple average of the eight criteria. Recommendation language follows that score and the use-case matrix above.
Scope
Dify is graded here as multi-agent & swarm tooling. Criteria scores can move as more review volume and product checks are added.