Dify

Key facts: Dify is an open-source platform for building AI applications: design workflows visually, connect models, tools and knowledge bases, and deploy chatbots, agents and text-generation apps, with retrieval-augmented generation over your own documents built in. It can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service.

Plans: Dify itself is free and open source for self-hosting; the cloud service has a free tier and paid plans that raise usage limits and add team features. You also pay your model provider’s rates for the models you call.

Best for: developers and teams building production AI apps without starting from scratch. Watch out: a visual platform still needs good data and prompt design — a weak knowledge base gives weak answers no matter how good the workflow looks. Who should skip it: teams that want a finished chatbot product with no workflow design or data preparation.

Pros

• Open-source platform for building AI applications, with visual workflow design
• Connects models, tools and knowledge bases, with retrieval-augmented generation over your own documents
• Deploy chatbots, agents and text-generation apps from the same platform
• Can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service

Watch out for

• A visual platform still needs good data and prompt design: a weak knowledge base gives weak answers
• You also pay your model provider's rates for the models you call, on top of any cloud plan

Pricing

Dify itself is free and open source for self-hosting; the cloud service has a free tier and paid plans that raise usage limits and add team features. You also pay your model provider's rates for the models you call.

FAQs

Do I need to code to build with Dify? No, you design workflows visually, then deploy chatbots, agents and text-generation apps.

Can Dify answer from my own documents? Yes, retrieval-augmented generation over your own documents is built in.

Can I self-host Dify? Yes, it can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service.