AI Tool Comparison
Dify vs Langflow
A side-by-side breakdown to help you pick the right tool for your workflow.
Dify
Build and orchestrate LLM applications and agentic workflows with visual workflow design, RAG, and knowledge-base management — open source with 139,000+ GitHub stars.
Langflow
Wire up AI agents and RAG pipelines on a visual canvas, then export the finished flow as a working API or MCP server. Free and self-hosted since DataStax's cloud tier closed.
Bottom Line
Last reviewed: August 2026
Dify and Langflow both compete in Developer Tools, overlapping most directly on rAG Applications. Dify runs on a freemium model while Langflow runs on a fully free plan, which alone may settle it if budget or a free tier is a hard requirement. Dify carries the higher rating (4.7 vs 4.5), but a gap that size rarely overrides a real workflow fit on its own.
Choose Dify if…
Best for teams building production chatbots or agent pipelines who want a visual editor instead of raw LangChain code, and its edge is a visual canvas with built-in RAG tooling and observability, reducing development time versus building from primitives. Dramatically faster to build with than coding from scratch, complex workflows can still get hard to debug once wired up.
Choose Langflow if…
Best for developers who want to build agent or RAG flows visually instead of writing orchestration code by hand, and its edge is finished flows export directly as a REST API or MCP server, ready to drop into another application. Genuinely free and open-source, self-hosting is now the only option since the hosted cloud tier shut down.
| Attribute | Dify | Langflow |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Developer Tools | Developer Tools |
| Pricing | freemium | free |
| Pricing Detail | Free Sandbox / $59/mo Professional / $159/mo Team | Free and MIT licensed, self-hosted only (DataStax's hosted cloud shut down April 2026) |
| Rating |
Key Features
Dify
- Visual workflow editor
- RAG pipeline builder
- Multi-model support
- Built-in observability
- API and webhook integration
- Self-hostable
Langflow
- Drag-and-drop visual canvas
- Export flows as an API or MCP server
- Built-in RAG and vector store components
- Desktop app plus Docker/pip self-hosting
Pros
Dify
- •Visual editor dramatically reduces development time
- •Strong open-source community and active development
- •Works with any major LLM provider
Langflow
- •Fully free since the hosted cloud tier was discontinued
- •MIT licensed with an active, large contributor base
- •Exports directly to a usable API or MCP server
Cons
Dify
- Complex workflows can become difficult to debug
- Cloud pricing jumps significantly beyond free tier
Langflow
- No first-party managed hosting anymore, self-hosting is the only option
- Production usage still costs LLM API tokens and infrastructure