Dify review

★ 4.6/5

Open-source LLM app & agent builder

Dify is an open-source platform for building LLM apps, agentic workflows and RAG pipelines through a visual canvas, with a hosted cloud tier and a free self-hostable Community Edition. It blends a no-code/low-code builder with backend-as-a-service APIs, native MCP (client and server), and integration with hundreds of model providers, so teams can ship chatbots, agents and workflows without wiring infrastructure from scratch.

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Visit Dify → last verified 2026-06-02

Affiliate link · how we make money

Best for LLM app building. Dify starts Free, then ~$59/mo on a Flat monthly plan (per-workspace) with included monthly message credits; free self-hosted Community Edition model. The Professional plan is $59/mo and includes 5,000 monthly message credits. Because credits are consumed unevenly by model (Dify lists ~200 credits as ~200 GPT-3.5 messages or only ~20 GPT-4-class messages), a team running mostly GPT-4-class chats burns roughly 10 credits per exchange, so 5,000 credits covers only ~500 such messages/month before you must upgrade to Team ($159/mo, 10,000 credits) or switch to your own API key. Self-hosting the Community Edition is $0 in license fees (you pay only your model API and infra costs).

Spec

pricing modelFlat monthly plan (per-workspace) with included monthly message credits; free self-hosted Community Edition
entry priceFree, then ~$59/moverify livedecode →
free tierSandbox plan: 200 message credits (one-time trial allotment), 1 team member, 5 apps, 50 knowledge docs, 50MB storage. Also a free, self-hostable open-source Community Edition.source →
self-hostYes
MCPBoth
integrationsHundreds of LLMs / dozens of model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, Hugging Face, Replicate, Ollama, etc.); 120+ marketplace plugins and 50+ built-in tools (Google Search, Slack, Firecrawl, DALL-E, etc.)source →
API accessYes
affiliate30% recurring for first 12 months per subscription, upgrading to 50% after your first 20 paid conversions

The gotcha

the pricing catch

"Message credits" are not 1 credit per message: premium models like GPT-4 consume roughly 10x the credits of GPT-3.5, so the headline 5,000/10,000 credit allowances run out far faster than they look. Credits only apply to Dify-hosted models; bring your own provider API key and you bypass them entirely (paying the model vendor directly instead).

Decode the real cost →

Best for

  • You want to visually build and ship LLM agents, RAG apps and workflows fast, with the option to self-host the open-source core for free or use the managed cloud with hosted model credits.

source: dify.ai/pricing →

Dify pricing tiers

Prices move. Cells flagged verify link to the live vendor page.

Decode Dify pricing →
tiermonthlyannualincludedunit
Sandbox (Free) $0verify n/a 200 message credits (one-time trial), 1 team member, 5 apps, 50 knowledge docs, 50MB storage, 5,000 API calls/mo per workspace
Professional $59verify $49 5,000 message credits/mo, 3 team members, 50 apps, 500 knowledge docs, 5GB storage, 20,000 trigger events/mo, no Dify API rate limit per workspace/mo
Team $159verify $132 10,000 message credits/mo, 50 team members, 200 apps, 1,000 knowledge docs, 20GB storage, unlimited triggers, advanced analytics per workspace/mo
Enterprise Custom (contact sales)verify n/a SSO, SOC 2 Type II, dedicated support, custom limits; AWS Marketplace listing starts ~$150,000/yr custom
Community Edition (self-hosted) $0verify n/a Open-source core (modified Apache 2.0); free to self-host, you pay your own model/infra costs self-hosted

// pools and per-unit rates are volatile · cells flagged verify link to the live vendor page

Compare Dify with…

dify pricing decoded→ dify alternatives→

Questions

How much does Dify cost?

Dify starts Free, then ~$59/mo. The Professional plan is $59/mo and includes 5,000 monthly message credits. Because credits are consumed unevenly by model (Dify lists ~200 credits as ~200 GPT-3.5 messages or only ~20 GPT-4-class messages), a team running mostly GPT-4-class chats burns roughly 10 credits per exchange, so 5,000 credits covers only ~500 such messages/month before you must upgrade to Team ($159/mo, 10,000 credits) or switch to your own API key. Self-hosting the Community Edition is $0 in license fees (you pay only your model API and infra costs).

Can you self-host Dify?

Yes, Dify can be self-hosted.

Does Dify support MCP?

Dify supports MCP as both client and server, so it works with assistants like Claude and ChatGPT.

What's the catch with Dify's pricing?

"Message credits" are not 1 credit per message: premium models like GPT-4 consume roughly 10x the credits of GPT-3.5, so the headline 5,000/10,000 credit allowances run out far faster than they look. Credits only apply to Dify-hosted models; bring your own provider API key and you bypass them entirely (paying the model vendor directly instead).