What it is
Dify is a platform for building generative AI apps: chatbots, agents and RAG workflows on a visual canvas, with hundreds of models to choose from. Each app ships as a web app or an API ready for your product, with logs and annotations to improve it. Use their cloud or self-host it; the license is Apache 2.0 with conditions, such as no multi-tenant hosting without permission.
How to use it
- Design chat or task workflows with model, knowledge, code and tool nodes.
- Load your knowledge base from files, websites or Notion so answers use your data.
- Publish each app as a website, embeddable chat or API.
- Switch models between OpenAI, Anthropic, open or local models without rebuilding the app.
- Review conversations and fix answers with logs and annotations.
What it's good for
- An insurer running an internal assistant on its policies and manuals, hosted in its own cloud.
- A product team testing a RAG workflow in days and exposing it to its app as an API.
- A consultancy building AI assistants for several clients on different models.
Pros
- Interface available in Spanish and 20+ other languages
- Self-hostable with Docker, with source code on GitHub
- Every app ships as an API and a web chat
- Works with hundreds of commercial, open and local models
Cons
- The license bans running it as a multi-tenant service without permission
- The free cloud plan is a sandbox: 200 message credits and 5 apps
- Self-hosting means running several services: database, cache and vector store
