What Dify.AI does

Dify.AI is an open-source platform for building, deploying, and managing production-grade agentic AI workflows and autonomous agents, operated by LangGenius, Inc., a Delaware C-corporation headquartered at 440 N. Wolfe Road, Sunnyvale, California. The platform was founded in 2023 by Luyu Zhang, originally in China, who relocated operations to Silicon Valley in February 2026 after raising capital. At its core, Dify combines a visual low-code workflow builder, a Backend-as-a-Service runtime that abstracts authentication, scaling, and observability, a unified Retrieval-Augmented Generation pipeline (with hybrid vector/full-text retrieval, rerankers, and Parent-Child Retrieval introduced in v0.15.0), a multi-LLM provider abstraction layer supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Groq, Stability, and local models via Ollama, and native Model Context Protocol integration in both client and server modes (protocol 2025-03-26) that lets Dify-built workflows be published as standard MCP servers. The platform ships in three deployment flavors — a free open-source community edition, a managed multi-tenant Dify Cloud SaaS, and a commercial Dify Enterprise Edition for on-premises or VPC deployment — supported by a Marketplace of plugins, models, and tools and a Community Forum.

Dify serves a broad customer base spanning Fortune 500 enterprises (Maersk, Volvo Cars, Novartis, ThermoFisher Scientific, ETS, Anker Innovations, Ricoh), mid-market companies, Japanese SMBs, education institutions, and a long tail of individual developers. The company reports 280+ enterprise customers across 60+ countries and 150+ industries, 2,000+ teams, 1M+ applications, 1.4M machines running Dify, 146,000+ GitHub stars, 800+ open-source contributors, and 5M+ downloads as of early-to-mid 2026. Forbes reported in February 2026 that Dify is profitable at 100 employees.

Dify monetizes through a freemium open-core model: a free Dify Cloud Sandbox tier with 200 OpenAI message credits, paid Cloud Professional/Team/Enterprise subscriptions, on-premises Enterprise Edition software licenses sold direct or through authorized vendors (TDSE in Japan), partner-delivered implementation and training services (KAGOYA, Miichisoft, Scooty, Third AI, AI Shift, Cyberway), and an Affiliate Program with a 12-month commission window. Go-to-market blends product-led growth (open-source repo, free cloud sandbox, GitHub virality), community-led growth (Discord, Discourse Forum, IF Con Tokyo 2025 conference), direct enterprise sales with Contact Sales motion, and a dense Japan/APAC channel partner ecosystem. The company closed a $30M Series Pre-A funding round on March 9, 2026, led by HSG (formerly Sequoia Capital China) at a $180M post-money valuation, with participation from GL Ventures, Alt-Alpha Capital, 5Y Capital, Mizuho Leaguer Investment, and NYX Ventures — bringing cumulative disclosed funding to roughly $37.5M.

Name

Dify.AI

Legal name

LangGenius, Inc.

Website

https://dify.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Dify.AI is an open-source agentic AI workflow platform operated by LangGenius, Inc. that lets enterprises and developers visually design, deploy, and manage production-ready AI agents and RAG pipelines, serving Fortune 500 customers like Volvo, Novartis, Maersk, ThermoFisher, and Ricoh.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Agent Development Platform

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Developer Experience Platforms for Enterprise (IDEs, CI/CD, Dev Portals) (HDAEAKAI)

Keywords

• Agentic workflow platform
• AI agent development
• RAG pipeline orchestration
• Low-code LLM platform
• Multi-LLM orchestration

Headquarters

HQ city

Sunnyvale

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Dify Cloud SaaS Subscriptions: Recurring subscription tiers for the hosted cloud version at cloud.dify.ai including a free tier plus paid plans (Sandbox/Professional/Team/Enterprise) — recurring revenue.
2. Dify Enterprise Edition Software License: Annual/perpetual on-premises licenses of the commercial Dify Enterprise Edition sold directly or via authorized vendors; includes maintenance, support, and updates — license + recurring maintenance revenue.
3. Implementation, Training, and Support Services: Partner-delivered professional services for deployment (e.g., Miichisoft Dify Quick Start, Third AI build support, Scooty implementation, AI Shift/TENHO/Ricoh training, KAGOYA VPS hosting) — services revenue share or referral.
4. Affiliate Referral Commissions-Driven Growth: Affiliate Program rewards partners for driving conversions to subscription products; no direct revenue, but subsidises acquisition of subscription customers.
5. Open-Source Freemium Funnel (Indirect Monetization): Open-source community edition (free) drives adoption and land-and-expand into Cloud / Enterprise paying customers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion6 records

Distribution channels9 records

Marketing channels12 records

Core offering

Dify is an open-source platform that lets developers and enterprises visually design, deploy, and manage production-grade AI agent workflows and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines. Its product combines a drag-and-drop workflow canvas, a Backend-as-a-Service runtime, multi-LLM provider abstraction, and native Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration, shipped as a free open-source community edition, a hosted SaaS (Dify Cloud), and a commercially licensed on-premise Enterprise Edition.

Product overview

Dify.AI is a single unified open-source platform for building and deploying production-ready agentic AI workflows, rather than a portfolio of disconnected products. The core offering is the Dify Platform — a visual agentic workflow builder developed by LangGenius, Inc. — which ships in three deployment flavors: the open-source community edition (self-hosted), the managed Dify Cloud (multi-tenant SaaS), and the commercial Dify Enterprise Edition for on-premise or VPC deployment. On top of this core, Dify bundles several tightly integrated modules: Dify Knowledge Base / RAG Pipeline (with Parent-Child Retrieval and external vector integrations such as TiDB, Couchbase, MyScale, and Qdrant), Dify MCP Server (publishing workflows as Model Context Protocol servers), and the Dify Marketplace (community plugin and model marketplace). Surrounding the product are community and partner programs including the Dify Community Forum, Dify for Education, and the Dify Affiliate Program.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Dify Platform (Open-Source Community Edition) Open-source, self-hostable edition of Dify that lets developers and enterprises visually design AI workflows, connect LLMs, data sources, and tools, and deploy production-ready agents and RAG pipelines; deployed via Docker Compose from github.com/langgenius/dify. Includes the Studio visual canvas, built-in observability, REST API, and MCP publishing framework.
• Dify Cloud Hosted SaaS version of Dify providing sandbox accounts with 200 free OpenAI message credits (~200 GPT-3.5 or ~20 GPT-4 messages) plus paid Professional/Team/Enterprise subscription tiers; the multi-tenant cloud target of Dify's SSO, two-step verification, and end-to-end encryption features.
• Dify Enterprise Edition Commercial, on-premise-deployable edition of Dify licensed by LangGenius, Inc. via annual or perpetual licenses sold through authorized Vendors; adds enterprise-grade security (multi-tenant, SSO, two-step verification, end-to-end encrypted transmission), audit tooling, dedicated support, centralized knowledge hub, and on-premises/VPC deployment for regulated industries.
• Dify Marketplace Plugin and tool marketplace at marketplace.dify.ai that lets users discover, install, or submit plugins, advanced LLMs (including multimodal abilities), agent strategies, and tools to extend Dify workflows without modifying source code.

Quantifiable outcome

• 1M+ applications built on the platform worldwide
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers11 records

Segments7 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

AI capability11 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

24 partnerships are on record, tiered minor, flagship and core.

• Kyoshin GroupminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 10 April 2026Per Excite coverage, the AI platform Dify and LangGenius (developer) will begin collaboration in April 2026 with the Kyoshin Group, which has 50 years of achievements in education and nursing fields in Japan.
• OpenAIflagshipTechnology or Integration · 9 April 2026Dify offers native integration with OpenAI models including OpenAI o1 (configuration guide published Sept 2024) and OpenAI Structured Outputs (v0.7.1) — primary LLM provider integration.
• PaddleOCR OCEAN Ecosystem Alliance (Baidu-led)coreGTM or Marketing Partner · 30 March 2026Dify is named as a founding batch member of the PaddleOCR OCEAN ecosystem alliance alongside Hugging Face and RAGFlow. The alliance promotes OCR/AI ecosystem integration globally.
• MiichisoftcoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 2 February 2026Miichisoft is offering a 50% discount on its 'Dify Quick Start' plan from Feb 2 to Feb 15, 2026, to support Japanese companies in rapidly implementing AI chatbots. Targets SMBs; enables chatbot deployment within ~2 weeks.
• MicrosoftcoreTechnology or Integration · 7 December 2025Microsoft published 'Dify AI: Build & Launch GenAI Apps' as an integration/listing — Dify available within the Microsoft AI ecosystem.
• VellumminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 3 December 2025Vellum regularly features Dify in its 'Top Enterprise Agent Builder Platforms' comparative content — co-marketing visibility.
• PingCAP (TiDB)coreTechnology or Integration · 13 October 2025PingCAP published a case study on how Dify.AI consolidates massive database containers into one TiDB. Earlier (Aug 2024), TiDB published 'Dify.AI x TiDB: Build Scalable AI Agent with Knowledge Base'.
• AMD (Lemonade Server on AMD Ryzen AI)coreTechnology or Integration · 6 October 2025AMD published a technical guide (Oct 6, 2025) showing how to combine Dify with Lemonade Server running on AMD Ryzen AI PCs to build private LLM-powered applications entirely on local hardware using NPU and GPU acceleration.
• Metaverse Inc. (Botbird for Business)coreTechnology or Integration · 22 August 2025Metaverse released an API integration feature for its chatbot/AI avatar bot service 'Botbird for Business' to support Dify — enabling users to build advanced chatbots and avatar bots using Dify's AI agent capabilities without programming. Starting from 5,500 yen/month under the SMALLBIZ plan.
• KAGOYA Japan Co., Ltd.coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 6 August 2025KAGOYA launched a pre-configured 'Dify' application setup feature on its KAGOYA CLOUD VPS service (Aug 5, 2025), enabling no-code AI application development for startups and SMBs in Japan. Eliminates infrastructure setup barriers and accelerates AI adoption.
• Baytech ConsultingminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 16 July 2025Baytech Consulting published a 'Strategic Overview, Competitive Analysis, Pricing Breakdown, and Tech Stack Fit for Mid-Market B2B Firms' on Dify.ai — implementation consultancy positioning.
• Cyberway Information Technology Co., Ltd.coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 22 June 2025Cyberway (FMCG-focused digital transformation vendor in APAC) partnered with Dify to deliver its 'AI Middle Platform' and AI Agent capabilities to enterprise clients in FMCG Fortune 500 across Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Digital City × TENHO × CockPitminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 25 April 2025Digital City and TENHO delivered generative AI training to CockPit using Dify — Japanese corporate training partnership.
• Custom Software Services provider (WSL community)minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 16 February 2025DEV Community published a guide 'Use AI Tools with WSL! Step-by-Step Guide to Installing Dify on Windows 11' — community-driven implementation support.
• Third AIminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 7 February 2025Released the 'Third AI Dify Build Support Solution' that assists customers in setting up Dify environments securely, enabling creation of custom AI agents in private environments.
• Substack (The Sequence Engineering)minorGTM or Marketing Partner · 29 January 2025The Sequence Engineering published a deep-dive feature 'Dify.AI: A Deep Dive into its Open-Source LLM Application Development Platform' — earned-media/editorial coverage.
• CouchbasecoreTechnology or Integration · 11 December 2024Couchbase published a joint technical post on 'Couchbase + Dify: High-Power Vector Capabilities for AI Workflows'.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreTechnology or Integration · 15 November 2024AWS Samples published 'solution-for-deploying-dify-on-aws' — official reference architecture for deploying Dify on AWS.
• Scooty Co., Ltd.minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 22 October 2024Scooty launched an implementation support service for the no-code AI platform Dify, helping Japanese companies adopt generative AI for operational efficiency — covers environment construction, AI app development, security, Japanese support, and training for non-technical staff.
• JOTO.AIminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 12 October 2024JOTO.AI is listed as a Dify partner providing technology support.
• AI ShiftcoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 8 October 2024AI Shift launched the 'Generative AI Reskilling Dify Course' on October 8, 2024 — a training program teaching participants from generative AI basics to hands-on app development using the Dify tool, with corporate customization.
• Generative Agents (ジェネラティブエージェンツ)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 10 September 2024Generative Agents entered into a strategic partnership with LangGenius Inc. to deliver Dify-based generative AI solutions in Japan.
• TDSEflagshipChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 4 September 2024TDSE (Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed) entered into a sales and development partner agreement with LangGenius, Inc. for Dify (Sept 2024), and in Dec 2024 began providing the Dify Enterprise Edition license in Japan. TDSE is one of Dify's primary Japan resellers/implementation partners.
• Xserver VPSminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 9 August 2024Xserver VPS released an app image that lets users easily set up a Dify environment without technical knowledge — Japanese hosting partner for Dify self-hosted installs.

Scale indicators16 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Voiceflow: Voiceflow is a no-code platform for building conversational AI agents and workflows, originally focused on chatbots and now expanding to enterprise AI agents. It overlaps with Dify in visual workflow design and enterprise customer support use cases.
• Relevance AI: Relevance AI is a no-code platform for building AI agents and workforce automation, with strong positioning in sales and marketing operations. It targets a similar enterprise persona to Dify, including agent builders within business teams.
• n8n: n8n is a workflow automation platform that has added native AI agent nodes (n8n AI Agents) and RAG capabilities. It targets the same cross-functional enterprise teams and citizen developers that Dify serves, with comparable visual workflow building.
• LangChain: LangChain is the leading open-source LLM application framework with LangGraph for agent orchestration, LangServe for deployment and LangSmith for observability. It is the most direct competitor to Dify's low-code agentic workflow builder, targeting the same developer and enterprise customers.
• Vellum: Vellum is an enterprise AI agent builder and evaluation platform with deep workflow and prompt-engineering tooling. Vellum regularly features Dify as a comparable in its top-enterprise-agent-builder rankings, indicating product and buyer overlap.
• Flowise: Flowise is an open-source drag-and-drop UI for building LLM applications and agents on top of LangChain. It competes head-on with Dify's visual workflow builder for the same low-code developer and citizen-developer audience.
• Stack AI: Stack AI is an enterprise no-code AI agent builder focused on internal business automation (support, HR, sales). It competes directly with Dify for the enterprise low-code AI agent buyer, particularly Fortune 500 mid-market accounts.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft (Copilot Studio): Microsoft Copilot Studio is a low-code agent builder integrated into the Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It competes with Dify for enterprise AI agent budgets, with distribution advantages across Microsoft's installed base and identity, security and compliance stack.
• AWS (Amazon Bedrock Agents): AWS Bedrock Agents enables multi-step agent orchestration across foundation models and enterprise systems. AWS has published a reference architecture for deploying Dify on AWS, confirming Dify's relevance as a third-party orchestration layer on top of Bedrock — and as a competitor for native agent workloads.

Emerging players

• CrewAI: CrewAI is an open-source framework for orchestrating role-based multi-agent systems. It is comparable to Dify's agent orchestration capability, though it focuses primarily on code-first developer use rather than visual no-code authoring.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat7 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/dify_ai
• GitHubgithub.com/langgenius/dify
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/langgenius

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors10 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Dify.AI