Dapr

What Dapr does

Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) is an open-source project that provides a set of APIs, known as building blocks, for building distributed applications and microservices. It uses a sidecar architecture that runs alongside each application instance, exposing APIs over HTTP or gRPC to decouple application code from underlying infrastructure. The core product includes building blocks for service invocation, publish/subscribe messaging, state management, actors, workflows, jobs, secrets, external configuration, bindings, LLM conversation, distributed lock, and cryptography, and ships with SDKs for Python, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Go, and Rust. It runs on Kubernetes, self-hosted virtual machines, or edge environments and supports multi-cloud and hybrid deployments through a pluggable component model.

The project is governed as a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) graduated project under The Linux Foundation, originally accepted as a CNCF Incubation project in 2019. In 2026, Dapr expanded its scope to AI agent infrastructure with Dapr Agents v1.0 (GA March 2026, co-developed with NVIDIA) and Dapr 1.18 (June 2026), which introduced verifiable execution — cryptographic signing, propagation, and attestation of workflow and AI agent history — targeting enterprise accountability and compliance use cases. Dapr does not sell software directly; it is licensed under Apache 2.0 and distributed free of charge. Commercial monetization is handled by Diagrid, a separate company that offers enterprise support, training, the Diagrid Dashboard, and Diagrid Catalyst, a managed platform for long-lived AI agent workloads. Enterprise adopters span banking, technology, industrial, and consumer sectors and include IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Alibaba, NASA, HDFC Bank, Lufthansa, Bosch, Fujitsu, Zeiss Vision Care, Grafana, Derivco, Watts Water Technologies, Tempestive, and DataGalaxy.

Name

Dapr

Legal name

Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime)

Website

https://dapr.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Dapr is a CNCF graduated open-source runtime that provides APIs (service invocation, pub/sub, state, workflows, AI agents) as sidecar building blocks for building distributed microservices and production-grade AI agent systems, adopted by enterprises including IBM, Microsoft, HDFC Bank, and Zeiss.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Distributed Application Runtime / Cloud-Native Middleware

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Identity Threat Detection & Response (ITDR) (HDAEAJAH)

akta.pro secondary industry

Managed Workplace Services (DaaS/Workplace-as-a-Service) (BPAEAIAA)

Keywords

• Distributed application runtime
• Microservices building blocks
• Cloud-native middleware
• AI agent infrastructure
• Workflow orchestration APIs

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Open Source Software: Dapr is an open-source project released under the Apache 2.0 license. The core runtime and all building block APIs are freely available. Revenue is not generated directly from the open-source software itself.
2. Enterprise Support & Services (via Diagrid): Diagrid provides commercial enterprise support, training, and professional services for organizations using Dapr in production. Diagrid also offers Diagrid Catalyst, a managed platform for long-lived agent workloads.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) is an open-source runtime that exposes building block APIs for service invocation, publish/subscribe messaging, state management, workflows, actors, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, distributed locking, cryptography, and LLM conversation. It runs as a sidecar alongside each application instance and decouples application code from underlying infrastructure, providing built-in security (mTLS, PII scrubbing), resiliency (retries, circuit breakers), and observability. Dapr Agents extends the platform with durable, stateful, and cryptographically verifiable infrastructure for production AI agents.

Product overview

Dapr is an open-source Distributed Application Runtime (CNCF graduated project) that provides a set of integrated APIs with built-in best practices and patterns for building distributed applications. The core product, Dapr, offers building block APIs including service invocation, pub/sub, state management, actors, workflows, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, LLM conversation, distributed lock, and cryptography. Dapr increases developer productivity with built-in security, reliability, and observability capabilities. The portfolio includes Dapr (open-source runtime), Dapr Agents (Python framework for AI agent infrastructure resilience, v1.0 GA March 2026), and Diagrid Catalyst (managed enterprise platform for long-lived AI agent workloads). Dapr University provides free self-paced learning. The platform supports multiple SDKs (Python, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Go, Rust) and runs on Kubernetes or self-hosted on any cloud or edge environment.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Dapr Agents: A Python framework that prioritizes infrastructure resilience for AI agents, including crash recovery, state persistence, and cryptographic identity management.
• Dapr University
• Diagrid Catalyst

Products and services

• Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) Open-source distributed application runtime that exposes building block APIs (HTTP/gRPC) for service invocation, pub/sub messaging, state management, workflows, actors, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, distributed lock, cryptography, and LLM conversation. Runs as a sidecar and is intended for platform engineering and application developers building distributed microservices on Kubernetes or self-hosted infrastructure.
• Dapr Agents Python framework that provides durable workflows, state persistence, crash recovery, and cryptographic identity management for AI agents, targeting developers building production-grade agentic AI systems that move beyond prototype orchestration frameworks.

Quantifiable outcome

• 30% increase in developer productivity
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration11 records

AI capability5 records

Feature15 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• NVIDIAcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 March 2026NVIDIA collaborated with the Dapr open source community and enterprise users to develop Dapr Agents v1.0. This collaboration brings NVIDIA's expertise in AI infrastructure to enhance Dapr's capabilities for building production-grade AI agents with crash recovery, state persistence, and cryptographic identity management.
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDapr is a graduated project of CNCF, meaning it has achieved widespread adoption and maturity within the cloud-native ecosystem. CNCF provides governance, marketing support, and ecosystem coordination for the project.
• DiagridcoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerDiagrid provides enterprise support for Dapr, including technical support, training, and professional services. Diagrid also offers Diagrid Catalyst, a managed platform that provides long-lived agent workload capabilities on top of Dapr.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Istio: CNCF graduated service mesh providing service-to-service communication, mTLS, and traffic management for Kubernetes microservices — overlapping directly with Dapr's Service Invocation and mTLS building blocks for the same platform engineering persona.
• Linkerd: Lightweight CNCF graduated service mesh for Kubernetes, competing with Dapr on sidecar-based service-to-service security, observability, and reliability primitives aimed at the same enterprise microservices buyers.
• Temporal: Workflow orchestration platform offering durable, long-running workflow execution — directly comparable to Dapr's Workflow API for the same 'long-running business processes across microservices' use case, especially in AI agent pipelines.
• Camunda: Process orchestration and workflow automation platform with strong enterprise BPM roots. Competes with Dapr Workflow for long-running, stateful business process orchestration across distributed systems.
• NATS: CNCF graduated lightweight messaging system providing pub/sub, request/reply, and queueing. Directly comparable to Dapr's Publish & Subscribe API for cloud-native event-driven microservices architectures.

Broad incumbents

• HashiCorp Consul: Service discovery, service mesh, and secrets management from HashiCorp's broader platform. Overlaps with Dapr's Service Invocation, State, and Secrets APIs as part of a wider cloud-infrastructure portfolio rather than a focused runtime.
• Envoy Proxy: CNCF graduated universal service proxy used as the data plane in most service meshes, including Istio. Dapr's sidecar architecture operates in the same proxy/data-plane category for microservices traffic handling.
• Red Hat OpenShift: Enterprise Kubernetes platform that bundles many of the same building blocks Dapr provides (service mesh, serverless/Workflows, CI/CD, observability). Competes as a broader platform incumbent for the same platform engineering buyers.

Emerging players

• LangGraph: LangChain's framework for building stateful, multi-agent AI applications. Direct competitor to Dapr Agents for AI agent orchestration, with weaker production-resilience primitives (no native crash recovery or cryptographic verification).
• CrewAI: Framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborative AI agents. Competes with Dapr Agents on multi-agent coordination, but similarly lacks the infrastructure resilience (durable state, crash recovery, verifiable execution) that Dapr is positioning around.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/dapr
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@daprdev
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/daprdev
• Xx.com/daprdev

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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 Dapr