Dify vs Langflow
Langflow is the only tool in this comparison whose licence file contains nothing but MIT. Dify's contains a modified Apache 2.0 plus two extra restrictions and a clause letting Dify tighten the terms. So the pairing turns on one axis: what each licence lets you do, and what you give up by taking the clean one, because Langflow has no hosted product and, by its own documentation, no isolation between users.
Pick Langflow if the licence is your constraint: MIT, one LICENSE file, zero enterprise-marked paths out of 11,642, and no clause about workspaces or logos. Stay on Dify if you need a hosted option, a managed knowledge base, or any tenant isolation at all, since Langflow's security docs say it provides none and its UI can execute arbitrary Python on the host.
Side by side
Dify vs Langflow at a glance
| Dify | Langflow | |
|---|---|---|
| Exact licence | Modified Apache 2.0, plus two restrictions and a clause letting Dify tighten the terms | MIT, unmodified |
| OSI-approved | ✗ No: GitHub reports NOASSERTION | ✓ Yes |
| Enterprise-marked code | No ee/ split: one LICENSE, plus a DEPLOYMENT_EDITION gate and a closed companion service | None: 0 of 11,642 paths |
| Multi-tenant use of the source | Not permitted without written authorisation from Dify | No licence restriction |
| Removing the logo | Forbidden in the web/ frontend; sold as the Enterprise row "WebApp Branding Customization" | No branding clause |
| Tenant isolation in the product | ✓ Workspaces separate each tenant's data and configuration | ✗ None: the docs say it "provides no isolation between tenants" |
| Hosted product | ✓ Cloud from $59 per workspace/month, or $590 per workspace/year | ✗ None: langflow.org/pricing returns HTTP 404 |
| Paid SKU above free | Professional and Team published; Enterprise not published | IBM Elite Support for Langflow, price not published |
| Knowledge base and retrieval | Built in, with indexing modes and a storage quota (50 MB free, 5 GB Professional, 20 GB Team) | Flow components only, no managed knowledge storage |
| Import path from Dify | n/a | None published: flows are rebuilt by hand |
| Latest release | 1.16.1 on 2026-07-28, roughly monthly | v1.11.4 on 2026-08-19, roughly weekly |
| GitHub stars (as of 2026-08-21) | 153,094 | 153,524 |
Sources: Dify pricing · Dify LICENSE · Langflow · Langflow docs. Compiled August 2026.
Where Langflow wins
One LICENSE file, and it says MIT
Langflow's docs state "Langflow is open source (MIT)." The repository carries a single licence file and, across 11,642 paths, none is marked as enterprise-only. There is nothing to audit: no workspace clause, no branding clause, no reserved right to change the terms. Dify's licence opens by telling you it is "a modified version of the Apache License 2.0, with the following additional conditions", and clause 2a reserves the producer's right to "adjust the open-source agreement to be more strict or relaxed as deemed necessary".
A second workspace is not a licensing event
Under Dify's licence a second workspace is a second tenant, and multi-tenant operation of the source needs written authorisation; the clause was broadened on 2024-09-09 when "Multi-tenant SaaS service" became "Multi-tenant service". Langflow imposes no equivalent condition, so splitting environments per team or per client is an infrastructure decision rather than a contract one. Note carefully what that is not: permission is not isolation, and Langflow says as much itself.
You can remove the branding
Dify forbids removing or modifying "the LOGO or copyright information in the Dify console or applications", scoped to everything in the web/ directory, and then sells "WebApp Branding Customization" as an Enterprise row on its pricing page. MIT asks only that the copyright notice travel with the code, which is a file rather than a screen.
It cuts releases more often
Langflow shipped v1.11.4 on 2026-08-19 on a roughly weekly cadence, against Dify's 1.16.1 on 2026-07-28 on a roughly monthly one. Star counts are almost identical, at 153,524 for Langflow and 153,094 for Dify, so this is not a case of a large project against a small one. Both are active; Langflow simply releases faster.
Where Dify still wins
Langflow has no hosted product. langflow.org/pricing returns HTTP 404, the only purchasable item is IBM Elite Support for Langflow at no published price, and hosted DataStax Langflow was removed from Astra on 2026-04-09, with the release note suggesting Langflow OSS as the alternative. If you wanted somebody else to run this, Dify Cloud is the option that exists, at $59 per workspace per month or $590 per workspace per year.
The larger gap is safety. Langflow's own security documentation says it "neither enforces isolation between users within a single Langflow process, nor restricts access to the local disk or network resources", that "Flow visibility and user access controls are designed for usability, not security enforcement", and that its code editor lets developers "author and execute arbitrary Python with full access to the host Langflow backend process, filesystem, and network". Dify's workspaces exist to separate data and configuration, which is why its licence takes the trouble to define them. If several teams share one instance, a permissive licence hands you a job rather than removing one. Dify also carries the retrieval half as a managed part of the product, with indexing modes and a knowledge storage quota of 50 MB free, 5 GB on Professional and 20 GB on Team.
Migrating Dify to Langflow
The path most teams take:
1. Inventory first. List every Dify app with its prompts, tools and knowledge bases. Prompts and tool definitions transfer by hand; indexed documents and their chunking settings have nothing to import into, so plan to re-ingest from the original files.
2. Rebuild the flow, not an export. There is no Dify-to-Langflow importer. Langflow imports and exports its own flows, which helps after the first rebuild rather than during it.
3. Put a boundary around it. Because Langflow enforces none itself, decide up front who can reach the instance: authentication in front of the container, one process per team where teams must not see each other's flows, and no untrusted user anywhere near the code component.
4. What does not move. Dify's app logs (30 days on Community, unlimited on Enterprise), annotation history and evaluation runs stay behind. Run both for one cycle and accept that the overlap costs double.
Common questions
FAQ: Dify vs Langflow
Is Langflow really MIT, with no enterprise edition?
Yes, as far as the repository shows. Langflow ships one LICENSE file containing the MIT licence, and across 11,642 paths not one is marked as enterprise-only; the docs state "Langflow is open source (MIT)." The only commercial item is IBM Elite Support for Langflow, which is a support contract rather than a different build, and it carries no published price. DataStax, now an IBM subsidiary, removed hosted Langflow from Astra on 2026-04-09, with the release note pointing users at Langflow OSS instead.
Can Langflow host several teams the way Dify workspaces do?
Not safely without work of your own. Langflow's licence places no restriction on it, but its security documentation is explicit: Langflow "provides no isolation between tenants, so it's your responsibility to enforce isolation at the infrastructure level", authentication and authorization "must be provided and enforced outside of the Langflow container", and access controls are "designed for usability, not security enforcement". Dify's workspaces do separate data and configuration, but running more than one from the source is what Dify's licence calls multi-tenant. Permission and isolation are different problems, and each tool solves only one of them.
Is there an importer from Dify to Langflow?
No. Neither vendor publishes a migration path, so flows are rebuilt by hand. Langflow does import and export its own flows, which makes copies and environment promotion easy once the first rebuild is done. Knowledge bases are the slower half: documents have to be re-ingested from the originals, because chunking and indexing settings do not transfer. Budget a parallel run, since Dify's app log history and annotations stay on the old instance.