Dify vs n8n
This is not an open source against proprietary comparison. Both products publish their source and neither licence is OSI-approved: Dify's is "a modified version of the Apache License 2.0" with two extra restrictions and a clause letting Dify tighten the terms, and n8n's is the Sustainable Use License, about which n8n's own docs say "we do not call ourselves open source." The axis here is which set of restrictions you can live with, and what the first tier that lifts them costs.
Pick n8n if the job is automation across many systems and you want unlimited users on a free self-hosted instance, accepting that free users cannot share workflows or credentials. Stay on Dify if the job is an LLM app with retrieval over your own documents, since n8n has no knowledge base at all; check both licences against your plan first, because Dify restricts multi-tenant use while n8n restricts hosting it for others.
Side by side
Dify vs n8n at a glance
| Dify | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Exact licence | Modified Apache 2.0, plus two restrictions and a clause letting Dify tighten the terms | Sustainable Use License v1.0, plus n8n Enterprise License on 196 .ee. paths |
| OSI-approved | ✗ No: GitHub reports NOASSERTION | ✗ No, stated in n8n's own docs |
| When the terms changed | Multi-tenant clause broadened 2024-09-09; "a modified version of" added 2025-02-26 | Left Apache-2.0 with Commons Clause on 2022-03-17 |
| What the licence forbids | Operating a multi-tenant environment without written authorisation, where one tenant is one workspace; removing the console logo | Any use beyond "your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use"; "Hosting n8n and charging people money to access it" |
| Users on free self-hosting | Community runs one workspace; member counts are a Cloud meter | ✓ Unlimited on every tier |
| What free self-hosting withholds | SSO, role management, multi-workspace roles, workspace management, branding, HA, unlimited log history | Sharing of workflows and credentials, SSO (SAML, LDAP), projects, environments, external secrets, log streaming, git version control |
| Cheapest tier with SSO | ✗ Enterprise, no published price | Self-hosted Business: 667 EUR/month billed annually, or 8,000 EUR/year |
| Cheapest paid tier | $59 per workspace/month, or $590 per workspace/year | Starter 20 EUR/month billed annually (240 EUR/year), or 24 EUR/month monthly |
| Free hosted tier | ✓ Sandbox: 1 member, 5 apps, 200 message credits | ✗ None: a 14-day or 1,000-execution trial, then the workspace is deleted |
| Knowledge base and retrieval | ✓ Built in | ✗ None: bring your own vector store |
| Licence key behaviour | Enterprise builds check DEPLOYMENT_EDITION and raise license_required | Keys "ping our license server daily to stay active" |
| GitHub stars (as of 2026-08-21) | 153,094 | 201,445 |
Sources: Dify pricing · Dify LICENSE · n8n pricing · n8n licence docs. Compiled August 2026.
Where n8n wins
Unlimited users, with a catch that is not in the licence
n8n charges per execution rather than per user, and free self-hosting has no user cap at all. The catch sits in the feature list: the Community edition excludes "Sharing (workflows, credentials)", and n8n spells out the consequence, that "Only the instance owner and the user who creates them can access workflows and credentials". Twenty people can log in; they cannot hand work to each other. Dify's Cloud tiers meter people instead, at 1 member free, 3 on Professional and 50 on Team.
Breadth of integrations
At 201,445 stars and with the widest connector library here, n8n is the tool whose centre is moving data between systems, with a model in one node. Release n8n@2.35.5 landed on 2026-08-20. If most of your workflow is APIs and one prompt, that is n8n's home ground rather than its edge.
The restriction is on reselling, not on tenancy
The Sustainable Use License limits you to "your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use", and names the disallowed cases: "White-labeling n8n and offering it to your customers for money" and "Hosting n8n and charging people money to access it." Internally, the number of instances, environments or separated areas is not the licensed unit. Under Dify's licence it is, because one tenant is one workspace.
A published price for the tier that removes the caps
n8n publishes 667 EUR per month billed annually, or 8,000 EUR per year, for self-hosted Business, which is where SSO appears; Starter is 20 EUR per month billed annually, or 24 EUR per month billed monthly. Dify's equivalent row is Enterprise, and there is no published figure at all. A large number you can plan against is easier to work with than an unknown one.
Where Dify still wins
n8n has no knowledge base, no document ingestion product and no retrieval tier. If your application answers questions over your own files, Dify ships the whole path: upload, indexing mode, a knowledge storage quota (50 MB free, 5 GB on Professional, 20 GB on Team) and the app that queries it. Rebuilding that on n8n means assembling a vector store and an ingestion pipeline yourself, and then owning them.
Dify also has a hosted free tier that exists. Sandbox costs $0 with 1 team member, 5 apps and 200 message credits, and Dify's own tooltip notes that once credits run out "you can switch to your own API key". n8n has no free cloud tier: the trial runs 14 days or 1,000 executions and then deletes the workspace, leaving 90 days to download workflows. On one point of licence, Dify is the more permissive of the two: it says explicitly that Dify "may be utilized commercially, including as a backend service for other applications", where n8n's licence confines you to your own internal business purposes.
Migrating Dify to n8n
The path most teams take:
1. Inventory first. Split each Dify app into orchestration (prompts, tools, branching) and retrieval (documents, chunking, indexes). The first has an n8n equivalent; the second has none, so choose the vector database now.
2. Nodes replace the canvas. Dify apps do not export into n8n, so workflows are rebuilt as nodes and credentials are re-entered. On free self-hosting, remember that those credentials stay visible only to their creator and the instance owner.
3. Run both for one cycle. Keep the Dify app serving while the n8n workflow shadows it, compare outputs on real traffic, and accept that the overlap pays for both.
4. What does not move. Dify's app logs, annotations and evaluation history stay behind. On the n8n side, price the features Community withholds: SSO, projects, environments or git version control mean the self-hosted Business tier at 8,000 EUR per year billed annually, not a configuration flag.
Common questions
FAQ: Dify vs n8n
Is n8n open source?
No, and n8n says so directly: "Although n8n's source code is available under the Sustainable Use License, according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), open source licenses can't include limitations on use, so we do not call ourselves open source." The project left Apache-2.0 with Commons Clause on 2022-03-17. 196 of its 33,717 paths carry an .ee. marker and fall under a separate n8n Enterprise License. Dify sits in the same category for a different reason: its licence is a modified Apache 2.0, and GitHub reports it as NOASSERTION.
Which licence is more restrictive, Dify's or n8n's?
They restrict different things, so the answer depends on your plan. Dify allows commercial use, including "as a backend service for other applications", but forbids operating a multi-tenant environment, where one tenant is one workspace, unless Dify authorises it in writing, and forbids removing the console logo. n8n allows any number of internal instances but limits use to "your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use", and names "Hosting n8n and charging people money to access it" as disallowed. If you serve many isolated customers, Dify's clause binds first. If you resell the tool itself, n8n's does.
What does free self-hosted n8n leave out?
By n8n's own list: custom variables, environments, external secrets, external storage for binary data, log streaming, multi-main mode, projects, SSO with SAML or LDAP, sharing of workflows and credentials, and git version control. The sharing exclusion is the one that surprises teams, because users are unlimited yet only the instance owner and the user who creates them can access workflows and credentials. Registering the community edition adds only folders, debug in editor and custom execution data. SSO first appears on self-hosted Business at 8,000 EUR per year billed annually, or 800 EUR per month.