If you are searching for a Dify alternative, the useful question is not which tool has more nodes. It is what you want to own when the project ships. Dify is a platform for building LLM apps and agentic workflows on a visual canvas. The alternatives split by the unit of work: some hand you a canvas, one hands you a system you keep.
What Dify is, plainly
Dify is an open-source LLM app development platform. Its own repository describes a visual canvas for AI workflows, RAG pipelines, agents, model management and observability, deployable on Dify Cloud, in a VPC, or self-hosted. The unit of work is the app you compose and publish. Its Community Edition self-hosts through Docker Compose, and Dify Cloud lists paid plans, with the Professional plan at $590 per workspace per year on its own pricing page (checked October 2026).
The distinction that decides the choice
Every tool in this field answers a version of the same question. The one that matters is where the configuration lives. On a canvas product, the workflow lives inside the product: you draw it, publish it, and the workspace holds it. In Kortix, the configuration is plain files in a git repository you own. An agent is a markdown file, and kortix.yaml declares the machine image, the connectors and the triggers. That difference decides how a change is reviewed, how a setup is diffed, and who can take the system with them.
The open source field, cell by cell
Every rival fact below comes from that project's own page or repository.
| Tool | What it is | Open source | The unit of work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | The open-source AI Operating System. | Yes, and self-host is free. | One agent session on its own cloud computer. |
| Dify | An LLM app platform for workflows and RAG. | Yes, self-host the Community Edition. | The app you compose and publish. |
| n8n | A workflow automation canvas with code under it. | Source on GitHub; self-host with Docker. | The workflow you wire and run. |
| Langflow | A low-code builder for agents and RAG apps. | Yes, or use its free cloud. | The flow you build and call as an API. |
| Flowise | A drag-and-drop builder for LLM apps over LangChain. | Yes, installed with npm. | The chatflow or agent system you assemble. |
Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System. Your agents, their skills, your company memory and every connector live in one git repository you own, and each session runs on its own isolated cloud computer (Kortix docs). Session work reaches the main branch through a change request a person approves.
Dify fits when the deliverable is one production LLM application with retrieval (Dify's repository).
n8n is a workflow automation canvas. n8n leads with build visually, go deep with code: pre-built nodes for common apps, custom API connections for everything else, and a deploy-on-your-infrastructure-or-ours choice. Reach for it when the job is integration-heavy automation.
Langflow is a low-code builder for agents and RAG applications. Langflow offers drag-and-drop components with Python to customize any of them, and the same product whether you run the open-source build or its cloud. Reach for it when a developer is prototyping an agent flow.
Flowise is a drag-and-drop builder for LLM apps, installed with npm and built over LangChain. Flowise documents multi-agent systems, chat assistants, human-in-the-loop review and both cloud and on-premises deployment. Reach for it when you are assembling a chatbot from templates.
Self-hosting, both paths
Dify's Community Edition self-hosts on a machine with at least 2 CPU cores and 4 GiB of RAM, with Docker and Docker Compose v2.24.0 or later. You copy the example environment file and start the stack from the docker directory:
cd dify cd docker cp .env.example .env docker compose up -d Kortix self-hosts as the full platform in one Docker Compose stack, installed by the kortix self-host CLI on a server you control (Kortix self-hosting docs):
curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash kortix self-host init --domain kortix.example.com --admin-email you@example.com kortix self-host start Self-host is free in both cases. What differs is what stays after the install: on a canvas product the workspace holds the configuration; with Kortix, your agents, skills, memory and connectors are files in a repository you own. Kortix Cloud also lists Free at $0 with 200 credits a month and 1 project, and $40 per seat per month with 2,500 pooled credits per seat (Kortix pricing).
What to pick
Pick a canvas builder when the deliverable is one application on a visual flow you want to draw by hand. Pick Kortix when the work spans a company: a workforce of agents, the configuration in one git repository you own, and every change landing through a review. The full, cited comparison, including the head-to-head with Dify and a self-hosting walkthrough, is at difyalternative.com.
