head to head · open source
Dify vs agent-rules-books
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars, 25,336 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-rules-books has 3,170 stars, 552 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Dify leads on adoption by 4,955% (160,251 vs 3,170 stars). Dify is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; agent-rules-books is written in various languages under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, agent-rules-books 17%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Dify | agent-rules-books | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 160K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 552 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Dify if
- You weight community size — 160K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-rules-books if
- You want the agent-rules-books feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- You evaluated both and agent-rules-books fits your workflow better
About Dify
Dify Cloud · Self hosting · Documentation · Dify edition overview Dify is an open source LLM app development platform. Its intuitive interface combines AI workflow, RAG pipeline, agent capabilities, model management, observability features (including Opik, Langfuse, and Arize Phoenix) and more, letting you quickly go from prototype to production. Here's a list of the core features: Quick start Before installing Dify, make sure your machine meets the following minimum system requirements: CPU = 2 Core RAM = 4 GiB The easiest way to start the Dify server is through Docker Compose. Before running Dify with the…
About agent-rules-books
AI agents Rules / Skills from Programming Books v0.6 AGENTS.md rules / skills for Codex , Cursor , Claude Code , distilled from classic software engineering books about refactoring, architecture, DDD and code quality. About · Installation · Rules / Skills · Books List · Usage · Books Compatibility About MIT licensed universal project rules for coding agents. This repository contains ready to use rule sets inspired by well known books on software design, architecture, refactoring, legacy code, reliability, and data intensive systems. For editor specific setup in Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, see USAGE.md. It…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or agent-rules-books more popular?
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars and agent-rules-books has 3,170. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and agent-rules-books free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and agent-rules-books is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and agent-rules-books?
Dify is written in Python and agent-rules-books in various languages. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Dify or agent-rules-books?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (160,251 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose agent-rules-books if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.