head to head · open source
Dify vs Cairn
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars, 24,668 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cairn has 2,834 stars, 379 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Dify leads on adoption by 5,412% (156,215 vs 2,834 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Cairn is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Cairn 13%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | Cairn | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 379 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Dify if
- You weight community size — 156K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Cairn if
- You want the Cairn feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Cairn fits your workflow better
About Dify
Dify is an open source LLM application development platform built in TypeScript. It provides a visual interface for designing, testing, and deploying AI workflows, RAG pipelines, and agentic systems without writing extensive code. The platform lives in the generative AI development ecosystem and targets teams needing to move from prototype to production using consistent tooling across environments.
About Cairn
Cairn is a general purpose AI state space search engine, written in Python and licensed AGPL 3.0, that takes a known origin and a defined goal and searches for a path through an unknown problem space — validated first on autonomous penetration testing, and aimed at security teams, red teamers, CTF players and AI agent developers facing problems with a clear starting point, a clear success condition and an unknown route between them.
read the full Cairn overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or Cairn more popular?
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars and Cairn has 2,834. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and Cairn free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and Cairn is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and Cairn?
Dify is written in TypeScript and Cairn in Python. 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 Cairn?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,215 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Cairn if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.