head to head · open source
Dify vs ChainForge
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars, 24,668 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped today. ChainForge has 3,030 stars, 257 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dify leads on adoption by 5,056% (156,215 vs 3,030 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; ChainForge is written in TypeScript under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, ChainForge 8%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | ChainForge | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 257 |
| 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 ChainForge if
- You want the ChainForge feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ChainForge 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 ChainForge
⛓️🛠️ ChainForge An open source visual environment for battle testing prompts to LLMs. ChainForge is a data flow prompt engineering environment for analyzing and evaluating LLM responses. It enables rapid fire, quick and dirty comparison of prompts, models, and response quality that goes beyond ad hoc chatting with individual LLMs. With ChainForge, you can: Query multiple LLMs at once to test prompt ideas and variations quickly and effectively. Compare response quality across prompt permutations, across models, and across model settings to choose the best prompt and model for your use case. Setup evaluation metri…
read the full ChainForge overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or ChainForge more popular?
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars and ChainForge has 3,030. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and ChainForge free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and ChainForge is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and ChainForge?
Dify is written in TypeScript and ChainForge in TypeScript. 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 ChainForge?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,215 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose ChainForge if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.