head to head · open source
Dify vs cli
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars, 24,658 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cli has 31,034 stars, 1,840 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Dify leads on adoption by 403% (156,167 vs 31,034 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; cli is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, cli 6%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (automation), 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 | cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 31K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 cli if
- You want the cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cli 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 cli
gws is a command line tool for Google Workspace, written in Rust and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It provides a single interface for Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, Chat, Admin, and the wider set of Workspace APIs. Rather than shipping a fixed list of commands, it reads Google's own Discovery Service at runtime and builds its entire command surface dynamically, so new API endpoints and methods appear without a CLI release. The project lives in the Google Workspace ecosystem and is explicitly not an officially supported Google product.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or cli more popular?
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars and cli has 31,034. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and cli free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and cli is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and cli?
Dify is written in TypeScript and cli in Rust. 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 cli?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,167 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose cli if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.