head to head · open source
Dify vs crewAI
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars, 24,668 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crewAI has 58,726 stars, 8,498 forks, 353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dify leads on adoption by 166% (156,215 vs 58,726 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; crewAI is written in Python under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, crewAI 14%. crewAI 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 | crewAI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 59K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 8.5K |
| 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 crewAI if
- You want the crewAI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and crewAI 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 crewAI
CrewAI is an open source Python framework for orchestrating role playing, autonomous AI agents through collaborative Crews and event driven Flows, released under the MIT licence and built for developers and teams producing multi agent workflows in production.
read the full crewAI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or crewAI more popular?
Dify has 156,215 GitHub stars and crewAI has 58,726. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and crewAI free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and crewAI is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and crewAI?
Dify is written in TypeScript and crewAI 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 crewAI?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,215 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose crewAI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.