head to head · open source
Dify vs LightRAG
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars, 25,336 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LightRAG has 40,487 stars, 5,752 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Dify leads on adoption by 296% (160,251 vs 40,487 stars). Dify is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; LightRAG is written in Python under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, LightRAG 14%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (genai, gpt, 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 | LightRAG | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 160K | ★ 40K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 5.8K |
| 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 LightRAG if
- You want the LightRAG feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and LightRAG 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 LightRAG
🚀 LightRAG: Simple and Fast Retrieval Augmented Generation 🎉 News [2026.07]🎯[New Feature]: Add Smart Heading recognition feature for word documents. [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Merge RagAnything into LightRAG 🎉. Multimodal content parsing and extraction via MinerU / Docling services. [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Introducing four selectable text chunking strategies: Fix , Recursive , Vector , and Paragraph . [2026.05]🎯[New Feature]: Role specific LLM configuration support, 4 distinct roles: EXTRACT, QUERY, KEYWORDS, and VLM, with independent LLM settings. [2026.03]🎯[New Feature]: Integrated OpenSearch as a…
read the full LightRAG overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or LightRAG more popular?
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars and LightRAG has 40,487. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and LightRAG free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and LightRAG is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and LightRAG?
Dify is written in Python and LightRAG 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 LightRAG?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (160,251 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose LightRAG if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.