head to head · open source
Dify vs outlines
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars, 24,658 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. outlines has 15,825 stars, 880 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Dify leads on adoption by 887% (156,167 vs 15,825 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; outlines is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, outlines 6%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | outlines | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 16K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 880 |
| 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 outlines if
- You want the outlines feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and outlines 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 outlines
Outlines is a Python library for structured generation with large language models, released under the Apache 2.0 license and maintained by the team at .txt. It lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically among AI development platforms and structured generation tooling, and it is distributed through PyPI. The project describes itself as a way to guarantee structured outputs during generation rather than repairing them afterward, and its topic list places it alongside work on context free grammars, regular expressions, JSON, prompt engineering, and symbolic AI.
read the full outlines overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or outlines more popular?
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars and outlines has 15,825. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and outlines free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and outlines is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and outlines?
Dify is written in TypeScript and outlines 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 outlines?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,167 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose outlines if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.