head to head · open source
Dify vs Portkey AI Gateway
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars, 24,658 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Portkey AI Gateway has 13,022 stars, 1,305 forks, 262 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Dify leads on adoption by 1,099% (156,167 vs 13,022 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Portkey AI Gateway is written in TypeScript under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Portkey AI Gateway 10%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Dify | Portkey AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 13K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 Portkey AI Gateway if
- You want the Portkey AI Gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Portkey AI Gateway 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 Portkey AI Gateway
Portkey AI Gateway is an open source TypeScript project that routes AI application requests through one API to many language, vision, audio, and image models. It belongs to the AI development platform ecosystem and is described as an AI gateway, LLM gateway, and generative AI gateway. The project is licensed under MIT, and its topics include llmops, langchain, mcp, mcp client, and mcp gateway.
read the full Portkey AI Gateway overview →
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More AI Development Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the AI Development Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or Portkey AI Gateway more popular?
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars and Portkey AI Gateway has 13,022. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and Portkey AI Gateway free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and Portkey AI Gateway is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and Portkey AI Gateway?
Dify is written in TypeScript and Portkey AI Gateway 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 Portkey AI Gateway?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,167 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Portkey AI Gateway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.