head to head · open source
Dify vs qwen-code
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars, 24,658 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. qwen-code has 27,927 stars, 3,055 forks, 1,422 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dify leads on adoption by 459% (156,167 vs 27,927 stars). Dify is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; qwen-code is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, qwen-code 11%. qwen-code was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, 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 | qwen-code | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 156K | ★ 28K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 qwen-code if
- You want the qwen-code feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and qwen-code 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 qwen-code
Qwen Code is an open source AI coding agent that runs in the terminal, with additional interfaces for editors, desktop, browser, and chat. It is written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem as a development platform for agentic coding. The project is maintained by QwenLM and published on npm as @qwen code/qwen code , with a documentation site hosted at qwenlm.github.io. It ships as a command line tool named qwen that opens an interactive session inside a project directory.
read the full qwen-code overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or qwen-code more popular?
Dify has 156,167 GitHub stars and qwen-code has 27,927. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and qwen-code free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and qwen-code is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and qwen-code?
Dify is written in TypeScript and qwen-code 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 qwen-code?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (156,167 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose qwen-code if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.