head to head · open source
Dify vs ruoyi-ai
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars, 25,336 forks, 1,067 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ruoyi-ai has 5,805 stars, 1,429 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Dify leads on adoption by 2,661% (160,251 vs 5,805 stars). Dify is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; ruoyi-ai is written in Java under MIT. Dify has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, ruoyi-ai 25%. Dify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agent, 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 | ruoyi-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 160K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 ruoyi-ai if
- You want the ruoyi-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and ruoyi-ai 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 ruoyi-ai
RuoYi AI [![Contributors][contributors shield]][contributors url] [![Forks][forks shield]][forks url] [![Stargazers][stars shield]][stars url] [![Issues][issues shield]][issues url] [![MIT License][license shield]][license url] Enterprise Grade AI Assistant Platform An out of the box full stack AI platform supporting multi agent collaboration, Supervisor mode orchestration, and multiple decision models, with advanced RAG technology and visual workflow orchestration capabilities 中文 📖 Documentation 🚀 Live Demo 🐛 Report Issues 💡 Feature Requests 🚀 Live Demo ✨ Core Features Project Repositories Partner Projects…
read the full ruoyi-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or ruoyi-ai more popular?
Dify has 160,251 GitHub stars and ruoyi-ai has 5,805. Dify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dify and ruoyi-ai free?
Both are open source. Dify has no licence declared in this registry, and ruoyi-ai is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Dify and ruoyi-ai?
Dify is written in Python and ruoyi-ai in Java. 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 ruoyi-ai?
Choose Dify if you want the larger community (160,251 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose ruoyi-ai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.