Agentic Index
Dify vs n8n (2026)
Dify versus n8n is one of the most searched agent building questions because they approach the same goal from different sides: Dify is an LLM application platform (agents, RAG, model management, observability), free self hosted or from 59 dollars a month, while n8n is workflow automation with AI nodes woven in, free self hosted or from 20 euros a month. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
The clean split: Dify when the AI app is the product, n8n when AI steps serve a broader automation. Many teams run both, with n8n calling Dify apps.
On the Agentic Index agent observability ranking, n8n clears the bar and Dify does not. n8n documents all three reliability loop capabilities in full; Dify does not document testing and evaluation in full. 81 of the 548 platforms it grades clear it. See the agent observability ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Dify and n8n are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 956 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Dify if
- You are building AI applications (assistants, RAG apps, agents) as the deliverable.
- Model management, prompt versioning, and observability are core needs.
- App operations for non developers matter after launch.
Choose n8n if
- Business process automation is the job, with AI as powerful steps inside it.
- The 400+ integration nodes connect your whole stack.
- Per execution pricing and self hosting fit your scale economics.
| At a glance | Dify | n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Agent builder | Agent builder |
| Entry price | From $59/mo · Sandbox free demo + free self-host | From €20/mo (annual) · free self-host |
| Free / trial | Free | Free trial (no card required) |
| Pricing confidence | public partial | public partial |
| Feature | D Dify |
n n8n |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Full / Explicit
Dify connects to model providers, tools, data sources and external services through a Tool node, an HTTP Request node, MCP tools, custom endpoints and a marketplace of installable plugins, and agent nodes call tools with per-parameter control. |
Full / Explicit
Several hundred documented app nodes, HTTP, GraphQL, SSH and code nodes, community nodes and an MCP Client node give agents tools across every major system class. |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
Full / Explicit
Dify workflows support branching, iteration, loops, classifier routing and sandboxed code, with agent nodes running bounded tool loops inside a flow and workflows callable as tools or MCP servers. |
Full / Explicit
If, Switch, merge, loop, wait and error handling nodes control flow, and sub-workflows can be attached to agents as tools. |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
Full / Explicit
Workflows start from Schedule, plugin and Webhook triggers as well as on demand, metered as Trigger Events on every tier, and publish to a web app, embed, REST API, CLI or MCP server. |
Full / Explicit
Sixteen named trigger nodes cover schedules, webhooks, chat, email, RSS, forms, files and MCP, and a durable scheduler keeps scheduled runs through restarts. |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
Full / Explicit
Knowledge bases are a first-class surface with configurable chunking and indexing, a custom Knowledge Pipeline, ingestion from files, Notion and website crawl, a retrieval node, hit testing and an External Knowledge API. |
Full / Explicit
Vector stores, embeddings, retrievers and document loaders attach as sub-nodes, so the retrieval index can live in a customer-run database. |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
Partial
State persists within a conversation through conversation variables, chat history and an agent memory window, but no cross-session or learned memory is documented. |
Partial
Memory attaches as a sub-node with session IDs, but the vendor states it does not persist between sessions unless an external chat-memory backend is wired in. |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
Full / Explicit
A Human Input node pauses a workflow so a person can approve, edit, comment on or forward the run before it continues, with timeout handling, alongside a Sensitive Content Moderation endpoint. |
Full / Explicit
Tools can require human approval before an agent runs them, a Guardrails node enforces policy, and workflow reviews gate publishing. |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Full / Explicit
Dify states SOC 2 Type I and Type II, ISO 27001:2022 and GDPR with a trust center, and offers SSO, workflow-level RBAC, SCIM, session policies, SIEM-streamed audit logs and bring-your-own-key encryption on Enterprise. |
Full / Explicit
Annual independent SOC 2 audits, a public SOC 3 report and yearly penetration tests sit beside SSO, SAML and LDAP on Enterprise, role-based access on paid plans and a deep set of documented security controls. |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Full / Explicit
Dify logs runs with per-node inputs, outputs and errors, a run history and variable inspector, an analytics dashboard, OpenTelemetry trace export to seven named tools, and tamper-evident audit logs on Enterprise. |
Full / Explicit
Every run is an execution the customer can open and filter, traced node by node to an OpenTelemetry collector, with Prometheus metrics and redaction for compliance. |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
Full / Explicit
Dify runs as hosted cloud, a single-tenant dedicated cluster in the customer's region, a customer-managed deployment in the customer's own AWS, GCP or Azure VPC, fully air-gapped on-prem, or as the self-hosted open-source Community Edition. |
Full / Explicit
Self-hosting is documented across Docker, npm and seven named cloud providers, with an isolate configuration that stops the instance contacting n8n's servers, beside managed n8n Cloud. |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
Full / Explicit
Dify Marketplace offers a filterable catalog of named ready-to-use workflow templates with publishers and usage counts, alongside a typed plugin catalog and a flow for customers to publish their own apps. |
Full / Explicit
A template library, a custom templates library for self-hosted instances, the AI Starter Kit and portable .n8np packages give ready-made starting points. |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
Full / Explicit
The customer chooses models per workflow node, using Dify credits on hosted OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI and Tongyi models or its own provider keys, and air-gapped deployments can run local models. |
Full / Explicit
Agents require a Chat Model sub-node chosen from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Mistral, Perplexity, Qwen Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot Kimi or local models, and each step can use a different model. |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
Full / Explicit
Dify is callable from outside through a REST API with a published OpenAPI specification, the difyctl CLI, a plugin development kit, inbound webhooks and custom endpoints, and published workflows can be exposed as MCP servers. |
Full / Explicit
The MCP Server Trigger makes n8n an MCP server for outside clients, beside a public REST API, custom and community nodes, portable .n8np packages and a documented OEM embedding path. |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
Partial
Dify offers node and flow debugging against sample input, run history, error-handling branches, retrieval hit testing, annotations and version restore, but no evaluation, scoring or regression product. |
Full / Explicit
Dedicated Evaluation and Evaluation Trigger nodes run quick tests against known cases in development and metric-based scoring in production. |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
No / Not documented
No browser, desktop or computer-use node exists; Dify reaches content and systems over HTTP, APIs, MCP tools and plugins rather than by operating a rendered interface. |
Partial
The Airtop app node wires in a third-party cloud browser that clicks, fills forms, types and scrolls; n8n ships no browser of its own. |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | D Dify |
n n8n |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
From $59/mo · Sandbox free demo + free self-host | From €20/mo (annual) · free self-host |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, partial | Public, partial |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
credits | runs |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Medium variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tier
|
Free tierTrial
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Mixed |
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