Dify vs StackAI (2026)

Integrations connect Dify to model providers, tools, data sources and external services through a Tool node, a Dify Tools management surface, an HTTP Request node for arbitrary APIs, MCP tools, Custom Endpoints, an External Data Tool extension and a public marketplace of installable plugins typed across Models, Tools, Data Sources, Triggers, Agent Strategies, Extensions and Bundles. Agent nodes invoke tools autonomously with per-parameter control over whether values are model-generated or fixed at configuration time.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai integrations and node reference, marketplace.dify.airead 2026-08-31

Roughly ninety app nodes each come with their actions, inputs, configurations and outputs spelled out.

Classes represented include CRM and sales with Salesforce, HubSpot and Outreach, ERP with SAP, NetSuite and Oracle, ITSM and ticketing with ServiceNow, Jira, Linear, ClickUp and Zendesk, HR with Workday, data warehouses and databases with Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Azure SQL, Synapse, MongoDB, MySQL and PostgreSQL, vector stores with Pinecone and Weaviate, storage and documents with SharePoint, Box, OneDrive, Egnyte, Google Docs and Excel, communications with Slack, Teams, Gmail, Outlook and Missive, financial data with SEC EDGAR, Pitchbook, Crunchbase, Fred and Yahoo Finance, plus Docusign, Stripe, Miro, Notion, Airtable, Smartsheet, Coda and a Custom API node. An MCP node connects to any Model Context Protocol server.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com apps treeread 2026-08-31

Workflow and Chatflow share one node library and execution model, with If-Else branching, Iteration over arrays, Loop with progressive refinement, Question Classifier routing, Variable Aggregator convergence, Parameter Extractor, sandboxed Code execution, and Orchestration Logic covering how nodes are arranged, nested or reused. Agent nodes run a reasoning-and-tool loop as a step inside a larger flow with a configurable iteration ceiling, a published workflow can be called as a tool by another workflow or exposed as an MCP server, and version control plus Snippets support reuse across flows.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai workflow, node and version-control referencesread 2026-08-31

In the AI Agent node, Subflow Tools let an agent call another flow as a tool with its own tools, knowledge sources, main and advanced settings. Logic nodes cover AI Routing for branching the model decides, If/Else for deterministic branching, Loop Subflow for iteration, and Code and Python Code for custom logic, with a Delay node for pacing and a StackAI Project Node for invoking another project. StackAI also gives guidance on orchestrating AI agents, common architectures, handling errors and fallback, detecting the first run, and skipping or replacing a node.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com core nodes, logic and guides treesread 2026-08-31

A dedicated Trigger family has three members, Schedule Trigger, Integration (plugin) Trigger and Webhook Trigger, and the Start node sets whether a workflow begins on demand or automatically from a user message, API call, scheduled trigger, webhook, plugin event or uploaded payload. On the output side, channels are a hosted web app, an iframe or chat-widget embed, the REST API, the difyctl CLI and a published MCP server. Trigger Events are metered on every tier, 3,000 on Sandbox with a cap of two triggers per workflow and 20,000 a month on Professional with unlimited triggers per workflow.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai node reference, dify.ai/workflows and dify.ai/pricingread 2026-08-31

Trigger Nodes start automated workflows in two ways.

Event based triggers run the moment something happens, such as a new Gmail or Outlook email, a Typeform submission, a Stripe payment, a new Zendesk ticket or another StackAI workflow finishing, with filters on conditions such as sender, label or attachments, and time based triggers run once at a set date and time or recur hourly, daily or weekly.

Both start the workflow without a person initiating it. End-user interfaces add Form, Chat Assistant, Website Chatbot, Slack App, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp and SMS through Twilio, Batch Run and API.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com Trigger Node page and end-user interfaces treeread 2026-09-29

Knowledge is a product surface of its own. Knowledge bases come ready to use, with configurable chunking, cleaning and indexing method, and a custom Knowledge Pipeline can be built and published as its own orchestrated flow. Content comes in from local files, Notion sync and website crawl, with document metadata management, a Knowledge Retrieval node, a retrieval hit-testing tool, and an External Knowledge API specification for pointing Dify at a customer's existing RAG service. Storage and request-rate quotas are metered per tier.

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Knowledge bases can be created and used by an AI agent in two ways, through knowledge base nodes and tools, with a Knowledge Base app node for search and retrieval over indexed documents and a Knowledge Bases REST endpoint. Connection and Knowledge Base Permissions restrict access independently of workflow access. A Dynamic Vector Store node builds retrieval at runtime, Search Connected Apps grounds against live systems, and Pinecone and Weaviate nodes query customer-managed vector databases. Chunking and embeddings are configurable, and Reducto and VLM nodes handle document parsing.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com knowledge bases, apps and core concepts treesread 2026-08-31

State persists within a conversation but not across them. A Variable Assigner node manages persistent conversation variables in Chatflow applications, Chat Web Apps keep persistent history, and the Agent node has a Memory toggle with a configurable window size, implemented as a token buffer over recent messages. Log history is retained and browsable per tier, 30 days on Sandbox and unlimited on the paid plans, and workflow runs can be inspected after the fact. Dify offers no memory that carries across sessions or learns over time.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai node reference and dify.ai/pricingread 2026-08-31

The Shared Memory node passes conversational context from one LLM node to another, with the builder choosing how many past interactions to forward, and StackAI warns that passing too many will overwhelm the receiving model's context window. That context is passed within a run, and no memory kept across sessions or learned over time is described. Browser session state that persists across runs and Canvas version history for each conversation belong to the browser and document features.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com Shared Memory node and complete documentation indexread 2026-08-31

Human Input is a workflow node that pauses the workflow to request human input. In Workflow Studio, before actions that affect sensitive data, access or policy, the run pauses and a person can approve, edit, comment on or forward it before it continues, with timeout handling. A Sensitive Content Moderation endpoint extension is a separate guardrail, and workspace member roles govern who can act.

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Human in the Loop is one of StackAI's core nodes, and the first of its building challenges is constructing a procurement intake assistant that gathers missing details with HITL and confirms the final request before sending. Approval requests can be delivered in Slack with approve and disapprove controls, bringing human oversight into critical decision points. Workflow Notifications are available, and Project Controls lock workflows when in production. Feature Access lets an admin enforce governance standards over what builders may use.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com human-in-the-loop node, building challenges and security tree, stackai.comread 2026-08-31

Dify holds SOC 2 Type I and Type II and ISO 27001:2022, with the ISO assessment by auditing firm Johanson, complies with GDPR, and releases its reports to paid customers on request through security@dify.ai. A trust center at security.dify.ai has a subprocessors page, and Dify publishes a signed Data Protection Agreement PDF alongside its privacy policy, terms and marketplace agreement.

Customers get SSO via SAML/OIDC, fine-grained RBAC down to workflow level, SCIM provisioning, session policies, tamper-evident audit logs streamed to the customer's SIEM, PII-redacted prompt history and bring-your-own-key encryption, and SSO and the enterprise control set come only on the Enterprise tier.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai/en/policies/agreement/get-compliance-report, dify.ai/dify-enterprise and security.dify.airead 2026-08-31

Security and governance controls cover Security and Privacy, AI Governance, Role-Based Access Controls and Groups, Workspace and Folder Access, Project Controls, Feature Access for admin enforcement of governance standards, Connection and Knowledge Base Permissions, Authentication and MFA, an Agentic Development Lifecycle, and SCIM provisioning from the customer's identity provider with dedicated Okta and Entra guides.

Environment Variables store encrypted secrets outside the workflow and resolve stage-specific values at runtime. StackAI holds SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA and GDPR certification, with a Trust Center at trust.stackai.com, a SOC 2 report request form, published OpenAI and Anthropic data processing addenda, and a BAA signing route.

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A built-in analytics dashboard covers performance, cost and engagement, and conversation and run logs carry stated retention, with downloadable archived workflow logs, a Run History view, a Variable Inspector for intermediate values, and typed error metadata per node. Traces stream over OpenTelemetry to seven named external stacks, Langfuse, LangSmith, Opik, W&B Weave, Arize, Phoenix and Alibaba Cloud ARMS. Enterprise adds tamper-evident audit logs streamed to the customer's SIEM, per-call traces and PII-redacted prompt history.

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The Analytics page gives node level information to follow the data flowing through a workflow, trace any actions taken at each step and find the node where an error originated, a record of the agent's run step by step. It also shows runs, users, errors and token usage over a time range, with an admin only switch to disable logs for sensitive workflows, the Manager view shows every conversation between users and agents, and an Analytics REST endpoint is available.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com Troubleshooting a Workflow, Analytics and Manager pagesread 2026-09-29

Dify runs as hosted Dify Cloud, as a Dify-managed single-tenant dedicated cluster in the customer's region, as a customer-managed deployment into the customer's own AWS, GCP or Azure VPC through a Helm chart or Terraform modules, or fully air-gapped on-prem with locally deployed models and no egress. The open-source Community Edition self-deploys with Docker Compose and has its own 277-page self-hosting guide. Data stays inside the customer's VPC, region and perimeter, with bring-your-own-key encryption and multi-tenant isolation offering tenant-level quotas and access policies.

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StackAI can run on premises, and the StackAI Auto CLI, an enterprise command line tool, deploys and manages StackAI on customer infrastructure, with engineering standards, a getting started guide, migration from a legacy Docker deployment and a storage-api CVE upgrade plan. Government deployments come with guidance for provisioning Azure OpenAI in Azure Government. StackAI offers multi tenant, VPC and on premise deployment with Kubernetes, and the workflow builder supports local LLM hosting and LLMs hosted on Azure and AWS Bedrock so inference can stay inside the customer's own cloud account.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com on-premise, government deployments and Auto CLI trees, stackai.com deploy anywhere sectionread 2026-08-31

Dify Marketplace carries a named templates catalog of ready-to-use workflows that open in Dify with one click, filterable by Marketing, Sales, Support, Operations, IT and Knowledge and by partner, with entries such as Daily AI News Digest by langgenius, Competitive Landscape Intelligence, AI Technical Research Assistant and a Qdrant upsert on a Google Drive trigger, each showing its publisher and usage count, alongside a plugin catalog typed across Models, Tools, Data Sources, Triggers, Agent Strategies, Extensions and Bundles and a Creator Center. Customers can publish their own apps through Publish Apps to Marketplace, workflows export and import as DSL, and Snippets reuse groups of nodes.

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Templates are offered in the workflow builder and on the product site. StackAI Computer users can open the Templates section and search for the Content Writer template, a pre-built agent with a structured system prompt that demonstrates document generation from start to finish. Skills are reusable instruction packs that AI Agents load on demand, a Prompt Library holds saved prompts and instructions, and common architectures give reusable workflow patterns. Fourteen tutorial agents can be built as examples, including compliance, IT support, policy, Salesforce and web research agents.

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Model Providers lets the customer either spend Dify credits on hosted models or connect its own provider accounts and API keys, and the LLM node selects the model per node, so different steps of one workflow can run on different models. OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI and Tongyi are available on credits, and once credits run out the customer switches to its own key. Model providers install as marketplace plugins, and air-gapped deployments connect locally deployed models.

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StackAI supports multiple LLMs, models hosted on Azure and AWS Bedrock in the customer's own account, and local LLMs on the customer's own infrastructure, and LLM Provider Governance controls which LLMs the organization has access to and where information is sent and stored. Guidance covers using multiple LLMs and improving LLM performance, a Cerebras node adds a dedicated inference provider, and StackAI is LLM agnostic, naming Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, Google Gemini and Mistral. A public LLM Leaderboard is published on its site.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com LLM hosting and governance tree, stackai.comread 2026-08-31

A REST API with a published OpenAPI specification integrates Dify applications into the customer's own product, with app credentials, streamed responses and session management. The difyctl CLI runs Dify apps from terminals, scripts, CI and other AI agents, and a plugin development kit lets third parties build tools, models and integrations. Published workflows are exposed as MCP servers that Claude Desktop, Cursor and other MCP clients can use, inbound webhooks, custom endpoints and an External Knowledge API specification round out the options, and the whole platform is open source on GitHub.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai API reference and CLI overview, dify.ai/workflowsread 2026-08-31

An API Reference covers Run Flow, Knowledge Bases and Analytics endpoints, and a StackAI MCP Server exposes the platform to MCP clients. The StackAI Auto CLI is an enterprise command line tool for deploying and managing the platform. Within workflows, a Custom API node calls arbitrary external endpoints, a Code Node and Python Code node run custom logic, and Exporting and Importing Projects plus Sharing Projects and Backup make agent definitions portable. An interface can be deployed as an API, alongside Exposed Inputs and signed URL generation.

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Customers can run a single node or the whole flow against sample input, inspect intermediate variable values before real traffic arrives, review run history, read typed error metadata and configure predefined error-handling logic so nodes stop, return defaults or route to a recovery branch. Knowledge retrieval has its own hit-testing tool, an Annotation System curates approved answers with a quota per tier, and version control restores any published build. Dify offers no evaluation, scoring, regression suite or benchmarking product.

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An Evaluator in the Observability section scores an agent's performance with an LLM as a judge, alongside Analytics and Manager. StackAI covers an Agentic Development Lifecycle, the workflow editor shows version control, a pull request and a prompt diff, and Project Controls track versions during workflow development and lock workflows in production. Guides cover troubleshooting a workflow and handling errors and fallback, and a Prompt Library stores saved prompts and instructions.

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The node library has no browser, desktop or computer-use node. An Import Data from Website crawl feeds the knowledge base, and a tutorial scrapes a public profile through a third-party crawling tool. Both reach content over HTTP. Dify acts on external systems through APIs, HTTP requests, MCP tools and installed plugins.

Sourcedocs.dify.ai node reference and knowledge import treeread 2026-08-31

Browser Navigation Replay persists browser state including cookies, sessions and local storage across runs. A session is recorded through a bundled browser extension in a sandboxed browser and replayed later on a schedule or trigger, and if the recording was captured while logged into a web application, that session state is preserved between runs so re-authentication is not needed.

Each replay returns a step-by-step result payload plus a stream URL for watching execution in real time. Browser Navigation is the choice when the agent must reason its way through an unfamiliar or dynamic task, and a separate HyperBrowser node automates browser tasks. The Terminal sandbox and Canvas actions on the same provider handle code execution and document editing.

Sourcedocs.stackai.com StackAI Computer and HyperBrowser nodesread 2026-08-31