Dify vs Orchestrator Zero
oz0 records agent jobs running on your infrastructure. Dify combines a visual app builder, workflows and knowledge pipelines. oz0 focuses on operating agents across your machines, with tenant rules, a model gateway and a verifiable audit trail.
What Dify is
Dify, made by LangGenius, is an open-source platform for building agentic workflows, chat apps and RAG pipelines on a visual canvas. It runs as Dify Cloud, as a free self-hosted community edition with one workspace, or on Kubernetes as Dify Enterprise. Agents run inside the deployment, as Agent nodes in workflows and, in beta, as a new Agent in a sandbox container of its own.
dify.ai- Runs
- Self-hosted or managed
- Checked
- 27 October 2026
Side by side.
Dify's ratings come from its own pages. A column's name opens its definition and how Orchestrator Zero does it. How we rated
Where it runs
Any machine you own
Yes
DocsYes: Anywhere Docker runs
You can self-host the whole stack, including the services that run agents, on any machine with Docker Compose, or on Kubernetes with Enterprise.
Linux, macOS and Windows
Conditional: Docker; WSL 2 on Windows
Dify is deployed as Linux containers: Docker on Linux, Docker Desktop on macOS, and Docker Desktop with WSL 2 on Windows.
Self-hosted control plane
Yes
DocsYes: Free community edition
The community edition is free to self-host with one workspace; Enterprise adds Kubernetes, SSO and multiple workspaces under a commercial licence.
No inbound ports
Yes
DocsNo: API calls the agent backend
The Dify API calls the agent backend and code sandbox over HTTP, so the services that run agents must accept connections from the platform.
Fleet operations
Yes
DocsNot documented
Dify documents scaling its API, workers and agent backend as services. A managed machine registry with enrollment, labels, blocking and upgrades is not documented.
Durability
Durable runs
Conditional: Waits persist; no crash resume
A workflow paused at a Human Input node waits until someone answers or it times out, but no resume after a server or worker crash is documented.
Governance
Tool policy outside the model
Conditional: Tool list per agent only
Each agent gets the tools you add, and Enterprise admins can limit which plugins workspaces install, but there is no per-call allow, approve or deny rule.
Approvals in chat
Conditional: Web, email, API; no chat app
The Human Input node pauses a workflow until a person picks an action in the web app, through an email link or through the Service API; no chat app delivery is offered.
Tool snapshots
Yes
DocsConditional: MCP tool list updated by hand
Dify imports an MCP server's tools when you connect it and pulls changes only when someone updates the list, without comparing them or holding them for approval.
Tenants built in
Yes
DocsConditional: Many workspaces: Enterprise
Workspaces isolate apps, knowledge, members and model keys, but the community edition and each cloud plan have one; several need Enterprise, and the licence bars running a multi-tenant service from the source without written permission.
Cost
Budgets that stop a run
Conditional: Token costs shown, no cap
The dashboard shows token use and cost, and a new Agent run stops at 500 model calls, but no spend limit in money is documented.
Security
Provider keys off the workers
Yes
DocsConditional: Platform-held credentials
Workspace model credentials are held by Dify services. The new Agent calls back to the agent backend; the docs do not establish a separate model gateway that keeps provider keys off all agent-executing hosts.
Sandbox with an egress allowlist
Conditional: OpenShell allowlist is optional
The default sandbox uses a proxy that blocks private addresses. The new Agent also supports E2B and self-hosted OpenShell; OpenShell has an explicit host-and-port allowlist that you must configure.
Audit and compliance
Tamper-evident audit trail
Conditional: Enterprise, admin actions only
Dify Enterprise logs resource, permission and configuration changes and calls the log tamper-evident, but it does not cover agent tool calls, and no way to verify it is documented.
Erasure by key
Conditional: Delete conversations by API
The Service API deletes a conversation and its messages and tool files, but there are no per-person keys and files users uploaded are kept.
Retention with legal hold
Conditional: Retention days, no legal hold
Self-hosted admins can clean up messages and workflow logs older than a set number of days, and Dify Cloud's free plan keeps 30 days of logs; no legal hold is documented.
Openness
Model provider choice
Yes
DocsYes
Model provider plugins cover hosted vendors such as OpenAI and Anthropic and any OpenAI-compatible API, and local models run through Ollama, LocalAI or Xinference.
MCP and A2A
Yes
DocsConditional: MCP; A2A via community plugin
Dify imports tools from MCP servers and publishes apps as MCP servers; A2A has no first-party support, and community Marketplace plugins add an A2A client.
Where Dify is stronger.
SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001
Dify's enterprise page lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, with SSO, RBAC and audit logs.
dify.aiVisual canvas and hosted cloud
Workflows and chat apps are built on a visual canvas, and Dify Cloud runs them with a free plan.
docs.dify.aiMarketplace of plugins
Model providers, tools, data sources, triggers and MCP integrations install from the Dify Marketplace.
dify.aiSAML sign-in in Enterprise
Dify Enterprise signs members in with OIDC, SAML or OAuth2 through providers such as Okta and Azure AD.
enterprise-docs.dify.ai
Differences to examine.
Compare the scope, conditions and editions in the source notes.
- Linux, macOS and Windows
- No inbound ports
- Tool snapshots
- Tenants built in
- Budgets that stop a run
- Provider keys off the workers
- Tamper-evident audit trail
- Erasure by key
- MCP and A2A
Using both
Dify connects to MCP servers over HTTP and has an HTTP Request node, so a Dify workflow can call an Orchestrator Zero agent as an MCP tool or through its HTTP route.
Based on documentation; this pairing has not been tested.
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