Dify vs OpenAI Responses API
Compare Dify and OpenAI Responses API on pricing, free tier, open source, API, self-host, verdict and momentum.
Both are agents tools. Dify is freemium (Cloud Sandbox free; self-host Community free under restricted license; cloud Professional/Team paid yearly) with an API, self-hostable and a free tier; OpenAI Responses API is paid (pay-per-token; e.g. GPT-5.6 Luna $0.20/1M input) with an API. The catalog stamp is ship for Dify and ship for OpenAI Responses API, last verified 2026-09-01 and 2026-08-19 respectively.
Auto-paired from catalog data — the verdicts are hand-set, the pairing is algorithmic.
Dify
Source-available LLM app platform with agent workflows and RAG.
OpenAI Responses API
OpenAI's agent-building API — tools, web search and file search built in.
| field | Dify | OpenAI Responses API |
|---|---|---|
| pricing | freemium · Cloud Sandbox free; self-host Community free under restricted license; cloud Professional/Team paid yearly | paid · pay-per-token; e.g. GPT-5.6 Luna $0.20/1M input |
| free tier | yes | no |
| open source | no | no |
| api | yes | yes |
| self-host | yes | no |
| verdict | ship | ship |
| momentum | blueshift | blueshift |
| last verified | 2026-09-01 | 2026-08-19 |
| key limitation | The Dify license restricts multi-tenant use and frontend rebranding, so it is not OSI open source. | Hosted-tool pricing (storage, search calls) sneaks up on you. |
The call
Pick Dify if you need a free tier first.
Pick OpenAI Responses API for new OpenAI agent projects after the Assistants sunset.
Dify sources
OpenAI Responses API sources
Open live compare →Dify pageOpenAI Responses API pageDify.jsonOpenAI Responses API.json