Dify vs Rasa (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Dify if

• Fits if your team wants agents and chatbots that answer from your own documents
• Works for teams that have to self-host or keep everything in a private cloud

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you work alone: the first paid step is $59 a month for a 3-member workspace, and Team is $159
• Tight if you're staying on Sandbox, with 1 member, 5 apps and 200 message credits that don't refill
• Not for you if you need SSO or more than one workspace, which are Enterprise only, at a price not published
• Watch out: the free Community Edition means hosting it on Docker yourself, with one workspace and Dify's own license
• Skip it if you want a phone or desktop app, as Dify is a web app

Pick Rasa if

• Fits if you have engineers building a customer-facing chat or voice agent
• Works for small bots under 1,000 conversations a month

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you grow: the free edition stops at one bot per company
• Skip it if you want a price list, because Enterprise is sold through sales
• Not for you if you lack engineers, since Kubernetes is the documented scale path
• Watch out: the AudioCodes phone connector is an extra purchase

Dify

• The Sandbox plan's 200 message credits are a one-time grant; after that you supply your own model API keys.
• Cloud plans are priced per workspace with member caps: 1 on Sandbox, 3 on Professional and 50 on Team.
• SSO, multiple workspaces and a commercial license are part of the Enterprise edition only.
• The free Community Edition is limited to a single workspace and uses Dify's own Apache-2.0-derived license.

Rasa

• The free Developer Edition is limited to one bot per company and 1,000 external conversations a month.
• Enterprise pricing is not published and is sold through sales.
• Building and running agents is engineering work; Kubernetes deployment is the documented scale path.
• The AudioCodes IVR connector is sold as an additional purchase.

Dify

Workflow Studio

A visual canvas for workflows and chatflows, where blocks define how an app retrieves data, makes decisions, calls tools, asks for human input and completes a task.

Agents

Agents are built by chatting or by manual configuration with skills, tools and knowledge, then used as an app, embedded in a website or reused as a node inside a workflow.

Knowledge pipeline

Repeatable pipelines extract, clean, chunk and index files, websites, online documents and drives into a knowledge base, with retrieval testing before it is connected to an app.

Marketplace and plugins

Model providers, tools, data sources and MCP integrations are installed from the Marketplace or defined yourself, and reused across the apps in a workspace.

Publishing and monitoring

Apps ship as hosted web apps, API endpoints, embeds or MCP-compatible tools, with logs, feedback, annotations, latency and usage data to review.

Cloud, enterprise or self-hosted

Use Dify Cloud, deploy the Enterprise edition in your own VPC or on Kubernetes with a Helm chart, or self-host the Community Edition with Docker.

Rasa

CALM dialogue engine

Combines LLM flexibility with structured flows, deterministic business logic and built-in recovery patterns.

Visual and code-based building

Assistants can be designed in code or in a no-code flow builder, with a custom actions server (Rasa SDK) and open prompt editing.

Testing and analysis

End-to-end testing, a try-your-assistant panel, a conversation view for analysis, and change observation with rollback.

Enterprise search and RAG

Retrieves answers from a company's own data, with a response rephraser and multi-LLM management.

Voice and channels

Includes real-time voice infrastructure and REST and WebSocket channel connectors; an IVR connector to AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect is a paid extra.

Deployment and governance

Deploys on Kubernetes with Helm and adds SSO, role-based access control, PII management and Vault-based secrets.

Dify

• SandboxFree

  1 member, 5 apps, 50 knowledge documents, 50 MB of knowledge storage, 200 one-time message credits and 30 days of log history.

• CommunityFree

  Open-source edition you self-host with Docker: all core features in the public repository, a single workspace and community support.

• Professional$59

  per workspace / month ($590 per year billed annually)

  3 team members, 50 apps, 5,000 message credits a month, 500 knowledge documents, 5 GB of storage and 20,000 trigger events a month.

• Team$159

  per workspace / month ($1,590 per year billed annually)

  50 team members, 200 apps, 10,000 message credits a month, 1,000 knowledge documents, 20 GB of storage and unlimited trigger events.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Self-hosted or VPC deployment with a commercial license, multiple workspaces, SSO, advanced security controls and professional support.

Rasa

• Free Developer Edition$0

  One bot per company with up to 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month and community support.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Full Rasa Platform with Basic or Premium Support, self-managed on premises or in a private cloud, or as a managed service; sold through sales.

Dify

• Annual discount

  Save 17% with annual billing

  Dify's pricing page lists a 17% saving for annual billing: Professional is $590 a year instead of $59 a month, and Team is $1,590 a year instead of $159 a month.

• Education

  Free Professional plan for students and educators

  Verified students, teachers and school staff aged 18 or over can use the Yearly Professional plan at no cost, re-verified each year. Message credits stay at the Sandbox level of 200.

Rasa

No public discounts listed.