Dify vs Google Agent Development Kit
Dify
dify.ai
Google Agent Development Kit
adk.devSide by side
| Figure | Dify | Google Agent Development Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $49.17/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 11 | 2 |
| Spec score · AI Agent Platforms | 9.3 (#1) | 8.8 (#7) |
| API surface | Every published app and knowledge base has a REST API; the documentation covers chat, completion, workflow, conversation, file, audio, feedback, annotation, end-user, and knowledge endpoints. | Official references include Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin APIs plus CLI, configuration and REST API references. |
| Integrations | The Marketplace provides model providers, tools, data sources, MCP integrations, and reusable plugins, with support for custom definitions. | The integrations catalog includes tools and connectors for MCP, Google Cloud, databases, search, observability, and third-party services. |
| License | Dify uses a modified Apache 2.0 license with restrictions on unauthorized multi-tenant operation and removing frontend branding or copyright notices. | The Python ADK repository is licensed under the permissive Apache License 2.0. |
| Purpose | Dify is an open-source platform for building AI applications with agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, model management, observability, and tools. | ADK is an open-source framework for building, debugging, evaluating, and deploying AI agents. |
| Self-hosting | Community Edition can be deployed with Docker Compose, while Enterprise supports private or VPC deployment and Kubernetes Helm charts. | The framework can be containerized and operated on infrastructure chosen by the developer without changing agent code. |
| Support | Sandbox support is community and help documentation, while Professional and Team include priority email support. | The site links to community resources and says Google and the ADK team do not support the content in external community resources. |
| What it does | Dify is an LLM application platform combining visual workflows, RAG pipelines, agents, model and tool support, publishing, and monitoring. | ADK is Google's open-source framework for building, debugging, evaluating and deploying production AI agents and multi-agent systems. |
Plans
Dify
- CommunityFree
- CommunityFree
- SandboxFree
- SandboxFree
- Professional$59 a month
- Team$159 a month
- Professional$590 a year
- Professional$590 a year
- Team$1,590 a year
- Team$1,590 a year
Google Agent Development Kit
- ADK frameworkFree
- Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)Free
In their own words
Dify
Dify is an open-source platform for building AI applications with agentic workflows, retrieval pipelines, model management, observability, and tools. Workflow Studio provides a visual canvas for model calls, knowledge retrieval, tools, code, branching, triggers, and human review. Workflows can start from user input, API calls, schedules, webhooks, plugin events, or uploaded payloads. Knowledge Pipeline turns files, online documents, drives, crawlers, and web content into searchable knowledge bases with metadata and citations. Retrieval supports semantic, keyword, hybrid, and reranked methods with metadata filters. Applications can be published as hosted web apps, website embeds, API endpoints, or MCP servers. Dify connects to providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and xAI, while its Marketplace lists more than 200 tools. Community Edition is self-hostable with Docker; Enterprise can run in a customer VPC, on-premises, or an air-gapped network. Sandbox and Community are free. Professional costs $590 a year per workspace; Team costs $1,590 a year per workspace.
Google Agent Development Kit
Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) is an open-source framework for building, debugging, evaluating, and deploying AI agents. It is available in Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, and Kotlin. Graph-based workflows can combine deterministic code with adaptive AI reasoning, and hierarchical agents can delegate work to specialized agents. ADK supports Gemini and adapters for other model providers, including locally running models. Its integrations catalog includes tools and connectors for MCP, Google Cloud, databases, search, observability, and third-party services. Teams can create multi-turn evaluation datasets and run evaluations locally through the CLI or development UI. ADK also supports live agents with bidirectional text and audio streaming, manages session context, and connects to longer-term memory services. Deployment options include Google Cloud Agent Runtime, Cloud Run, GKE, container-friendly infrastructure, and local Docker or Podman environments. Security guidance covers identity, authorization, guardrails, sandboxed code execution, and network controls. ADK is free; model and cloud-service use may require separate access or billing. Agent Config is narrower: it currently supports only Gemini models and requires Python.