Dify vs Letta
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Dify
Open-source platform for building production LLM apps
VS
Letta
Build stateful LLM agents with long-term memory
| Feature | Dify | Letta |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 96 · Excellent |
| Category | Self-Hosted AI | Self-Hosted AI |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 157,021 | ★ 24,864 |
| First released | 2023 | 2023 |
| Replaces | OpenAI Assistants, Vertex AI Agent Builder | OpenAI Assistants |
What are Dify and Letta?
Dify
Dify is an LLM application development platform that combines workflow orchestration, RAG pipelines, agent capabilities, and observability. It lets teams build and operate generative AI applications with a visual interface.
- Visual workflow builder
- Built-in RAG engine
- Agent and tool support
- Prompt and dataset management
Letta
Letta, formerly known as MemGPT, is an open-source framework for building LLM agents with persistent memory and advanced reasoning. It provides a server, agent development kit, and visual interface for creating stateful assistants.
- Persistent agent memory
- Self-editing context
- Agent Development Kit
- Visual agent editor
Dify vs Letta: key differences
Dify is written in TypeScript, while Letta is built with Python. Letta is the lighter option, starting around 2,048 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Dify. Dify has the considerably larger community, at 157,021 GitHub stars versus 24,864.
Why pick each one
Choose Dify if…
- Visual workflow builder
- Built-in RAG pipelines
- Growing plugin ecosystem
Watch out for
- Heavy multi-container stack
- Enterprise features paid
Choose Letta if…
- Persistent agent memory
- Visual agent builder
- Model-agnostic design
Watch out for
- Concept-heavy
- Best with capable models
Frequently asked questions
Is Dify or Letta better?
Neither is universally better. Dify has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Dify and Letta free and open-source?
Yes. Dify is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Letta under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Dify and Letta with Docker?
Dify: yes. Letta: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Dify or Letta?
Letta has the smaller minimum footprint at 2,048 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Dify. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.