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Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Dify

Bottom line

Agent Development Kit (ADK) is free, while Dify has a free plan plus paid upgrades. Agent Development Kit (ADK) is open source and Dify is not.

Which one should you try?

Agent Development Kit (ADK)

Free

Best for Developers building production-grade multi-agent systems with precise control

Visit Agent Development Kit (ADK) See full review

Dify

Freemium

Best for Teams building RAG, chatbot or agent apps with a visual builder

Visit Dify See full review

Pricing, capabilities and platforms side by side. Prices are as of the "Pricing checked" date in the table.

Agent Development Kit (ADK)

Agent Development Kit (ADK)

ADK is the open-source agent development framework that lets you build, debug, and deploy reliable AI agents at enterprise scale.

Dify

Dify

LLM app platform with visual workflows, RAG, agents and app APIs. Free Sandbox and self-hosted Community edition.

AttributeAgent Development Kit (ADK)Dify
PricingFreeFreemium
Price—Free Sandbox; Professional $590/workspace/year; Team $1,590/workspace/year (annual billing)
Pricing checkedNot checked yetOct 17, 2026
Free trialNot statedNot stated
Open sourceYesNo
Has APIYesYes
Self-hosted optionYesYes
PlatformsPython, TypeScript, Go, Java, KotlinDify Cloud (web); self-hosted with Docker Compose (min. 2 CPU cores, 4 GiB RAM)
LanguagesPython, TypeScript, Go, and Java—
Released2025-04—
Pros
  • Context is treated like source code with structured assembly of sessions, memory, tool outputs, and artifacts, automatic filtering of irrelevant events, summarization of older turns, lazy-loading of artifacts, and token usage tracking to keep agents fast, efficient, and reliable by default
  • Multi-language support with Python, TypeScript, Go, and Java implementations
  • Model-agnostic and compatible with other frameworks while optimized for Gemini
  • Built-in development UI for testing, evaluating, debugging, and showcasing agents
  • When deploying to Google Cloud, agents inherit managed infrastructure, built-in authentication, Cloud Trace observability, and enterprise-grade security without code changes
  • Workflows, RAG, agents and logging in one platform, with an API for every app.
  • Connects to many model providers, including any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
  • Free self-hosted Community edition via Docker Compose, alongside hosted Dify Cloud.
Cons
  • Optimized primarily for Google Cloud deployment and Gemini models, though model-agnostic capabilities exist
  • Development version builds directly from latest code commits may contain experimental changes or bugs not present in stable release
  • The modified Apache 2.0 license requires authorization for multi-tenant services and bars removing frontend branding.
  • Multiple workspaces and commercial license authorization are Enterprise features.
  • Model API usage is billed by providers once included cloud credits run out.

Made up your mind?

Agent Development Kit (ADK)

Free

Best for Developers building production-grade multi-agent systems with precise control

Visit Agent Development Kit (ADK) See full review

Dify

Freemium

Best for Teams building RAG, chatbot or agent apps with a visual builder

Visit Dify See full review

Related comparisons

Free trials & curated lists

Specs come from each tool's own site and docs (how we test). AIDiveForge is editorially independent.

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