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Comparison · ai-assistants

Dify vs Khoj

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Dify and Khoj — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Dify vs Khoj: at a glance

FeatureDifyKhoj
Sectorai-assistantsai-assistants
Velocity score6.30.0
Sparks · 30d10
Top themesagent-runtime, workflow-orchestration, human-in-the-loop, skillspersonal-ai, long-term-memory, self-hosted, cloud-deprecation
Last editorial update22h ago2h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is Dify?

Dify is rebuilding itself around a sandboxed agent runtime, with the workflow builder as the legacy layer.

Dify still ships as an LLM app platform — visual workflows, a knowledge base with vector retrieval, and self-hosted Docker deployment. But the last two release cycles have moved the center of gravity: a sandboxed Linux agent runtime, a Skill Editor for packaging reusable capabilities, and a Human Input node that lets a workflow pause for review. Between those, the releases are patch work: tenant isolation fixes, self-hosted SECRET_KEY hardening, and workflow-editor ergonomics.

Read the full Dify trajectory →

What is Khoj?

Khoj gave its assistant long-term memory, then started winding down its own cloud.

The 2.0 beta line is doing two things at once. In February it gave Khoj long-term memories, moving the assistant from per-conversation context to knowledge that persists across sessions. Six weeks later it began deprecating Khoj cloud — a banner warning hosted users, and the subscribe option removed from the web app's settings page. The same release upgraded the web app to Next.js 15 and fixed the research agent stopping earlier than it should.

Read the full Khoj trajectory →

Dify vs Khoj: editorial side-by-side

D
Dify
AI-ASSISTANTS
6.3

Dify is rebuilding itself around a sandboxed agent runtime, with the workflow builder as the legacy layer.

◆ Current state

Dify still ships as an LLM app platform — visual workflows, a knowledge base with vector retrieval, and self-hosted Docker deployment. But the last two release cycles have moved the center of gravity: a sandboxed Linux agent runtime, a Skill Editor for packaging reusable capabilities, and a Human Input node that lets a workflow pause for review. Between those, the releases are patch work: tenant isolation fixes, self-hosted SECRET_KEY hardening, and workflow-editor ergonomics.

◆ Where it's heading

The arc from 1.13 to 1.16 is a conversion from graph-first to agent-first. HITL came first, making the workflow engine tolerant of pauses and external decisions; then the agent runtime arrived to fill those graphs with something that plans rather than follows edges. Dify Agent shipping as an explicit experiment — with a warning to expose it only to trusted users — signals the sandbox isolation is not yet production-grade, which is why the surrounding releases spend so much effort on tenant scoping and credential permissions.

◆ Prediction

Expect Dify Agent to leave experimental status in a 1.17 or 1.18 release once the sandbox and credential-scoping work lands, with Skills becoming a shareable artifact alongside the existing app DSL export.

K
Khoj
AI-ASSISTANTS
0.0

Khoj gave its assistant long-term memory, then started winding down its own cloud.

◆ Current state

The 2.0 beta line is doing two things at once. In February it gave Khoj long-term memories, moving the assistant from per-conversation context to knowledge that persists across sessions. Six weeks later it began deprecating Khoj cloud — a banner warning hosted users, and the subscribe option removed from the web app's settings page. The same release upgraded the web app to Next.js 15 and fixed the research agent stopping earlier than it should.

◆ Where it's heading

Khoj is consolidating around the self-hosted product and the model layer beneath it, and stepping back from running the hosted service. Model support has been broadening steadily — Gemini Pro 3, Minimax M2, Nano Banana image editing, configurable fallback models with admin-set priority — while Stability AI image generation was dropped. The client work follows the same logic: Obsidian batch sync, file query filter autocomplete, reference copying, all aimed at people running their own instance against their own files.

◆ Prediction

With subscriptions already disabled and a deprecation banner live, the next step for the hosted service is a shutdown date. The entries stop in late March 2026, so whether 2.0 has left beta since is not visible here.

Alternatives to Dify and Khoj

Other ai-assistants products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Dify or Khoj.

See all Dify alternatives → · See all Khoj alternatives →

Recent activity from Dify and Khoj

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 1d agoDifyRelease v1.16.1 - Bug Fixes and Security Enhancements
  2. 20d agoDifyDify Agent: a sandboxed shell agent you build from Skills
  3. 2mo agoDifyv1.14.2 - Security fixes, agent groundwork, workflow reliability, and deployment updates
  4. 2mo agoDifyv1.14.1 - Security hardening, workflow stability, and cleaner self-hosted deployments
  5. 4mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.28: two small web app fixes
  6. 4mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.27: page templates fixed for Starlette 1.0.0
  7. 4mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.26 starts deprecating Khoj cloud
  8. 5mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.25 gives Khoj long-term memory
  9. 5mo agoDifySandboxed agent runtime and a Skill Editor arrive in 1.14.0-rc1
  10. 5mo agoDify1.13.0 - Human-in-the-Loop and Workflow Execution Upgrades
  11. 6mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.20 adds Nano Banana image editing and model fallbacks
  12. 6mo agoKhoj2.0.0-beta.21 drops Stability AI image generation

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Dify and Khoj?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Dify is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Dify better than Khoj?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Dify is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other ai-assistants products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Dify?

Top Dify alternatives in ai-assistants are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Dify alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dify for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Khoj?

Top Khoj alternatives in ai-assistants are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Khoj alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/khoj for the full list with editorial commentary on each.