From open-source project to global platform
Dify launched in March 2023, founded by Luyu Zhang, who previously led Tencent Cloud's CODING.NET DevOps platform. The name stands for 'Define + Modify'. It has become one of the most-starred open-source projects on GitHub — running on over 1.4 million machines across 175+ countries with 800+ contributors — by packaging everything needed to ship LLM applications into one platform.
What it does
Dify combines a visual, no-code workflow builder with production-grade infrastructure: agentic workflows, RAG pipelines with a built-in knowledge engine, support for hundreds of models from any provider, prompt management, MCP integration, plugins, and full observability. Teams deploy it self-hosted via Docker or use Dify Cloud's managed service with a free tier. Enterprises including Volvo Cars, Maersk, Ricoh and ETS use it for document review, knowledge copilots, support automation and invoice auditing.
Funding
LangGenius raised a $30M pre-Series A led by HSG (Sequoia China) at a reported $180M valuation, with GL Ventures, 5Y Capital and Mizuho-affiliated funds participating — fueling expansion across Japan, the US and Europe.