Self-Hosted AI Agent Platforms in 2026: How a 5-Person Team Avoids $149.95 to $499.95 a Month in Managed Agent Seats, and Why Flowise Is Off the List

The short answer

Short answer, prices read on 1 October 2026: a small team that self-hosts an agent platform such as n8n, Dify or Langflow pays $0 in licence fees, against $149.95 to $499.95 a month for 5 seats of Lindy, or $159 a month for Dify‘s own hosted Team plan. That is up to $5,999.40 a year in seat fees avoided. What self-hosting does not remove is the server, the model API bill and someone’s time to run it, and four of the six licences below carry conditions worth reading before a client sees your deployment. Flowise, a visual builder of the same kind as Dify and Langflow, reached end of life on 31 August 2026.

Managed option for a team of 5	Per month	How it is billed
Lindy Pro, 5 seats	$499.95	$99.99 per user a month
Dify Cloud Team	$159	per workspace, billed monthly, up to 50 members
Lindy Plus, 5 seats	$149.95	$29.99 per user a month
AnythingLLM hosted Basic	$50	one private instance a month
Zapier Agents Pro	$50	1,500 activities a month, billed monthly
Activepieces Cloud Plus	$20	flat a month, up to 5 users
Self-hosted n8n, Dify, Langflow, AnythingLLM, Open WebUI or Activepieces	$0 licence	plus your server and model API

The six self-hostable platforms, side by side

Ordered by GitHub stars on 1 October 2026. All six repositories had a push on that date, so all six are under active development. Licence names come from each repository’s LICENSE file, because GitHub’s own detector reports NOASSERTION for four of them.

Platform	What it is	GitHub stars	Licence	Licence catch	Vendor’s own hosted plan
n8n	workflow automation with an AI Agent node	206,466	Sustainable Use License	internal business use only	Cloud Starter 24 a month (EUR on our 1 October 2026 read)
Dify	visual builder for agents, workflows and chat apps	157,692	modified Apache 2.0	no multi-tenant service, keep the logo	Cloud from $59 a month
Langflow	visual flow builder for agents and RAG	155,440	MIT License	none beyond MIT notice	free cloud account, no paid price published
Open WebUI	self-hosted chat interface for models	153,752	Open WebUI License	keep its branding above 50 users	no hosted price read
AnythingLLM	private workspace for chat, RAG and agents	66,657	MIT License	none beyond MIT notice	hosted from $50 a month
Activepieces	automation with flows, agents and MCP	24,832	MIT outside its ee folders	ee folders under a separate licence	Cloud Plus $20 a month

What each platform replaces, and what it costs to leave the cloud

n8n: the automation route (206,466 stars)

n8n is a workflow tool with an AI Agent node, so it fits a team whose agent mostly moves data between apps. n8n’s pricing page puts the free option this way: “A standard, self-hosted version of n8n is available on GitHub”. n8n Cloud Starter is 24 a month billed monthly or 20 billed annually for 2,500 executions; our 1 October 2026 read was served those figures in euros, and a US read on 30 September showed the same figures in dollars. The licence is the Sustainable Use License: use is allowed “only for your own internal business purposes” or non-commercial ends, so do not resell n8n itself as a service.

Dify: a visual agent builder with a hosted twin (157,692 stars)

Dify builds agents, workflows and chat apps in a visual editor, and it sells the same product as Dify Cloud. That makes the spend avoided easy to state: Professional is $59 a month billed monthly or $590 a year (about $49.17 a month) for 3 members; Team is $159 a month or $1,590 a year for up to 50 members. A 5-person team outgrows Professional’s 3 seats, so its hosted bill is $159 a month, $1,908 a year on monthly billing. The self-hosted Community edition is free and limited to a “Single Workspace”.

Dify plan	Billed monthly	Billed annually	Members	Message credits
Sandbox	$0 a month	$0 a year	1	200 message credits
Professional	$59 a month	$590 a year	3	5,000 message credits a month
Team	$159 a month	$1,590 a year	50	10,000 message credits a month
Community, self-hosted	$0	$0	your choice	you bring the model

Langflow: MIT and a free cloud (155,440 stars)

Langflow is a visual builder for agent and RAG flows under the MIT License, one of the two plain MIT licences among the six. Its site offers a free cloud account and says it is the “Same Langflow whether you’re using OSS or Cloud”, so a team can start hosted and move in-house without rebuilding. Langflow publishes no paid cloud price, so there is no hosted bill here to set against self-hosting. If your agents lean on document search, our RAG framework comparison covers the retrieval layer.

Open WebUI: a private chat front end (153,752 stars)

Open WebUI is a self-hosted chat interface that teams put in front of their own or hosted models. Its licence is BSD-style with one added condition: you may not remove or alter the Open WebUI branding unless end users stay at or under 50 in any rolling 30 day period, or you have written permission or an enterprise licence. Fine for an internal team of 5; read it again before you white-label it for a client.

AnythingLLM: the plainest spend-avoided case (66,657 stars)

AnythingLLM is a private workspace for chat, document RAG and agents under the MIT License. Its pricing page sells a hosted private instance at $50 a month (Basic) or $99 a month (Pro), and next to them offers to “Self-host with Docker for free”. Self-hosting the same software avoids $600 to $1,188 a year, less your server.

Activepieces: automation with agents, MIT at the core (24,832 stars)

Activepieces covers the same ground as n8n with a different licence: its LICENSE file puts everything outside the ee folders under MIT Expat, with the enterprise folders under a separate licence. Activepieces Cloud is free for 1,000 credits a month, $20 flat a month on Plus (up to 5 users) and $200 flat a month on Team (25 users included), billed monthly.

Flowise: archived, do not start a new project on it

Flowise is a visual agent builder of the same kind as Dify and Langflow, which is why it still turns up next to them. Its own sunset page sets out the wind-down: code freeze on 29 July 2026, repository archived on 10 August 2026, and end of life on 31 August 2026, when the core team left Discord and GitHub. The GitHub API shows the repository archived with its last push on 13 August 2026 and 55,492 stars. The team gives its reason as developers moving to coding agents, and tells users to fork the repository; the code stays under Apache 2.0.

The trap for a buyer: flowiseai.com still carries the banner “We’re sunsetting Flowise.” above Cloud plans on sale, Starter at $35 a month and Pro at $65 a month, and neither page gives a Cloud shutdown date. If you run Flowise, export your flows and plan a move to Langflow or Dify, the two visual builders above with commits on 1 October 2026. We have no review page for Flowise and will not add one as a recommendation.

The licence traps, in one table

“Open source” covers very different terms here. These are the clauses that decide whether you can host a platform for paying clients, read in each LICENSE file on 1 October 2026. Our audit of open source alternatives found the same pattern across other paid AI tools.

Platform	Licence	What it stops
Dify	Modified Apache 2.0	Running a multi-tenant service (one tenant is one workspace) and removing the logo or copyright from the console, unless Dify licenses you commercially
n8n	Sustainable Use License	Use beyond your own internal business, non-commercial or personal purposes
Open WebUI	Open WebUI License	Removing its branding above 50 end users in a rolling 30 days, without permission or an enterprise licence
Activepieces	MIT plus a separate ee licence	Nothing in the MIT core; the ee folders follow their own terms
Langflow	MIT License	Nothing beyond keeping the notice
AnythingLLM	MIT License	Nothing beyond keeping the notice

One Dify detail cuts the other way. Its pricing page labels Community for “open-source enthusiasts, individual developers, and non-commercial projects”, but its licence says Dify “may be utilized commercially, including as a backend service”. The licence text is the binding document; the two conditions above are what it restricts.

The managed side: what the seats buy

Lindy prices per user: Plus $29.99, Pro $99.99 and Max $199.99 a month, with 3,000, 15,000 and 35,000 credits per user. Lindy says every seat adds its credits to a shared pool, credits do not roll over, and anyone who uses Lindy takes a seat. That last rule is what makes it a per-head bill: 5 users on Plus are $149.95 a month, $1,799.40 a year.

Lindy plan	Per user a month	Credits per user	5 users a month	5 users a year
Plus	$29.99	3,000	$149.95	$1,799.40
Pro	$99.99	15,000	$499.95	$5,999.40
Max	$199.99	35,000	$999.95	$11,999.40

Zapier Agents is sold by activities, not by seat: Free includes 400 activities a month, and Agents Pro is $50 a month billed monthly or $400 a year ($33.33 a month) for 1,500 activities. Gumloop Pro starts at $37 a month with 20k credits a month and a 14-day free trial.

What self-hosting does not remove

• The server. We did not price hosting for this page, so add your own line for a VPS or an office machine.
• The model. Every platform here needs a model behind it, through an API key or a local runner. Our break-even for self-hosting a model shows when running it yourself beats paying per token.
• Upkeep. Someone installs updates and backs up the database. Hosted plans exist to remove that job, and their price is the value of that time.
• Finished features. Lindy’s plans include meeting notes, inbox drafting and a Slack teammate out of the box. A builder gives you the parts, not the finished assistant.

How we checked

Every price was read on 1 October 2026 on the vendor’s own pricing page in a rendered browser, with monthly and annual toggles flipped where the page has them; Dify’s animated price digits were read from screenshots. Stars, last push and archive status come from the GitHub REST API the same day, and licence terms from each repository’s LICENSE file. Team totals are arithmetic on those list prices, not a bill we paid. We quote no third-party price tables, and the scores in the boxes come from our desk review rubric, which this article does not change. For more self-hostable tools, see our open source AI tools list.

Related reading on this site

• Self-hosting an LLM against paying per token: the model half of the self-hosting bill.
• Open source alternatives to paid AI tools: the same licence test applied to other paid AI tools.
• Open source AI tools you can self-host: what self-hostable repositories replace, tool by tool.
• RAG frameworks compared: the retrieval layer most agent builders sit on.

Questions people ask about self-hosted agent platforms

How do I run my own AI agent?

Install a platform you can self-host on a server you control, then connect a model through an API key or a local runner. As of 1 October 2026, n8n’s Community Edition is on GitHub, Dify’s Community edition is free for a single workspace, AnythingLLM’s pricing page offers self-hosting with Docker for free, and Langflow offers a free cloud account if you want to try before you install.

Can I have my own personal AI agent?

Yes. The self-hosted platforms on this page cost $0 in licence fees for your own use, so the bill is your server and model. If you would rather not run anything, Lindy Plus is $29.99 per user a month and Zapier Agents has a free plan with 400 activities a month, both read on 1 October 2026.

What platforms can I use to build AI agents?

Self-hosted: n8n (206,466 GitHub stars), Dify (157,692), Langflow (155,440), Open WebUI (153,752), AnythingLLM (66,657) and Activepieces (24,832), counted on 1 October 2026. Managed: Lindy, Zapier Agents and Gumloop. Avoid Flowise for new work; it reached end of life on 31 August 2026.

What is the best self-hosted AI agent platform?

It depends on the job. For app automation, n8n has 206,466 GitHub stars and an AI Agent node, but its licence limits you to internal business use. For a visual agent builder, Dify (157,692 stars) matches a hosted product that costs $59 a month, and Langflow (155,440 stars) is MIT licensed. Counts read on 1 October 2026.

Is Flowise still maintained?

No. Flowise froze code on 29 July 2026, archived its repository on 10 August 2026 by its own sunset page, and reached end of life on 31 August 2026. GitHub shows the repository archived with its last push on 13 August 2026. The Apache 2.0 code can still be forked.

Is Dify free for commercial use?

Mostly. Dify’s licence says it may be used commercially, including as a backend service, with two conditions: you need a commercial licence to run a multi-tenant service, where one tenant is one workspace, and you may not remove the logo or copyright from its console. Hosted Dify Cloud starts at $59 a month, read on 1 October 2026.

Can I find a self-hosted AI agent platform on GitHub?

All six on this page publish their code there. On 1 October 2026 every one except Flowise had a push that day, and Flowise’s repository is archived. Read the LICENSE file before you deploy: four of the six are not plain MIT or Apache.

Sources

1. GitHub REST API, langgenius/dify, read 1 October 2026.
2. GitHub REST API, langflow-ai/langflow, read 1 October 2026.
3. GitHub REST API, FlowiseAI/Flowise, read 1 October 2026.
4. GitHub REST API, Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm, read 1 October 2026.
5. GitHub REST API, open-webui/open-webui, read 1 October 2026.
6. GitHub REST API, activepieces/activepieces, read 1 October 2026.
7. GitHub REST API, n8n-io/n8n, read 1 October 2026.
8. Dify LICENSE on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
9. Open WebUI LICENSE on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
10. Activepieces LICENSE on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
11. Langflow LICENSE on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
12. AnythingLLM LICENSE on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
13. n8n LICENSE.md on GitHub, read 1 October 2026.
14. Dify pricing, read 1 October 2026.
15. Flowise home page and pricing, read 1 October 2026.
16. The Future of Flowise (sunset notice), read 1 October 2026.
17. Langflow home page, read 1 October 2026.
18. AnythingLLM pricing, read 1 October 2026.
19. Activepieces pricing, read 1 October 2026.
20. n8n plans and pricing, read 1 October 2026.
21. Lindy pricing, read 1 October 2026.
22. Zapier plans and pricing (Agents tab), read 1 October 2026.
23. Gumloop pricing, read 1 October 2026.