Polyant vs Dify.
Polyant and Dify are both modern open source solutions for building AI agents. Dify is the natural choice for product teams that want to get started quickly with a low-code visual builder and a broad vector database selection. Polyant stands out for large European regulated companies looking for an EU vendor, a single-interlocutor bundle with professional services and managed services, and contractually declared data residency.
Two buyer profiles, two adoption paths.
Polyant and Dify are both products for bringing AI agents into production, usable in self-host on the customer's infrastructure, with comparable baseline capabilities on the conversational side, document retrieval, and integration with the main LLM providers.
Polyant stands out on three axes relevant to large European regulated companies. The first is sovereignty: EU vendor headquartered in Italy, ISO 27001, vendor qualification on financial and insurance procurement, service delivery in an EU region declared in the contract. The second is the purchase model: product + Exelab professional services + three managed service profiles in a single contract, with no assembly of third-party software required. The third is built-in runtime governance: security controls compiled into the managed runtime, a decision registry inspectable via standard SQL, and a detailed AI Act and GDPR mapping.
Dify LangGenius · Singapore Dify is a low-code visual builder for AI agents, developed by LangGenius, headquartered in Singapore. Its strengths are the drag-and-drop interface with visual DAG workflows, the broad vector database choice (over 28 supported), and the prototyping speed for product and technical teams that want to get started independently. The distribution consists of the open source community edition and Dify Cloud as a proprietary managed service, with the vendor based in Asia.
Eight purchase dimensions compared.
| Polyant | Dify | |
|---|---|---|
| Data sovereignty and residency | Deploy in the customer's cloud account, Exelab infrastructure in EU, or on-premise. Data residency declared in the contract | Autonomous self-host managed by the customer, or Dify Cloud on proprietary infrastructure with vendor seat in Asia |
| EU enterprise vendor | Exelab, EU-headquartered. ISO 27001. HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner, Twilio Gold Partner, vendor qualification on regulated-industry companies | LangGenius, headquarters in Singapore. Active open source community |
| Purchase model | Product + Exelab professional services + three managed service profiles in a single contract. Contractual SLA | Self-managed open source community edition, or Dify Cloud with SaaS model; external system integrator for enterprise scenarios |
| Multi-instance multi-tenant | Native architecture: isolated instances with AES-256-GCM secrets per instance, centralised admin panel | Multiple workspaces supported; advanced isolation depends on deployment configuration |
| Built-in security and control | Security controls compiled in the runtime, decision registry inspectable via standard SQL, article-by-article AI Act and GDPR mapping | Tracing and evaluation framework, runtime controls implementable by the developer via community plugins |
| Native customer-facing channels | Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, OpenAI-compatible API | API and native web widget; additional channels via community SDK and plugins |
| AI providers and stack freedom | OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock with access to the leading models (Amazon Nova, Anthropic, Llama, Qwen, DeepSeek, Mistral) under the customer's cloud account | Multi-provider supported, broad compatibility with open source models; vector database ecosystem with 28+ options |
| Technical stack and adoption path | TypeScript, NestJS, Next.js, PostgreSQL. Admin panel, channels, built-in controls, memory, and dashboard already ready | Python with low-code visual builder, drag-and-drop DAG workflow, broad community and plugins |
Six situations where Polyant is the most direct choice.
The customer's legal and procurement teams must qualify a vendor with an EU seat, displayable certifications, vendor qualification on banking or insurance procurement. Exelab is an EU-headquartered technology company, ISO 27001, HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner, Twilio Gold Partner. The vendor's seat is a formal assessment dimension and cannot be resolved simply by signing an international SaaS contract.
Polyant delivers product, professional services that build the agents, and three managed service profiles in a single Exelab contract. There is no need to bridge between an open source community edition for independent operation and a separate external system integrator. For C-level stakeholders who want a single point of contractual responsibility from signature to go-live, this is a fundamental difference.
In the Exelab managed tier, the security controls (prompt injection, credential detector, PII detector, system prompt leakage, tool domain filter, tool rate limit) are compiled in the runtime with versioned scope policy. The decision registry is inspectable via standard SQL. For companies subject to DORA, the AI Act, or the IVASS framework, these are compliance tools already integrated into the product, not capabilities to be assembled separately via plugins.
The Polyant instance runs where the customer chooses: the customer's cloud account in an EU region, Exelab infrastructure in the EU, or on-premise. The Exelab managed service contractually guarantees the service delivery region. Dify Cloud is SaaS on the vendor's infrastructure with seat in Asia; the community self-host is a valid option but shifts the operations responsibility entirely to the customer.
A single Polyant deployment manages N isolated instances with separate filesystem workspace, AES-256-GCM secrets per instance, own channels and configuration. For large companies running different agents across departments, business units, or use cases, structural isolation is a built-in product capability.
Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp Business via WAHA with HMAC verification, OpenAI-compatible API. All native in the runtime core. For the multi-channel customer service operations of an EU regulated company, this is a structural product capability, not a community plugin to maintain.
Dify LangGenius · Singapore Dify remains the most direct choice in two scenarios.
For product teams and self-sufficient technical teams that want to quickly prototype a conversational agent using a drag-and-drop visual builder and DAG workflow, Dify is the most direct choice. Likewise, for projects where a broad vector database selection (over 28 supported) is a primary requirement, the Dify ecosystem is purpose-built for these scenarios.
Six substantial differences in the purchase model.
What the vendor delivers to the customer.
Polyant delivers the product, Exelab professional services to build the agents for the customer, and three managed service profiles in a single contract. Dify delivers the open source platform with community support and Dify Cloud as a proprietary SaaS service; for enterprise scenarios, the customer must assemble the implementation (in-house team or external system integrator) and lifecycle management independently.
Who the typical buyer is.
Polyant is designed to address the needs of building agentic solutions across different corporate functions (Marketing, Sales, Service, IT, Operations, Legal, Compliance, and beyond), enabling agent orchestration in support of the entire enterprise. Dify primarily targets product teams, developers, and technical teams evaluating the platform for development and rapid prototyping.
Where the software runs in the managed model.
Polyant runs in the customer's cloud account in Europe or another customer-chosen region, on the Exelab infrastructure in EU, or on-premise. Dify Cloud is SaaS on the vendor's proprietary infrastructure with seat in Asia; the community self-host is managed by the customer on the infrastructure they choose.
How costs are measured.
Polyant pricing is defined during qualification based on the actual use case, with software, professional services, and managed services all covered under contract. Both Polyant and Dify offer an open source edition with no licence costs (the customer covers infrastructure and operations), and both have managed service options; however, for Dify, professional services for build and operations are not offered by the vendor and must be handled directly by the customer or through a system integrator.
How the product is managed after go-live.
Polyant offers continuous infrastructure management, software maintenance, and operational support under one of its three Exelab managed profiles. Day-to-day operational management of the agents either stays with the customer's team via the admin panel or code, or can be delegated to Exelab through dedicated professional services. Dify leaves management entirely to the customer in community self-host mode, or handles it through the proprietary Dify Cloud SaaS.
What goes into the legal and procurement assessment.
Polyant is delivered by Exelab, EU-headquartered with legal seat in Rome, with service management in an EU region. Dify is delivered by LangGenius with headquarters in Singapore. For EU enterprise procurement, vendor location and service delivery region are formal assessment dimensions that are part of vendor qualification processes.
Five recurring questions on the comparison.
Technical migration is possible and is planned case by case. The two platforms share the main AI provider abstraction patterns (OpenAI, Anthropic, open models via compatible providers) and the baseline conversational patterns; typical migration requires rewriting the controls configuration, the decision logging logic, and the tool integrations. The Exelab team assesses migration in discovery and includes it in the delivery plan.
The typical timeline for the first agent in production is 4–8 weeks, covering discovery, configuration, integration with the customer's systems, and hand-off to the operations team. For a coordinated squad of multiple agents, the estimate rises to 8-12 weeks. The main factor is the number of integrations with the customer's systems and the complexity of operational rules. The actual duration is defined during discovery on the specific case.
Yes. Polyant is built to handle typical European regulated scenarios as the most demanding baseline: if the product meets the requirements of a bank under DORA or an insurer under IDD, it will have no difficulty in less constrained contexts. Non-regulated customers get the same robustness (inspectable decision registry, per-instance encryption, deployment under customer control) without having to manage additional adoption complexities.
They are different commercial models. Dify Cloud is a proprietary cloud service from a vendor based in Asia, with public per-tier SaaS pricing. Polyant managed is delivered as Exelab professional services across three profiles, in an EU or customer-chosen region, with pricing defined during qualification on the company's actual case and a contractual SLA.
Polyant has a graphical admin panel for instance management, markdown skill and channel configuration, and access to the decision registry. The construction pattern is configurable markdown skills (also by the business team) + self-registering tools + native channels. The philosophy differs from Dify's: less oriented toward drag-and-drop, and more oriented toward versionable text configuration and a delivery path built together with the Exelab team. For those specifically looking for a fast drag-and-drop visual experience, the Dify builder is the more direct tool for that purpose.
Two steps forward.
Have a conversation with the Exelab team to explore the customer's specific use case, or take a deeper dive into the product to see whether Polyant's features meet the customer's needs.