Local & self-hosted appsFlowiseAI — Henry Heng & Chung Yau Ong (Y Combinator); acquired by Workday Aug 2025
Flowise
Decision matrix
Flowise app decision matrix
Overview
Flowise is an open-source, node-based builder for chatbots and multi-agent systems, self-hosted for free or on Flowise Cloud from a free tier (100 predictions/month) up to $65/month. Pick it when you want a lighter visual builder than Dify, and are comfortable that model, vector storage and API costs are billed separately.
Other good fits
A small project starting on Flowise's free cloud tier before deciding whether to self-host or scale to a paid plan.
+ Pros
Read pros
Flowise is an open-source platform for visually building AI agents and chatbots: drag nodes onto a canvas for prompts, retrieval, tools and logic, and connect them into a flow, from a simple chatbot to a more elaborate multi-agent system. The core is open source and self-hostable for free; Flowise Cloud is the managed alternative if you'd rather not run it yourself.
Pick it when…
You want a visual, node-based builder without committing to a heavier platform's full feature set.
You want to start free, either self-hosted or on Flowise Cloud's free tier, before deciding whether to pay.
You're comfortable tracking model, vector-storage and API costs separately from the Flowise plan price itself.
− Cons
Read cons
A working flow in the builder doesn't guarantee correct behaviour on real, messy input; test with realistic edge cases, not just the happy path, before publishing. The plan price is only part of the real cost, since model calls, vector storage and connected APIs bill separately.
Pick something else when…
You want a more full-featured platform with built-in app publishing and team seats.Dify covers more of that natively.
You want agent logic defined in code, checked into version control.CrewAI is a code-first alternative.
The workflow is really about connecting ordinary business apps, not AI logic.n8n fits that better.
Avoid if
You're not prepared to track model usage, vector storage and API costs separately; Flowise's own plan price doesn't include them.
Workflow
Start on Flowise Cloud's free tier or self-host from the open-source repository → drag together a flow: an input, a model node, retrieval or tool nodes as needed, an output → test with made-up input and inspect each node's intermediate output → publish or embed the flow once it behaves correctly → move to a paid Cloud tier only once the free tier's prediction limit becomes the actual constraint.
These prices cover the Flowise platform itself; model usage, vector storage and any external API you connect are billed separately by their own providers, so the real monthly cost runs higher than the plan price alone. Self-hosting needs a server and the usual update/backup responsibility; Cloud removes that in exchange for the subscription.
Restrictions
The Cloud free tier caps at 100 predictions and 5MB storage with only 2 flows; anything beyond that needs a paid Cloud plan or self-hosting. Extra team members on Pro (and above) typically add a per-user fee on top of the base plan price.
First project
Documentation-based suggestion — not run here.
Build a small flow that answers questions from a short, made-up FAQ document: a retrieval node over the document, a model node to generate the answer, and a fallback for questions the document doesn't cover. Test with one question the document answers and one it doesn't.
Done when the flow answers the covered question correctly and clearly says it doesn't know for the uncovered one, rather than guessing.
Links & evidence
Documentation-based · not hands-on · Sep 23, 2026
Rests on Flowise's homepage and its GitHub repository, read on 2026-09-23; the pricing page itself required sign-in, so plan prices were cross-checked against secondary reporting current as of 2026 and are marked accordingly. No flow was built for this review.
Connect models, documents, and tools on a visual workflow canvas.
Build retrieval chatbots without writing the full agent integration yourself.
Publish tested flows as embeddable widgets or callable services.
FlowiseAI — Henry Heng & Chung Yau Ong (Y Combinator); acquired by Workday Aug 2025 · free-tier · self-host
Container image: flowiseai/flowise:3.1.3
visual workflow
drag-and-drop canvas
rag chatbot
self-hosted
embeddable widget
vector database integration
multi-agent flow
no-code assistant
build-app
automate
open-source
search-cite
View sourced imageStill frame from the official Flowise workflow-editor demonstration; historical interface reference.
FlowiseAI/Flowise
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