Flowise review 2026: pricing tiers, key features, pros, cons, and top alternatives for this open-source, drag-and-drop builder for LLM apps and AI agents.
Flowise is an open-source, low-code platform for visually building LLM applications, RAG chatbots, and multi-agent AI systems. Instead of writing orchestration code, users drag and connect nodes representing language models, prompts, memory, tools, vector stores, and agent logic onto a canvas to assemble a working AI flow.
Founded in 2023 by Henry Heng and Chung Yau Ong and backed by Y Combinator, the project grew into one of the most starred open-source AI agent-builder repositories on GitHub before being acquired by Workday in August 2025, which now uses Flowise's technology to power AI agent creation across its own enterprise platform.
Flowise supports two main flow types: Chatflows for single-agent conversational assistants with RAG support, and Agentflows for coordinated multi-agent systems that can include human-in-the-loop review checkpoints before an action is finalized.
The platform integrates with more than 100 LLM providers, embedding models, and vector databases, exposes flows as REST APIs, embeddable chat widgets, and TypeScript/Python SDKs, and provides observability through OpenTelemetry- and Prometheus-compatible execution traces for production monitoring.
Flowise's canvas is built on a node-graph editor where each node represents a discrete building block, such as a chat model, a document loader, a vector store retriever, or a custom tool. Users connect these nodes to define how data and control flow through the application, drawing on LangChain-style abstractions under the hood.
The underlying codebase is written primarily in TypeScript and JavaScript, with a React front-end and Node.js backend, and is released under the Apache 2.0 license. This lets organizations self-host Flowise for free on Docker or any major cloud provider, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean, while retaining full control over data and infrastructure.
Yes. The core Flowise platform is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and can be self-hosted for free. Flowise also offers a managed Flowise Cloud Free plan with limited flows and predictions per month, alongside paid Starter, Pro, and Enterprise tiers for higher usage and additional features.
Flowise was founded in 2023 by Henry Heng and Chung Yau Ong and was backed by Y Combinator. In August 2025, enterprise software company Workday acquired Flowise to power AI agent building across its own platform; the open-source project and Flowise Cloud continue to operate under Workday's ownership.
Chatflows are single-agent conversational flows designed for chatbots and RAG-based assistants. Agentflows support multi-agent systems where several specialized agents coordinate on more complex tasks, optionally pausing for human-in-the-loop review before continuing.
No coding is required to build a basic flow, since Flowise uses a drag-and-drop visual canvas. However, developers can extend Flowise with custom tools, functions, and API integrations using TypeScript or Python for more advanced use cases.
Flowise, Langflow, and Dify are all open-source, visual tools for building LLM applications, while n8n is a broader workflow-automation platform that has added AI nodes. Flowise differentiates itself with its Apache 2.0 license, dual TypeScript/Python SDKs, and tight focus on RAG and multi-agent orchestration.
Yes. Because the core project is open source, organizations can self-host Flowise on their own infrastructure or private cloud, and the Enterprise tier additionally supports on-premises or air-gapped deployment along with SSO/SAML and audit logging for regulated environments.