Cursor is $20/month. My team wouldn't approve it, and I was tired of hitting usage limits on the "free" tier. Then I found Dify — open-source, self-hosted, and I can plug in any LLM I want.
Why Dify Over Cursor
| Cursor | Dify (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $20/mo ($240/yr) | $0 (VPS cost ~$6/mo) |
| Model lock-in | ❌ OpenAI only | ✅ Any API or local model |
| Data privacy | ❌ Cloud | ✅ Your server |
| Custom workflows | ❌ | ✅ Visual builder |
| Team collaboration | Limited | Full RBAC |
| API access | ❌ | ✅ Full REST API |
The 10-Minute Setup
# Docker Compose (easiest)
git clone https://github.com/langgenius/dify.git
cd dify/docker
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d
# Access at http://localhost:3000
# Default login: admin@dify.ai / password (change immediately)
My Actual Workflow
I run Dify on a $6/month Hetzner VPS. Connected to:
- Ollama (local 7B models for quick tasks)
- OpenRouter (cheap API for heavy lifting)
- My own fine-tuned model (for domain-specific code)
The visual workflow builder lets me chain prompts, add RAG from my codebase, and create custom tools. Cursor can't do that.
The Tradeoff
Dify is a platform, not an IDE. You still need VS Code or Neovim for editing. The autocomplete is not as polished as Cursor's. But for $240/year savings and full control over my AI pipeline? Worth it.
I configured my Dify + Ollama stack with MonkeyCode: https://ly.cyberserval.tech/iIETXiF
Anyone else self-hosting their AI coding workflow? What's your setup?
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