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RAGFlow

Open-source RAG engine and agent platform: parse documents, search them and build chats, free to self-host.

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Is RAGFlow free?

Yes, RAGFlow has a free plan. What you get: Open source (Apache 2.0): self-host free; cloud Free plan 500 credits/month. Free limits: 5 apps; 1 team member; 0.1 GB dataset storage. Watch out: you need an LLM and embedding model. Self-hosting the open-source version has no plan limits; hardware and LLM costs are yours. Verified on ragflow.io.

Free plan at a glance

Includes
  • 500 credits a month on the hosted Free plan
  • 5 apps
  • 1 team member
  • 0.1 GB dataset storage
  • No API key on the hosted Free plan

Self-hosting the open-source version has no plan limits; hardware and LLM costs are yours.

Duration
Free forever

How to get it free

Self-host
  1. Clone the repository and start it with Docker Compose
  2. Open the web UI and log in
  3. Add an LLM under Model providers and create a dataset

Good to know

  • You need an LLM and embedding model
  • Hosted Free plan has no API key and small limits
Get the free plan

ragflow.io, Checked Source

Overview

RAGFlow is an open-source retrieval-augmented generation engine with built-in document parsing, hybrid search and agent workflows. You can self-host it with Docker under Apache 2.0, or use the hosted cloud, which has a small free plan.

Free vs paid

FreeStarter
Price$0$29/mo
Includes
  • 500 credits a month on the hosted Free plan
  • 5 apps
  • 1 team member
  • 0.1 GB dataset storage
  • No API key on the hosted Free plan
Plan details

Key features

  • Ingestion pipeline that cleans and structures multi-format data
  • Hybrid search combining vector search, BM25 and re-ranking
  • Agent workflows that combine RAG, tools and MCP in a visual editor
  • Datasets with citations and a retrieval testing view
  • Chat assistants built on one or more datasets
  • HTTP API for use in your own applications

Best for

People
Developers building document question answering, Teams that want to self-host their RAG stack, Builders of agent workflows that retrieve company documents

Limitations

  • Self-hosting needs Docker and a fair amount of CPU, memory and disk
  • Needs an LLM and embedding model; you add your own API key or run local models
  • Hosted Free plan is small and has no API key

Screenshot

RAGFlow screenshot, as published by RAGFlow
Image published by RAGFlow

FAQ

Is RAGFlow free?
Yes. RAGFlow has a free plan: Open source (Apache 2.0): self-host free; cloud Free plan 500 credits/month. We last checked ragflow.io's pricing page on 2026-10-23.
What does the RAGFlow free plan include?
The RAGFlow free plan includes: 5 apps; 1 team member; 0.1 GB dataset storage. Source: https://ragflow.io/pricing (checked 2026-10-23).
How do I get RAGFlow for free?
Steps: Clone the repository and start it with Docker Compose; Open the web UI and log in; Add an LLM under Model providers and create a dataset. Start at https://ragflow.io/docs (checked 2026-10-22).
Do I need an account to use RAGFlow for free?
Not for the free option: the free route is to self-host RAGFlow (Clone the repository and start it with Docker Compose). Checked 2026-10-22.
What's the catch with RAGFlow's free plan?
You need an LLM and embedding model. Hosted Free plan has no API key and small limits. Checked 2026-10-22.
How much does RAGFlow cost after the free plan?
The cheapest paid plan is the Starter plan, at $29 a month, billed monthly. We checked ragflow.io's pricing page on 2026-10-23.Source: ragflow.io
What are free alternatives to RAGFlow?
Tavily, You.com and LiveKit all have free plans. We checked their free offers on 2026-10-25.
Is there a free hosted plan?
Yes. The Free plan on the pricing section has 500 credits a month, 5 apps and 1 team member, and API key is not available.Source: ragflow.io
Can I run it in production?
The GitHub README says Docker deployment is suitable for quick evaluation, integration testing and production deployment.Source: github.com/infiniflow/ragflow
What do I need to self-host it?
Docker, a recommended 4 CPU cores, 16 GB RAM and 50 GB free disk, plus access to an LLM and embedding model.Source: ragflow.io/docs

Free alternatives

Sources

Free offer
Verified on github.com/infiniflow/ragflow
…is a leading open-source Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) engine that fuses cutting-edge RAG with Agent capabilities to create a superior context layer for…

How we check free offers

Added by our team. We check that a free option exists and record the date; signing up is between you and RAGFlow, so read their privacy policy and terms first.

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