DeerFlow
Verified Oct 15, 2026 Possibly discontinuedThe site's security certificate is invalid.
ByteDance's MIT-licensed agent framework: sandboxed agents that research, code and edit files.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- 100% Free
MIT-licensed and free to self-host; you pay your own model provider. The project site publishes no plan, price or upgrade path, and its hosted workspace was previously a feature-limited demo.
Use tool ↗About DeerFlow
DeerFlow is ByteDance's open-source framework for long-running agents. An agent gets a Docker sandbox, persistent memory, a browser, a shell, a file system and optional subagents, so it can work a task over minutes or hours rather than a single turn. Skills load progressively from a built-in library or from your own skill files, and it talks to Doubao, DeepSeek, OpenAI and Gemini models as well as external ACP agents. The code is MIT-licensed on GitHub under the bytedance organisation, so self-hosting is the main route; deerflow.tech also runs a hosted workspace, but it is in demo mode with several features disabled and publishes no paid tier or price.
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 15, 2026
Verified sources
- GitHub API: bytedance/deer-flow is MIT-licensed, not archived, last pushed 15 October 2026, homepage deerflow.tech (15 October 2026)github.com ↗
- Project site still serves the 'open-source SuperAgent harness' page with sandboxes, memories, skills and subagents and a 'Get Started with 2.0' link, but its TLS certificate expired on 11 October 2026 (15 October 2026)deerflow.tech ↗
Is DeerFlow legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Domain registered
- Apr 26, 2025 (1 year ago)Registry record (RDAP), registrar Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn), looked up Sep 6, 2026
- TLS certificate
- Issued by DigiCert Inc, valid until Oct 11, 2026 — not re-checked since Oct 15, 2026Our own connection to the site on Oct 15, 2026 was refused over the certificate
- Last checked
- Oct 15, 2026The site did not answer
- Operated by
- ByteDance, ChinaOur research, card verified Oct 15, 2026
Pros & cons of DeerFlow
A serious piece of agent infrastructure with a real company behind it and a permissive licence, aimed at tasks that run for hours rather than turns. Sandboxing, lease-based ownership and orphan recovery are the sort of details that only appear once someone has run this in production. What it is not is a product you can buy: the hosted workspace is a demo, so the practical path is self-hosting and paying your own model bills.
Pros
- MIT-licensed and published under ByteDance's GitHub organisation
- Each agent runs in a Docker sandbox with shell, browser, file system and VSCode Server access
- Progressive skill loading from a built-in library or your own skill files
- Model-agnostic: Doubao, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Gemini and external ACP agents
- Handles the hard operational cases - lease takeover, orphan recovery and atomic cancellation
Cons
- The hosted workspace is demo mode only, with features disabled and no plan to buy
- Self-hosting means running Docker infrastructure and paying model costs yourself
- No published SLA, support contract or commercial offering
- ByteDance ownership is a procurement problem in some jurisdictions
Best for
- Teams building long-running research or coding agents they want to self-host
- Developers who need sandboxed shell, browser and file access per agent
- Anyone wanting a permissively licensed alternative to closed agent platforms
Not for
- Non-technical users - there is no supported managed tier
- Teams needing a vendor SLA or commercial support contract
Watch out: deerflow.tech is a demo, not a managed service - treat this as a framework you operate, not a product you subscribe to.
Alternatives to DeerFlow
DeerFlow head-to-head
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