Sim

What is Sim?

Sim is a drag-and-drop canvas for building AI agents and multi-step workflows that call LLMs, tools, MCP servers and business apps such as Slack, then deploy them as APIs, chat endpoints or scheduled jobs. It includes knowledge bases on PostgreSQL with pgvector and supports cloud models as well as local models through Ollama or vLLM. The self-hosted stack runs with Docker Compose or Kubernetes.

Where it fits in a 10–200 person business

• Build an agent that triages incoming email or tickets and posts summaries to Slack
• Scheduled workflows that pull data, ask an LLM to analyse it and send a report
• Expose an internal knowledge-base assistant as an API for your website or tools

These use cases are our editorial suggestions, not claims made by the project.

Can a business use Sim? (license)

This is a plain-English summary of the license text, not legal advice. Third-party models you run with it have their own licenses.

Data & compliance: does Sim phone home?

Checked against the project's own docs and repository on Oct 22, 2026. "Not documented" means we could not find the answer in official sources; it does not mean the feature is missing or that no data is sent. Third-party services you connect (model APIs, vector databases, search engines) have their own data policies. Compare all apps.

What hardware does Sim need?

Official sizing examples, not enforced minimums - "evaluation" 2 cores / 12 GiB / 20 GiB SSD, "team" 4 cores / 16 GiB / 50 GiB SSD, larger workloads 8+ cores / 32+ GiB. Production Compose sets an 8G memory limit on the app.

Source: docs.sim.ai/platform/self-hosting#requirements

How much does it cost to host Sim per month?

How to deploy Sim

Method: Docker Compose (setup wizard or manual)

npx sim-setup          # interactive wizard: creates ./sim, .env and starts the Compose stack
# manual alternative:
# git clone https://github.com/simstudioai/sim.git && cd sim
# create .env with BETTER_AUTH_SECRET, ENCRYPTION_KEY, INTERNAL_API_SECRET, API_ENCRYPTION_KEY,
#   CRON_SECRET, NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL and POSTGRES_* (see docs)
# docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d
# open http://localhost:3000

From the official instructions: docs.sim.ai/platform/self-hosting/docker. Always check the source for the current version before you run it.

Known gotchas when self-hosting Sim

• The production Compose file does not mount the app's upload directory, so recreating the container loses uploaded files. Configure object storage or a persistent mount first. source
• Back up ENCRYPTION_KEY and API_ENCRYPTION_KEY separately from the server. Restoring the database with different keys leaves stored provider keys and secrets unreadable. source
• Needs Docker Compose 2.24.0 or later. Images default to the latest tag unless you set SIM_VERSION, so pin versions and upgrade deliberately. source
• The Chat feature is a Sim-managed service; self-hosted installs connect it with a Chat API key from sim.ai. source

Alternatives in AI app & agent builders

• Dify Visual platform for building LLM apps, RAG chatbots, agents and workflows. Compare Dify vs Sim
• Langflow Visual builder for AI agents and RAG flows that you can deploy as APIs or MCP servers. Compare Langflow vs Sim
• Flowise Drag-and-drop builder for LLM agents and chatflows (archived August 2026).
• Coze Studio Open-source edition of ByteDance's Coze agent-building platform. Compare Coze Studio vs Sim

Sources

• GitHub repository: github.com/simstudioai/sim
• Official documentation: docs.sim.ai/platform/self-hosting
• License text: github.com/simstudioai/sim/blob/main/LICENSE
• Hardware requirements: docs.sim.ai/platform/self-hosting#requirements
• Deploy instructions, Gotcha 1, Gotcha 2, Gotcha 3: docs.sim.ai/platform/self-hosting/docker
• Gotcha 4: github.com/simstudioai/sim#chat-api-keys
• Hetzner Cloud pricing (cost estimate): www.hetzner.com/cloud/regular-performance
• GitHub stars, commits and releases: GitHub REST API, fetched Oct 22, 2026