Flowise is shutting down: what Australian self-hosters should do now

Posted: 7 September 2026 · Category: AI Automation & Integration

If you built a chatbot or a document-answering agent on Flowise, you are now running software nobody maintains.

Flowise was the open-source, drag-and-drop tool for building AI agents and LLM workflows. Workday bought it on 14 August 2025, with its chief technology officer promising to invest "in its open-source foundation". On 29 July 2026, less than a year later, the Flowise team posted a wind-down notice on its own site. As at 7 September the homepage banner reads "We're sunsetting Flowise."

What changed

Correction, 21 September 2026. This post converted euros at 1 EUR ≈ 1.55 AUD. The rate on the reference date the rest of the corpus cites is 1.6095 (Frankfurter/ECB, 18 September 2026), so n8n Cloud's entry tier is about A$32 a month, not A$31, and every euro figure here ran roughly 4% low. The same wrong rate was corrected in the n8n review earlier today; it survived here because the September FX rebase swept pricing tables and this is a news post recommending a tool. No recommendation changes.

The vendor's timeline is short and already complete:

The notice promised archiving on 10 August. GitHub shows the repository archived with a final push on 13 August, so it landed a few days late.

The reason the team gave is blunt. Developers, it wrote, are "increasingly relying on new coding agents such as Claude Code/OpenClaw to handle complex tasks", and "the typical rigid workflow low code approach quickly hits the limit when it comes to complexity."

The technology is not disappearing. It is going inside Workday. Workday's own developer-platform post describes a "Workday Flowise Agent Builder" for building agents within Workday. That is a product for Workday customers, not a replacement for the open-source tool.

Two things the notice does not say. It gives no shutdown date for the paid Flowise Cloud service, whose sign-in page was still live on 7 September (snapshot in Sources). And it does not mention refunds. Treat the cloud product as unsupported and plan on that basis.

Why it matters for Australians

The Flowise review we had ready for June rested on self-hosting. Run it on a Sydney server and your conversation logs and uploaded documents stay onshore, for free. That argument now cuts the other way.

The code is still yours. It is Apache 2.0 licensed, the repository stays public, and the team explicitly encourages forks. What you lose is everything around the code. Security patches, dependency updates, fixes when a model provider changes an API, and a place to ask for help. A self-hosted agent that holds customer data on an unpatched server is a different risk from the one we scored in June. One licensing detail matters if you fork: the enterprise directory in the repository is under a separate commercial licence, not Apache 2.0.

Three practical steps if Flowise is in production:

1. Pin what you run today. Mirror the repository and the Docker image you depend on. Deprecated packages can be pulled at any time.
2. Stop building on it. Fixes are a fork-and-patch job now, and that is developer time you did not budget.
3. Move within the quarter. The alternatives below are all maintained and all scored.

What to use instead

• Dify (16/25) is the closest like-for-like: an open-source LLM app and workflow builder you can self-host in Australia. Self-hosted is free; the cloud Professional plan is US$59/mo (~A$83 ex-GST). It still needs a developer.
• n8n (21/25) is our pick if your Flowise work was really automation with an AI step in it. Self-host in an Australian cloud region, or use n8n Cloud from EUR 20/mo billed annually (~A$32). Billed in euros.
• Relevance AI (20/25) is the choice if you would rather not run a server at all. Sydney-built, with Australian data residency. Free tier; Pro is US$19/mo billed annually (~A$27 ex-GST). [Added 23 Sep 2026: Relevance AI retired its free plan and closed it to new signups later in September. This post records the position on 7 September; the cheapest entry is now Pro.]

AUD figures are converted at 1 USD ≈ 1.4045 AUD and 1 EUR ≈ 1.6095 AUD (Frankfurter/ECB reference rates, 18 September 2026). (Corrected 21 Sep 2026 — the euro rate here read 1.55, which understated every euro figure by about 4%.) A GST-registered business that supplies its ABN is not charged GST on these imported services; other buyers should allow about 10% on top.

Does this change our recommendation?

Yes. We had a Flowise review scored 15/25 ready for June. We have pulled it rather than publish it, because that score assumed a maintained project. Do not start new work on Flowise. If you must keep an existing deployment running, keep it patched yourself and off the public internet.

Frequently asked questions

What changed?

Flowise, the open-source visual AI agent builder Workday acquired on 14 August 2025, announced a wind-down on 29 July 2026. Development stopped immediately, the GitHub repository was archived in August, and the core team's presence ended on 31 August 2026. The code remains public under the Apache 2.0 licence, and Workday is keeping the technology inside its own platform as Workday Flowise Agent Builder.

Does this affect Australian users?

Yes. Self-hosting on an Australian server was Flowise's main advantage for Australians. That code still runs, but without security patches, dependency updates or support. Anyone running Flowise in production should pin their current version, stop building on it, and plan a move to a maintained alternative within the quarter.

Does it change our recommendation?

Yes. We have pulled the Flowise review we had ready rather than publish it. For a like-for-like self-hosted replacement we point to Dify (16/25); for automation with an AI step, n8n (21/25); for a hosted option with Australian data residency, Relevance AI (20/25).

Sources

• Primary — FlowiseAI, The Future of Flowise (wind-down notice, timeline, Apache 2.0 statement, fork encouragement), posted 29 July 2026. https://flowiseai.com/sunset · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST
• Primary — FlowiseAI homepage ("We're sunsetting Flowise" banner), read 7 September 2026. https://flowiseai.com/ · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST
• Primary — FlowiseAI/Flowise GitHub repository (archived status, last push 13 August 2026, LICENSE.md: Apache 2.0 with a commercially licensed enterprise directory), read 7 September 2026. https://github.com/FlowiseAI/Flowise · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST
• Primary — Workday newsroom, Workday Acquires Flowise, Bringing Powerful AI Agent Builder Capabilities to the Workday Platform (Peter Bailis quote), 14 August 2025. https://newsroom.workday.com/2025-08-14-Workday-Acquires-Flowise,-Bringing-Powerful-AI-Agent-Builder-Capabilities-to-the-Workday-Platform · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST
• Primary — Flowise Cloud sign-in page (still serving sign-in and sign-up on 7 September 2026; no shutdown notice). https://cloud.flowiseai.com/signin · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST
• Primary — Workday blog, Introducing Workday Build (Workday Flowise Agent Builder), read 7 September 2026. https://blog.workday.com/en-us/introducing-workday-build-developer-platform-build-future-work-ai.html · Wayback snapshot 7 September 2026 AEST

All claims sourced to vendor pages, read in full and snapshotted 7 September 2026.

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