# DFYe vs AI Engine

> Source: https://dfye.com/compare/ai-engine/
> Language: en
> Part of https://dfye.com/ (DFYe). This file is the Markdown twin of the page above; the page is the canonical document.

Comparison

AI Engine is the best free AI plugin on WordPress and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. Here is what each one is for, so you can pick the one you actually are.

Choose AI Engine if

- You want it free, and free is the deciding factor
- You enjoy configuring things, or you are a developer
- You want to build your own AI features, not just a chatbot
- You need MCP, custom hooks, or a deep extension surface

Choose DFYe if

- You want it working today, not configured this weekend
- How it looks on your site matters to you
- You want refusal and citations on by default, not as a setting
- You would rather pay once than spend an afternoon

Side by side

## Line by line

|  | AI Engine | DFYe |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | Free, with a paid Pro add-on | Paid. 89 euro one-time or 39 a year, single site |
| What you get | A framework you configure | A finished product you install |
| Knowledge base | You build it. Embeddings, a vector store, and a sync you maintain | Built automatically from your published pages, re-read when you edit |
| Widget design | Functional, themeable with CSS | Designed as the default, retheme from one panel of custom properties |
| Model support | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and more, plus MCP | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral |
| Refusal behaviour | Configurable, if you configure it | On by default with a confidence floor, and every answer cites its page |
| Time to first answer | An afternoon, if you know what you are doing | About a minute |
| Extensibility | Deep. Hooks, filters, a real developer surface | Deliberately shallow. It does one job |
| Support | Community forum, and paid support with Pro | Email, included in the licence |
| Licence | GPL | GPLv2+ for the PHP, same as any WordPress plugin |

Credit where it is due

### AI Engine, by the numbers

Source: the WordPress.org plugin API, retrieved 12 September 2026. A 1% bad-review rate across 864 reviews is a genuinely rare thing and it is not an accident.

### Why we are not competing on free

Because we would lose, and because it would be a stupid fight. AI Engine has a five-year head start, a maintainer who ships constantly, and a hundred thousand sites that already trust it.

What it does not have, by design, is an opinion about how the widget should look or a refusal to let you skip the setup. It is a toolbox and it is proud of that. DFYe sells the opposite thing to the opposite person, and if you are the toolbox person you should close this tab and go install AI Engine.

[AI Engine on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ai-engine/)

## Put a real answer on every page.

Ask this site's own widget a question and watch it cite the page, or refuse. It is the same plugin, running on the same content you are reading.

[Join the launch list](https://dfye.com/launch/) [Try the live demo](https://dfye.com/demo/)

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*Published by [DFYe](https://dfye.com/). Free to read, index, quote and cite with attribution and a link.*