Dapr
What it is
Dapr is a free, open-source runtime for applications that use distributed services, long-running workflows, and AI agents. Its workflows support stateful processes with retries, timers, human approvals, and sagas; AI agents can use checkpointed plans to recover after failures. Service invocation provides HTTP or gRPC communication with discovery, tracing, and error handling. Other APIs cover pub/sub, state, actors, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, distributed locks, and cryptography. Dapr runs as a sidecar process or container, so application code calls its APIs without embedding the runtime. It can run on Kubernetes or be self-hosted on Windows, Linux, or macOS, including physical and virtual machines across cloud and edge environments. Security features include encrypted communication through mTLS, access policies, and automatic certificate rotation. Stable SDKs are available for .NET, Python, Java, Go, PHP, and JavaScript; C++ and Rust SDKs are in development. Dapr offers integrations including AWS, Azure, KEDA, GitHub Actions, and Argo CD. Paid offerings include Dedicated Cloud starting at $1,199 a month and BYOC at $1,599 a month; both include a first 14 days free.
For and against
For
- Workflows support retries, timers, and human approvals
- Service invocation includes discovery and tracing
- Runs on Kubernetes or self-hosted machines
- Stable SDKs for six listed languages
Against
- C++ and Rust SDKs are still in development
- Dedicated Cloud starts at $1,199 a month
- BYOC starts at $1,599 a month
The verdict
Dapr provides a broad set of APIs for workflows and distributed application building blocks, with open-source self-hosted use available. Teams considering managed offerings should account for their listed starting prices and deployment model.
Who it suits
Dapr suits developers building distributed applications or durable workflows who want to use its APIs across self-hosted or Kubernetes environments. Its SDKs cover several languages, with C++ and Rust still in development.
Plans and prices
Cloud Free
development and non-critical workloads · durable workflows · native integrations · workflow visualizers
Read 1 Oct 2026 · diagrid.io
Dedicated Cloud
single-tenant · fully managed · compute, storage and networking included · 99.95% availability with Select and Premium support
Read 1 Oct 2026 · diagrid.io
BYOC
data plane in your cloud · control plane in Diagrid cloud · data sovereignty and localization · 99.95% availability
Read 1 Oct 2026 · diagrid.io
Enterprise Server
on-premises · air-gapped and disconnected environments supported · namespace isolation
Read 1 Oct 2026 · diagrid.io
On the record
- AI agents
- Dapr enables AI agents to reason, call tools, and recover from failure with checkpointed plans.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- APIs
- Dapr provides APIs for state management, secrets, bindings, actors, configuration, distributed locks, cryptography, jobs and conversations.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Building blocks
- Dapr provides APIs for workflow, service invocation, pub/sub, state, actors, jobs, secrets, configuration, bindings, distributed locks, and cryptography.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- CLI
- The Dapr CLI runs applications with sidecars, reviews sidecar logs, and lists services in self-hosted and Kubernetes environments.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Component model
- Dapr components decouple APIs from underlying resources so implementations such as RabbitMQ and Kafka can be changed through component configuration without changing application code.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Deployment
- Dapr applications run on Kubernetes or self-hosted on virtual or physical machines across cloud and edge environments.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Frameworks
- Dapr has integrated frameworks including ASP.NET Core, Spring Boot, Flask and Express, and Dapr Agents is a Python framework for durable LLM-powered agents.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Hosting
- Dapr can run self-hosted on Windows, Linux or macOS and on Kubernetes or clusters of physical or virtual machines.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Official integrations include AWS, Azure, KEDA, GitHub Actions, the Dapr Kubernetes Operator, Kratix Marketplace, and Argo CD.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Microservices
- Service-to-service calls include service discovery, mTLS, retries, and distributed tracing through one API.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Observability
- Dapr emits metrics, logs and traces and supports W3C Trace Context and OpenTelemetry.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Open source origin
- Microsoft announced Dapr as an open source project on October 16, 2019.opensource.microsoft.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Project status
- Dapr was accepted into CNCF incubation in 2021 and became a graduated CNCF project on October 30, 2024.cncf.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Pub/sub
- Dapr supports the publish-subscribe pattern between applications.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Dapr is a portable runtime for building distributed applications across cloud and edge, combining event-driven architecture with workflow orchestration.cncf.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Resiliency
- Dapr supports configurable retries, back-offs, circuit breakers, and timeouts.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- SDK languages
- Stable SDKs are available for .NET, Python, Java, Go, PHP, and JavaScript; C++ and Rust SDKs are in development.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
- Security
- Dapr uses automatically enabled mutual TLS between sidecars, App IDs, namespace isolation and policy-based access controls for services, topics, components and secrets.docs.dapr.io · read 1 Oct 2026
