Comparison updated
Side by side
Published data on both agencies. Where one side measurably differs, the dot marks it: the higher score, the lower published rate, the larger team, the more recent review. Which of those is an advantage depends on your brief.
| Attribute | dida | Hiflylabs |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | Higher score: 68/100 | 61.8/100 |
| Hourly rate | €130-175/hr | Contact for rates |
| Team size | 10-49 | Larger team: 250+ |
| Location | Berlin, Germany | Budapest, Hungary |
| Founded | 2018 | 2015 |
| Last reviewed | Aug 4, 2026 | More recent review: Sep 3, 2026 |
What we said about each
Our take on dida
The Deutsche Bahn work is the most technically detailed case study on this register. dida published its approach to detecting anomalous objects on track—monocular depth estimation with a fine-tuned vision transformer, Segment Anything for masks, depth maps to rank what matters—along with before-and-after outputs and a conference talk naming the engineer who led it. The published project index runs to roughly eighteen builds across remote sensing, industrial inspection, document understanding…
Reviewed Aug 4, 2026
Read the full assessment →Our take on Hiflylabs
The named LLM-era work is the reason to read the case studies: Billingo's text-to-SQL and RAG agent went from proof of concept through pilot to full production on OpenAI, Snowflake and OpenSearch with prompt anonymization via MS Presidio, and Erste Bank's agentic RAG knowledge base on LangGraph and Azure AI Search reports 200-plus documents processed and 40% higher answer accuracy. The older classical work carries the hardest numbers—MOL Group's location-based pricing showed 3. 87% gross-margin…
Reviewed Sep 3, 2026
Read the full assessment →Best for
Where each agency measurably leads on the published data — team capacity, declared specializations, editorial scoring, and rates where both publish them. Use these to match an agency to your project priorities.
Choose dida if you need
- closer collaboration at a smaller team scale
- disclosed specialization in Public Sector
- a higher overall editorial score
Choose Hiflylabs if you need
- larger team capacity for multi-stream or enterprise-scale programs
- disclosed specialization in FinTech
Strengths and watch-outs
Both upsides and risks, straight from our editorial assessments.
dida
Strengths
- Publishes methods at a level that can be independently assessed—named models, datasets, and the reasoning behind rejected approaches
- Works with open datasets and open publication, including a project on Deutsche Bahn's automated-driving program
- Names the scientists on its projects and runs its own annual conference, so the bench is verifiable before you engage
Watch-outs
- Case studies describe method rather than result—ask for a deployed reference with numbers if you need one
- A 10-49 person team taking research-grade work; confirm capacity and timeline before committing to a deadline
Hiflylabs
Strengths
- Stack is listed on every study—LangGraph, MLFlow, Azure AI Search, Databricks Apps, HuggingFace, MS Presidio—so a technical buyer can check the architecture before the first call
- Third-party standing is visible: FT1000 listing, Databricks, Snowflake Select and AWS Select partner tiers, and 50-plus Databricks-certified staff per the homepage
- Named testimonials with names and titles at Catylex, MOL Group, Cirkul, Adaptive Recognition, Semilab and Billingo, and an engineering blog dated from 2020 through August 2026 with named authors
Watch-outs
- The 99% analysis-time cut and the 6x ROI belong to anonymized clients—ask for a speakable reference behind each
- The homepage claims 500-plus projects and 200-plus clients against roughly 25 published case studies—ask for the list in your vertical
- Semilab and Adaptive Recognition are named proofs of concept—confirm what has run in production since, and who operates it
Service coverage
Both agencies cover the same services — on this axis there is nothing to separate them, so decide on the evidence behind the work rather than its labels.
Industry coverage
Where the two overlap, and where each covers ground the other does not.
Pricing math
What a 12-week engagement at one full-time equivalent (~480 hours) costs at each agency’s published rate. An arithmetic projection, not a quote — real scopes move with seniority mix and team shape.
dida
Rate: €130-175/hr
€62,400–€84,000
Hiflylabs
Contact for rates
Only dida publishes a rate, so there is no gap to measure. Hiflylabs quotes per engagement — ask for a rate card early, since a comparison that starts on scope and ends on price tends to end late.
Frequently asked questions
- Which has more Manufacturing experience, dida or Hiflylabs?
- Both agencies show documented Manufacturing work and have similar industry breadth. Compare directly on the agency profiles: dida and Hiflylabs.
- Which scores higher overall, dida or Hiflylabs?
- dida scores 68/100, 6.2 points higher than Hiflylabs at 61.8/100. Both portfolio quality and business credibility feed into the score — see our methodology for the full breakdown.
- Which is faster to engage, dida or Hiflylabs?
- Neither publishes lead times, so this is a read on team size rather than a measured answer. dida runs the smaller team, which usually means fewer procurement gates and a shorter path to kickoff. Hiflylabs runs a larger one, which tends to mean more steps but more capacity to start parallel workstreams. Current kickoff availability is the number that actually decides it — ask both.
- When should I consider both dida and Hiflylabs?
- Consider running parallel discovery briefs with dida and Hiflylabs if your project spans multiple workstreams, you want competitive proposals to compare scope and approach, or you're undecided between the specialization angles each brings (see the Best for cards above). Most engagements ultimately go with one — but the parallel-brief phase is a low-cost way to validate fit.
Read the full reviews
A side-by-side is a starting point. The full assessments carry the portfolio analysis, documented engagements, and the evidence behind every strength and watch-out above.