Compare OpenAI Agents SDK with alternatives

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Attribute	OpenAI Agents SDK	LangGraph	smolagents
What it is	OpenAI's open-source Python SDK for multi-agent apps. Its core ideas are agents, handoffs between them, and guardrails on inputs and outputs, which map neatly onto triage-then-specialist support flows.	LangGraph is a low-level Python/JS framework for building agents as explicit graphs of steps. It is built for long-running, stateful agents where you need to pause for a human and resume later.	smolagents is Hugging Face's minimal agent library (about 1,000 lines). Its CodeAgent writes actions as Python code; Hugging Face built Open Deep Research on it.
Category	Framework	Framework	Framework
Type	Library	Library	Library
Best ranks	#2 Framework, Build a customer-support agent (7.2) #2 Framework, Build a deep-research agent (6.9)	#1 Framework, Build a customer-support agent (7.6) #1 Framework, Build a deep-research agent (7.5)	#3 Framework, Build a deep-research agent (6.7)
Pricing	Pricing not yet reviewed	FreeThe library is free to use; LangSmith is a separate paid product.As of Oct 28, 2026	Pricing not yet reviewed
License	Open source (MIT)Checked Oct 16, 2026	Open source (MIT)Checked Oct 16, 2026	Open source (Apache-2.0)Checked Oct 17, 2026
Layers	Framework	Framework	Framework
Last verified	2026-10-16	2026-10-16	2026-10-17