- d8ec44919265b3641b7898a02038cbfe14590ee5 .NET: Bump package version to 1.80.1 (#14370)
- 3438d882147b6e3e19a161a5f0dcb64e23e181db .NET: update SDK to 10.0.303 (#14353)
- 437336175b8ef841a8ccace6c6cf909f34f0cad6 .NET: Remove retired OpenAI Assistants integration tests (#14354)
- a64827ec8c5621eeaf7c4c5dabdb5355bb253177 ci: removes extraneous nuget.config file (#14341)
- a2200032989f05b35477b17423364a32d503d758 chore: bumps the OpenAPI dependencies to the latest versions (#14340)
- 60264bbdc87071ded45af3ff3eb538ee8cc3fc72 tests: refactors redirection tests to avoid race condition (#14342) [ #14340 ]
Semantic Kernel by Microsoft
Pulse Score
39 / 100
Rank #71 of 157
Downloads, last 7 days
79.1K
0.0% vs previous week
Downloads, last 30 days
305K
— vs previous 30 days
GitHub stars
28.6K
about +5 a day
Latest release
1.80.1
33d ago
Price
Free (OSS)
checked Oct 5, 2026
Overview
Microsoft's SDK for adding LLMs, plugins and agents to C#, Python and Java applications.
Status: Microsoft now presents Microsoft Agent Framework as the successor to Semantic Kernel and publishes a migration guide.
Semantic Kernel was downloaded 79.1K times from PyPI in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, down 0.0% on the week before. Its download count moved to a different level overnight on Aug 24, 2026. A jump like that comes from automated installs switching on or off or from a change in how the registry counts, so growth rates across that date are not shown. The GitHub repository has 28.6K stars, 135 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 1.80.1, published Sep 3, 2026. It was mentioned in 1 Hacker News posts and comments over the last 30 days.
Semantic Kernel usage and attention over time
Download the raw daily series: semantic-kernel.csv
Install Semantic Kernel
| PyPI | pip install semantic-kernel |
|---|
These commands use the packages tracked on this page. The vendor may recommend a different installer; see the official documentation.
Key facts
| Maker | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Type | LLM application SDK |
| License | MIT |
| Interfaces | .NET library, Python library, Java library |
| Main language | C# |
| Open issues and PRs | 349 |
Pricing
Semantic Kernel is open source and free to use; you pay only for the models and infrastructure it runs on.
, checked Oct 5, 2026. Prices change often; confirm before you buy.
Pulse Score breakdown
Adoption42
Community61
Attention0
Momentum50
Each component is scored 0 to 100 from public signals; a dash means no data for it. Methodology.
What changed: recent Semantic Kernel releases
4 stable releases in the last 90 days · Full changelog
- 5e1f1fb87d9a38ed44683228dda2434a9b2f0ef9 .NET: Bump package version to 1.80.0 (#14301)
- 1b7b020cd0a4e57d8d5d1cf2d515d352520ff424 Update OpenAPI HTTP client defaults (#14293)
- c1afc8639944e0e49c42aa796308ba2d0440f0d3 .NET: Bump Testcontainers packages (#14294)
- c028a0c7dc4f0814cdcbaba9d998f187a41197bf .Net: Honor FunctionChoiceBehavior function list in Gemini connector (#14183)
- 1d336b373169a98eface05d5359571289d50739f .Net: Bump CommunityToolkit.VectorData.InMemory and System.Numerics.Tensors (#14283)
- 76b54649d6b16a3ac70ff0d742d9cb72e3e61b2c remove migrated .NET MEVD providers, add redirect READMEs (#14193)
- Encode OpenAPI server variable values
- Consolidate Dependabot dependency updates
- Suppress CodeQL false positive in internal HTTP utility
- Python: [Breaking] Add MCP tool approval callback for Azure AI Agent
- Consolidate Python and .NET dependency updates
- Python: Skip MCP tools and prompts whose normalized names collide
- fb137812c741b8d673ef331b2b517d028056b4bb .NET: Bump package version to 1.79.0 (#14275)
- 383d102346b7b29c929e0257ef672a48898b5f66 Bump .NET SDK from 10.0.301 to 10.0.302 (#14235)
- 362cc2bad7daec24d82562030358af755d581179 Bump form-data from 4.0.5 to 4.0.6 in ProcessFrameworkWithSignalR React frontend (#14234)
- e78a8f503b387acfe0d25cbcabae59e317c13b5b Suppress CodeQL false positive in internal HTTP utility (#14223)
- 441ac994796f9f7335dcb1aa0dfe0fe2b62ec937 Update Microsoft.AspNetCore.OData to 9.5.0 (#14224)
- 01e74b054a910da3de46b8b900b4056ea187c1da .NET: Harden dotnet-format workflow shell handling (#14201)
- 35ba23e1b3092271c778ca057afe1a796e16e70e .Net: Update package version to 1.78.0 (#14142)
- e6c9673684ca03621885083faff1644e1f42695e .Net: Disable automatic HTTP redirects in HttpPlugin and WebFileDownloadPlugin default clients (#14132)
- f25753be0a126138d2eea39b0ca2985252dde25a Bump Scriban from 7.2.0 to 7.2.5 to fix NU1902 vulnerability (#14133)
- dfc5227227352e7cf4b11de1d9b8e49ebc7b43ff .Net: Update .NET SDK to 10.0.301 (#14119)
- cf9af8b966841e8f16d528bd0f2c69c51213b68d .Net: Bump axios to 1.16.0 and form-data to 4.0.6 in /dotnet/samples/Demos/ProcessFrameworkWithSignalR (#13858)
- e99c633fba9e4005bdb9b90a1f5441945b781040 .Net: Harden file path validation in Core, Document, and Web plugins (#14118)
- Python: Bump tornado from 6.5.5 to 6.5.7 in /python
- Python: Bump pyjwt from 2.11.0 to 2.13.0 in /python
- Python: Bump starlette from 0.52.1 to 1.3.1 in /python
- .Net: Bump Aspire.Azure.Search.Documents from 9.5.1 to 13.3.0
- .Net: Bump Aspire.Hosting.Azure.CognitiveServices from 13.0.0 to 13.3.0
- .Net: Bump esbuild, @vitejs/plugin-react, vite, and transitive lockfile deps in /dotnet/samples/Demos/ProcessFrameworkWithSignalR/src/ProcessFramework.Aspire.SignalR.ReactFrontend
Semantic Kernel alternatives
| # | Agent | Pulse | Downloads 7d | 7d | 30d | VS Code installs | Stars | Latest release | Price | Last 90 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 |
LangChainLangChain |
77 | 44.3M | up 1.9% | down 22.0% | — | 147K+45/day | 1.4.38d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 10 |
LangGraphLangChain |
69 | 16.1M | up 11.4% | down 21.8% | — | 42.7K+48/day | 1.2.13yesterday | Free (OSS) | ||
| 11 |
AI SDKVercel |
67 | 34.5M | up 13.5% | up 20.9% | — | 27.1K+18/day | 6.0.301yesterday | Free (OSS) | ||
| 13 | 63 | 8.7M | up 0.6% | up 2.0% | — | 8,679+23/day | 1.58.0yesterday | Free (OSS) | |||
| 17 |
Claude Agent SDKAnthropic |
59 | 21.5M | up 14.6% | up 0.6% | — | 8,219+5/day | 0.2.1636d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 21 |
MastraMastra |
58 | 2.2M | up 11.1% | up 19.1% | — | 28.6K+27/day | 1.74.0yesterday | Free (OSS) | ||
| No agents match that filter. | |||||||||||
Semantic Kernel FAQ
How much does Semantic Kernel cost?
Semantic Kernel is open source and free to use; you pay only for the models and infrastructure it runs on.
Is Semantic Kernel open source?
Yes. Semantic Kernel is open source, released under the MIT license.
How popular is Semantic Kernel?
Semantic Kernel was downloaded 79.1K times from PyPI in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, down 0.0% on the week before. Its download count moved to a different level overnight on Aug 24, 2026. A jump like that comes from automated installs switching on or off or from a change in how the registry counts, so growth rates across that date are not shown. The GitHub repository has 28.6K stars, 135 of them added in the last 30 days.
What is the latest version of Semantic Kernel?
The latest stable release we track is 1.80.1, published on Sep 3, 2026.
What are the alternatives to Semantic Kernel?
The closest alternatives in the same category by Pulse Score are LangChain, LangGraph, AI SDK, Strands Agents.
Where these numbers come from
PyPI: semantic-kernel. GitHub: microsoft/semantic-kernel. See data sources for how each one is collected.