LangGraph vs CrewAI vs OpenAI Agents SDK: Which Agent Framework to Use (2026)

LangGraph, CrewAI and the OpenAI Agents SDK are three of the frameworks developers compare most when building agents in Python. All three are open source and free; they differ in how much structure they impose and how much control they give you.

At a glance

Figures as of Oct 10, 2026. LangGraph's downloads include installs pulled in by LangChain and other packages that depend on it, so they overstate direct use more than the other two.

How they think about an agent

LangGraph: you draw the flow. An agent is a graph: nodes do work (call a model, call a tool), edges decide what comes next, and a shared state object travels through it. State is saved at every step, so a run can pause for human approval, survive a crash and resume. You write more code up front and get predictable behaviour in return. It is available for Python and JavaScript.

CrewAI: you describe a team. You define agents with roles and goals ("researcher", "writer"), give them tasks, and the crew works through them. Flows add event-driven orchestration when you need explicit control. It is the quickest of the three to get a readable multi-agent prototype running, in Python.

OpenAI Agents SDK: you keep it small. An agent is a model with instructions and tools; agents can hand a conversation to each other, guardrails check inputs and outputs, and tracing is built in. There is little to learn. It is tuned for OpenAI models but can call others, and is available for Python and TypeScript.

Which one to choose

• Production workflow with approvals, long-running tasks or strict rules: LangGraph.
• A multi-agent prototype you need to show this week: CrewAI.
• You use OpenAI models and want the least framework possible: OpenAI Agents SDK.
• You might change model provider: LangGraph or CrewAI, which are provider-neutral by design.
• A TypeScript stack: LangGraph's JavaScript version or the Agents SDK for TypeScript; also consider Mastra.

The choice is less permanent than it looks. Tools, prompts and evaluation sets carry over between frameworks; the orchestration code is usually the smallest part of an agent.

Pairwise comparisons

• LangGraph vs CrewAI
• LangGraph vs OpenAI Agents SDK
• CrewAI vs OpenAI Agents SDK

For the wider field, including Google ADK, Claude Agent SDK, Pydantic AI and Mastra, see best AI agent frameworks.