Semantic Kernel
Microsoft SDK for integrating LLMs with traditional code for AI applications.
Agent, MCP and tool libraries PyPI MIT
How Semantic Kernel is used
Semantic Kernel is a dependency in 3 of the 6,208 public GitHub projects set up for AI coding agents that we scanned, too few to describe it from them alone. Our scan also samples projects by dependency (Solana 2,661, Ethereum and EVM 1,496, 3D and games 2,818, agent frameworks and SDKs 10,983); counting those, it appears in 175 projects, and what it is used with below comes from all of them. The most used alternative in our scan is LangChain (126 projects). Projects that use it most often also use OpenAI Python Library (77.1%), python-dotenv (61.7%), Pydantic (60.0%).
Semantic Kernel popularity over time
Gid Score 51: downloads 40, use in agent projects 59, GitHub stars 68, downloads trend 39 (each 0-100). How it is calculated.
Often used with Semantic Kernel
| OpenAI Python Library | 77.1% of Semantic Kernel projects · 19.5× more than average |
|---|---|
| python-dotenv | 61.7% of Semantic Kernel projects · 6.7× more than average |
| Pydantic | 60.0% of Semantic Kernel projects · 6.9× more than average |
| aiohttp | 48.6% of Semantic Kernel projects · 23.6× more than average |
| pandas | 48.0% of Semantic Kernel projects · 11.2× more than average |
| NumPy | 46.9% of Semantic Kernel projects · 8.0× more than average |
| PyYAML | 46.3% of Semantic Kernel projects · 7.8× more than average |
| tiktoken (Python) | 42.3% of Semantic Kernel projects · 46.1× more than average |
From all 175 projects in our scan that use Semantic Kernel, including the dependency samples.
Install
| Package | pip install semantic-kernel |
|---|---|
| Main stacks | Python (175) |
| Example projects | Azure/co-op-translator, FromCSUZhou/Econometrics-Agent, bingreeky/MaAS, Azure/intro-to-intelligent-apps, happyapplehorse/gptui |
Alternatives to Semantic Kernel
Tools that do the same job, so a project picks one or the other. Add-ons and libraries used alongside Semantic Kernel are not listed here; they are in "Often used with".
| Tool | Gid Score | Used in agent projects | Downloads / wk | GitHub stars | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LangChain pypi Framework for composing applications with LLMs through chains and agents. |
88 | 126 (7.8%) | 37.3M | 148K | MIT |
| Pydantic AI pypi AI agent framework built with Pydantic for structured, typed agent development. |
62 | 16 (1.0%) | 1.5M | 20.7K | MIT |
| LlamaIndex pypi Framework to build RAG applications connecting LLMs to your custom data and documents. |
63 | 11 (0.7%) | 644K | 52.6K | MIT |
| LangGraph SDK pypi SDK for interacting with LangGraph API to build and run agent workflows. |
73 | 9 (0.6%) | 12.2M | 43.6K | MIT |
| smolagents pypi Barebones library for building agents that write Python code to call tools. |
46 | 5 (0.3%) | 113K | — | — |
More in Agent, MCP and tool libraries: Model Context Protocol SDK (JavaScript) Model Context Protocol SDK (Python) FastMCP (Python) LangGraph LangChain.js Mastra Agent Client Protocol SDK MCP Inspector