# Agno vs smolagents

> Agno scores 70.9 (BB) to smolagents's 58.7 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-smolagents
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-smolagents.md (~4,100 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Agno scores 70.9 (BB) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. smolagents leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent frameworks.

- Agno: grade BB, 70.9/100, rank #178 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agno.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agno.json
- smolagents: grade C, 58.7/100, rank #735 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smolagents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smolagents.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 171 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agno (BB)

Good for: Python teams that want agents, teams and workflows plus a self-hosted server with REST, MCP, approvals and scheduling in one package.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 83 against 64
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 81
- Agent ergonomics, 76 against 68
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 34
- Transparency & trust, 84 against 65

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Usage telemetry is on by default and sends session, run and agent identifiers unhashed. Prompts and outputs are not sent

### smolagents (C)

Good for: Small Python projects and research that want code-writing agents with minimal abstraction.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 50

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: No release since 1.26.0 on 29 May 2026, and few commits to main since August


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Agno +52

- Agno (86): 3.1.12, tagged 29 October 2026 (30). 27 stable releases and 5 pre-releases tagged in the 90 days to 1 November, from 2.8.7 on 5 August to 3.1.12 (20). Bug reports were usually answered within days on 8 October, when 867 issues and 968 pull requests were open and issues were opened nearly three times as fast as they were closed, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (14). The Python package is current (15). CI runs lint, types and tests with pinned development tools. No Dependabot configuration file is in the repository (7).
- smolagents (34): v1.26.0 on 29 May 2026, 161 days before this check (10). No release in the 90 days to 6 November (0). 416 open issues and 1,045 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 144 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 26 had a comment and 1 was closed. Two 2026 CVE records say the vendor didn't respond to the reporter, and seven commits reached main from 8 August to 6 November (6). Python only, and the package is the current one (10). CI with actions pinned to commit SHAs and Dependabot for actions (8). 10+0+6+10+8 = 34.

### Reliability: Agno +19

- Agno (83): Official PyPI package with Python 3.9 or later stated (20). Public CI runs Ruff, mypy and the unit tests in five groups, and of the 12 latest runs on main on 8 October, 10 passed and 2 were cancelled, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (25). 867 open issues, 171 of them labelled bug and 227 older than six months, with 287 opened and 105 closed in the 30 days to 8 October, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (12). Majors 2.0 and 3.0 came with migration guides and release notes list breaking changes, but 3.1.0, a minor, shipped a breaking filesystem table re-key (11). Version 3.1.12 with the Production/Stable classifier (15). Local-software reading.
- smolagents (64): Local-package reading. Official PyPI package with Python 3.10 or newer (20). A public tests workflow runs pytest on Python 3.10 and 3.12 for pushes and pull requests; whether main passes wasn't read (15). 416 open issues and 1,045 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 144 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 26 had a comment and 1 was closed. Two 2026 CVE records say the vendor didn't respond to the reporter, and seven commits reached main from 8 August to 6 November (6). Release notes on GitHub tags but no changelog file, and the remote WasmExecutor was removed in a minor release (8). 1.0 since 31 December 2024 (15). 20+15+6+8+15 = 64.

### Transparency & trust: Agno +19

- Agno (84): Apache 2.0 (30). The telemetry page lists the fields sent and says identifiers are not hashed, and the pricing page says the control plane holds no copy of customer data. The terms and privacy pages render only with JavaScript and were not read, and no retention period for telemetry was found (15). Migration guides for 2.0 and 3.0 and migration notices on what was removed, with no written deprecation policy found (10). Telemetry is disclosed in the README and docs with an opt-out, though the environment variable does not cover AgentOS or evals (18).
- smolagents (65): Apache-2.0 (30). The library stores nothing itself; the default model sends prompts to Hugging Face's inference providers, which the docs show (20). Breaking removals such as WasmExecutor shipped in minor releases, without a written deprecation policy (5). No telemetry, though no page states it (12). 30+20+5+12 = 67.

### Payments & pricing: smolagents +10

- Agno (50): No payment protocol (0). Self-hosted rule, with the paid option scored. The control plane has public plan prices, Free at $0 and Pro at $150 a month, with Enterprise by quote (10). The package installs with no card (20) and runs with no Agno account (20).
- smolagents (60): Self-hosted rule. Free Apache-2.0 package with nothing to buy from the project (20 + 20 + 20). No payment protocol (0). 0+20+20+20 = 60.

### Schema & documentation: Agno +9

- Agno (90): A class reference under docs.agno.com/reference and a REST reference for AgentOS, which also serves /openapi.json (25). llms.txt with 3,985 lines, llms-full.txt, a Markdown twin of each page and a docs MCP server (10). Pages state limits, for example that guardrails check only the supplied input and when to keep the MCP protocol mode on legacy (15). Pydantic-typed classes and tool signatures, with a py.typed marker (13). Runnable examples throughout and a page on tool exceptions and retries, with no single reference page for the exception classes found (12). Dated changelog and release notes per version (15). Framework reading.
- smolagents (81): Framework reading. A typed Python API with reference pages for agents, models, tools and executors (22). llms.txt and Markdown pages on huggingface.co (10). The docs say when to use CodeAgent or ToolCallingAgent and when a sandbox is needed (17). Tools declare typed inputs in a schema dictionary or from a decorated function (12). Many runnable examples; error classes exist but aren't catalogued (10). Versions tagged with release notes, no changelog file (10). 22+10+17+12+10+10 = 81.

### Agent ergonomics: Agno +8

- Agno (76): An agent with an MCP server is about ten lines through MCPTools, with include_tools, exclude_tools and tool_name_prefix (22). tool_call_limit exists but defaults to None, and sessions, history and compression are configurable (14). A typed exception hierarchy, with RetryAgentRun and StopAgentRun to steer the loop from a tool (16). Runs continue by run ID after a pause and AgentOS has a durable queue, which is off by default (16). Few required parameters, Python only (8).
- smolagents (68): Framework reading. MCPClient loads an MCP server's tools in a few lines (20). max_steps, planning intervals and final_answer_checks bound a run (16). Errors from tools and code go back to the model as observations (14). No built-in retry, idempotency or resume beyond replaying memory (8). Few required parameters and many providers, Python only, and the default model needs a Hugging Face token (10). 20+16+14+8+10 = 68.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agno | smolagents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 83 | 64 | Agno +19 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 81 | Agno +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 68 | Agno +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 66 | smolagents +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 60 | smolagents +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 34 | Agno +52 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 65 | Agno +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -6 | |
| **Total** | | **70.9 · BB** | **58.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agno | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Agno Inc. | Hugging Face |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-05-29 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2022-09-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2023-03-28 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 43k stars, 476k PyPI/wk | 30k stars, 171k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Agno

- -2.0 on 1 November 2026: correction
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### smolagents

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Agno.** An Apache 2.0 Python agent framework at 3.1.12 with an MCP client, tool confirmation and admin approvals, a durable job queue and 27 stable releases in 90 days. Usage telemetry is on by default with unhashed identifiers, and 3.1.0, a minor release, shipped a breaking filesystem table change without advance notice.

**smolagents.** A compact Python library for code-writing and tool-calling agents, with MCP tools, any model provider and remote sandboxes through E2B, Docker, Modal or Blaxel. The newest release is 1.26.0 of 29 May 2026, a critical remote-executor RCE took about eight weeks to fix, and the local executor isn't a security boundary.

## Before you call either

### Agno

1. Set AGNO_TELEMETRY=false before the first run, and pass telemetry=False to AgentOS and to each eval, which ignore the variable
2. Configure JWT_VERIFICATION_KEY with AgentOS authorisation switched on, or OS_SECURITY_KEY, before exposing AgentOS. With neither set, REST and MCP routes take no credential
3. Mark tools that write with requires_confirmation, and resume with continue_run once every requirement is resolved
4. Set tool_call_limit on agents. The default is None
5. Install extras for what you use, such as agno[mcp] for MCPTools and agno[os,mcp] for AgentOS with its MCP server

### smolagents

1. Run CodeAgent with `executor_type` set to e2b, docker, modal or blaxel whenever the model or its inputs aren't trusted
2. Use smolagents 1.24.0 or later to get the remote-executor deserialisation fix
3. Set max_steps and final_answer_checks so a run stops on its own
4. Pass structured_output explicitly to MCPClient to avoid the default-change warning
5. Pin the version, since minor releases have removed APIs

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agno or smolagents?

Agno scores 70.9 (BB) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. smolagents leads on payments & pricing.

### Are Agno and smolagents open source?

Yes. Agno is open source (Apache-2.0). smolagents is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-smolagents.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-smolagents.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agno", "b": "smolagents"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agno smolagents`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agno.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smolagents.json

## Other comparisons with Agno or smolagents

- [AgentOS vs Agno](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-agno.md)
- [AgentOS vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Agno vs BoxLang AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-boxlang-ai.md)
- [Agno vs Claude Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-claude-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs CrewAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-crewai.md)
- [Agno vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs Docker Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-docker-agent.md)
- [Agno vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Agno vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Agno vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Agno vs LlamaIndex Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-llamaindex.md)
- [Agno vs Mastra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-mastra.md)
- [Agno vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Agno vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [Agno vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Agno vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [Agno vs AI SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.md)
- [BoxLang AI vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-smolagents.md)
- [CrewAI vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Docker Agent vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-smolagents.md)
- [guilds.run vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-smolagents.md)
- [LangGraph vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-smolagents.md)
- [LlamaIndex Framework vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaindex-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Mastra vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastra-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Microsoft Agent Framework vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-agent-framework-vs-smolagents.md)
- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Pydantic AI vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pydantic-ai-vs-smolagents.md)
- [smolagents vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smolagents-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [smolagents vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smolagents-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [smolagents vs AI SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smolagents-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp