Head to head · Agent frameworks · October 2026 research run
CrewAI vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Agent Development Kit (ADK) has a score of 74.9 (BB) against CrewAI's 67 (B). Both do agent frameworks. The largest gap is security & auth, 27 points.
CrewAICrewAI · Agent framework
B67/100#149 of 452
Agent Development Kit (ADK)Google · Agent framework
BB74.9/100#45 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick CrewAI for
- agent ergonomics (+10)
Pick Agent Development Kit (ADK) for
- schema & documentation (+13)
- security & auth (+27)
- payments & pricing (+20)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | CrewAI | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 78 | 80 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +2 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 74 | 87 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 70 | CrewAI +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 65 | 92 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 60 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 88 | 87 | CrewAI +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 72 | 70 | CrewAI +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -4 | |
| Total | 67 · B | 74.9 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | CrewAI | Agent Development Kit (ADK) |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | CrewAI | |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-25 |
| Popularity | 59k stars, 552k PyPI/wk | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (8) |
Verdicts
CrewAI
The mcps field supports MCP integration with static and dynamic tool filters. Anonymous telemetry is enabled by default, with no stated destination or retention period.
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin. Two critical CVEs in 2026, one of them in tool confirmation itself.
Before you call either
CrewAI
- Set CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=true before the first run
- Put MCP keys in headers, not in the URL as the docs' Exa example does
- Pin a stable version. Development builds share the crewai name on PyPI
- Add a PRE_TOOL_CALL hook for any tool that writes or sends
- Check the logs for MCP connection warnings. A failed server doesn't stop the agent
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
- Upgrade to 2.5.0 or later before relying on tool confirmation
- Always pass tool_filter to McpToolset
- Pin a 2.x minor and read the changelog's breaking section before each bump
- Install the bigquery-analytics extra if you use pyarrow, since 2.7.0
- Keep ADK Web off public interfaces, or run 1.28.1 or later at the least
Other comparisons with CrewAI or Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Machine-readable
/api/v1/tools/crewai.json·/api/v1/tools/google-adk.json- This page as Markdown,
/compare/crewai-vs-google-adk.md