# CrewAI vs smolagents (slim)

> CrewAI and smolagents score within a point of each other for agent frameworks, 59 and 58.7 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-smolagents.md (~4,000 tokens) · this version ~2,080 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-smolagents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-smolagents
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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CrewAI and smolagents score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 59 (C) and 58.7 (C). smolagents leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do agent frameworks.

- CrewAI: C 59, rank #716 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crewai.min.md
- smolagents: C 58.7, rank #735 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smolagents.min.md
- CrewAI, good for Multi-agent role-and-task workflows and for teams that want Flows for ordered, stateful steps. Ahead on Reliability, 75 against 64; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 68; Maintenance & community, 88 against 34; Transparency & trust, 79 against 65.
- smolagents, good for Small Python projects and research that want code-writing agents with minimal abstraction. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 81 against 74; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40.

| Category | CrewAI | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 75 | 64 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 74 | 81 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 68 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 65 | 66 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 88 | 34 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 79 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | CrewAI | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | CrewAI | Hugging Face |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-05-29 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2022-09-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | 2023-03-28 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 59k stars, 552k PyPI/wk | 30k stars, 171k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, CrewAI +54: CrewAI 88 (1.15.33, tagged on 2026-10-29 (30). 23 stable releases tagged in the 90 days from 3 August, 1.15.11 (4 August) to 1.15.33, and no pre-release in that window (20). Issues are labelled and pitches are tagged, but about 300 open pull requests sit alongside a stale bot, and we couldn't see reply times, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). The Python package is current (15). CodeQL, a vulnerability scan and Dependabot run on main, but Python 3.14 isn't supported yet and dev builds share the PyPI name (8).); 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.)
- Payments & pricing, smolagents +20: CrewAI 40 (No payment protocol (0). Scored on CrewAI AMP, the hosted option. Its free Basic plan is public but the only paid plan is contact-sales (0). The MIT package installs with no card (20) and no account, and can run a local model through LiteLLM (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.)
- Transparency & trust, CrewAI +14: CrewAI 79 (MIT (30). The telemetry page lists what's collected and what isn't, but doesn't say where it goes or how long it's kept (15). Deprecations such as function_calling_llm and allow_code_execution appear in the dated changelog and docs, with no written deprecation policy (10). Telemetry disclosed in the docs and README with two opt-out variables (20).); 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.)
- Agent ergonomics, CrewAI +12: CrewAI 80 (The mcps field gives an agent an MCP server in five lines, with static and dynamic tool filters and tool-list caching (25). max_iter defaults to 20, max_execution_time and max_rpm cap runs, and respect_context_window is on by default (20). MCP connection failures are logged as warnings and the agent carries on without those tools, and we found no exception reference (10). max_retry_limit retries an agent twice on error, and Flows persist state with @persist (20). An agent needs role, goal and backstory before it does anything, and it's Python only (5).); 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.)
- Reliability, CrewAI +11: CrewAI 75 (Official package on PyPI with Requires-Python >=3.10,<3.14 in the pyproject at 1.15.33 (20). The Run Tests workflow runs the suite on pull requests only, and CodeQL, a vulnerability scan and a nightly canary run on main; run results weren't re-read on 1 November because GitHub's pages answer 403 (15). Between 99 and 184 open issues, triaged with labels and a stale bot, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (18). A dated changelog that notes deprecations, but no written versioning policy, new capabilities ship in patch releases, and 1.15.29, a patch release on 23 October 2026, removed public import paths and changed how every agent runs, marked as breaking only on 28 October (7). 1.15.33, stable (15).); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, smolagents +7: CrewAI 74 (Agent, Task and tool classes are Pydantic-typed, but we found no generated API reference for the Python library (15). llms.txt at docs.crewai.com, per the listing's earlier check (10). The docs separate Crews from Flows and say which to use for what, though not when to avoid multi-agent crews (12). Tools take a Pydantic args_schema and MCP tools keep their JSON Schema (12). Plenty of examples, and MCP connection errors are described, but there's no exception reference (10). Dated changelog at docs.crewai.com/en/changelog (15).); 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.)