# CrewAI vs Strands Agents

> Strands Agents scores 80 (A) to CrewAI's 59 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents.md (~4,250 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

Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against CrewAI's 59 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. CrewAI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent frameworks.

- CrewAI: grade C, 59/100, rank #716 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crewai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/crewai.json
- Strands Agents: grade A, 80/100, rank #15 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-agents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-agents.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

### CrewAI (C)

Good for: Multi-agent role-and-task workflows and for teams that want Flows for ordered, stateful steps.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 79 against 72

Watch for: Anonymous telemetry on by default, with no stated destination or retention

### Strands Agents (A)

Good for: Python or TypeScript teams, especially on AWS, who want a model-driven loop with MCP, multi-agent patterns and approval gates.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 87 against 75
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 74
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 80
- Security & auth, 89 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

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

Watch for: Three advisories in October 2026 on A2A session sharing and world-readable default session files, fixed in 1.43.0 and 1.48.0


## Why the edge

### Security & auth: Strands Agents +24

- CrewAI (65): Anonymous telemetry on by default (versions, crew and agent configuration, tool usage, agent roles and tool names, no prompts or task descriptions), off with CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY or OTEL_SDK_DISABLED (20). Pre-tool-call hooks can block a call or ask a person to approve it, and MCP tools can be allow-listed, but there's no sandbox now that CodeInterpreterTool is gone (15). Task guardrails and hooks, and the MCP page says to trust a server before using it, but we found no prompt-injection guidance (10). Tracing to CrewAI AMP or third-party tools such as Langfuse and MLflow (12). A security policy in the repository with private reporting through GitHub, security@crewai.com, response times, safe harbour and a CVE commitment through GitHub's CNA, and a valid security.txt that points to it. No paid bug bounty. The four March 2026 CVEs came through CERT/CC, and October fixes cite two GHSA ids that OSV didn't list on 1 November (8). Framework reading, so SOC 2 isn't scored.
- Strands Agents (89): Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). No usage analytics found in either SDK, and OpenTelemetry is opt-in (25). Interrupts and the harness's interventions gate tool calls behind human approval or Cedar policies, but the default sandbox is the local host (16). Guardrails, PII redaction and trusted message history pages, with Bedrock Guardrails integration (13). OpenTelemetry traces for every model and tool call (15). The AWS Vulnerability Disclosure Program on HackerOne and three advisories in October 2026 published with fixed versions (20). 25+16+13+15+20 = 89.

### Schema & documentation: Strands Agents +21

- 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).
- Strands Agents (95): Framework reading. Typed Python and TypeScript APIs with a reference for each (25). llms.txt with a Markdown twin of every page (10). The llms.txt and docs say when to use Strands over a hand-written loop and when to take the harness rather than the SDK (18). Tools are typed from decorated functions or Zod schemas (15). Python and TypeScript examples on every page, stop reasons and hook events documented, with no catalogue of exceptions (12). Versioning page and tagged releases per package (15). 25+10+18+15+12+15 = 95.

### Payments & pricing: Strands Agents +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).
- Strands Agents (60): Self-hosted rule. Free Apache-2.0 packages with nothing to buy from the project (20 + 20 + 20). No payment protocol (0). Model calls are paid to the provider. 0+20+20+20 = 60.

### Reliability: Strands Agents +12

- 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).
- Strands Agents (87): Local-package reading. Official PyPI and npm packages with Python 3.10 and Node 22 stated (20). A public CI workflow runs lint, type checks, unit and integration tests for each package on pull requests to main, plus security-audit workflows, and the latest Python, TypeScript, harness and MCP runs on main passed on 6 November (25). 664 open issues and 1,151 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 545 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 12 had a comment and 15 were closed, and 9 of the 40 newest open items carry a bug label. An issue-responder workflow runs on new issues (12). A written semantic versioning policy, experimental APIs kept apart, and deprecations removed only at a major (15). 1.0 since 15 July 2025 (15). 20+25+12+15+15 = 87.

### Agent ergonomics: Strands Agents +7

- 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).
- Strands Agents (87): Framework reading. An MCPClient is passed straight to the agent in a few lines and its lifecycle is managed, with tool filtering per client (22). Conversation managers, turn limits, token budgets and cancellation bound each run (20). Stop reasons and typed events, and hooks that can retry a model or tool call (16). Retry strategies, session managers that persist and resume a conversation, and interrupts that resume where they paused (17). Two official languages, but the default provider is Bedrock, which needs AWS credentials and model access (12). 22+20+16+17+12 = 87.

### Transparency & trust: CrewAI +7

- 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).
- Strands Agents (72): Apache-2.0 (30). A library that stores session state where the developer configures it. The default FileSessionManager kept sessions world-readable in /tmp until 1.48.0, which the October advisories record and fix (20). A written deprecation policy with warnings and removal at majors, without a dated support window (16). Telemetry is opt-in and documented (20). 30+20+16+20 = 86.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CrewAI | Strands Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 87 | Strands Agents +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 95 | Strands Agents +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 87 | Strands Agents +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 89 | Strands Agents +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Strands Agents +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 87 | CrewAI +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 72 | CrewAI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -12 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **59 · C** | **80 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CrewAI | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | CrewAI | Amazon Web Services |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | no document linked |
| Popularity | 59k stars, 552k PyPI/wk | 9.1k stars, 698k npm/wk, 8.9M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### CrewAI

- -8.1 on 1 November 2026 (B to C): product, new evidence, negative event
- -0.1 on 28 October 2026: correction
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Strands Agents

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**CrewAI.** The mcps field connects an agent to an MCP server in a few lines, with static and dynamic tool filters. Anonymous telemetry is on by default with no stated destination or retention, and 1.15.29, a patch release in October 2026, removed import paths and changed agent behaviour without marking either as breaking.

**Strands Agents.** An Apache-2.0 agent SDK for Python and TypeScript with a managed MCP client, multi-agent patterns, interrupts and Cedar policies for approval, opt-in OpenTelemetry and no usage analytics. Bedrock is the default model, the default sandbox is the local host, and three session-isolation advisories were fixed in October 2026.

## Before you call either

### CrewAI

1. Set CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=true before the first run
2. Pin an exact version and read the changelog before upgrading. Patch releases have carried breaking changes
3. Put MCP keys in headers, not in the URL as the docs' Exa example does
4. Add a PRE_TOOL_CALL hook for any tool that writes or sends
5. Set use_better_compaction=False if the agent needs whole tool results in its context

### Strands Agents

1. Upgrade to strands-agents 1.48.0 or later, and set a private session directory rather than the /tmp default
2. Pass a model explicitly when AWS credentials aren't configured, since Bedrock is the default
3. Use interrupts or the harness's `interventions` for tools that write, send or pay
4. Run shell and file tools in the Docker or SSH sandbox when the agent runs untrusted code
5. Pin a minor version when using A2A, MCP or experimental modules

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, CrewAI or Strands Agents?

Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against CrewAI's 59 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. CrewAI leads on transparency & trust.

### Are CrewAI and Strands Agents open source?

Yes. CrewAI is open source (MIT). Strands Agents is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with CrewAI or Strands Agents

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- [CrewAI vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
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- [Docker Agent vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-strands-agents.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