# CrewAI vs Strands Agents (slim)

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

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents.md (~4,250 tokens) · this version ~2,280 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents
- 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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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: C 59, rank #716 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crewai.min.md
- Strands Agents: A 80, rank #15 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-agents.min.md
- CrewAI, 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.
- Strands Agents, 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 Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | CrewAI | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 75 | 87 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 74 | 95 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 87 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 65 | 89 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 88 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 79 | 72 |

| Fact (where they differ) | CrewAI | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | CrewAI | Amazon Web Services |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| 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 |

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.)