Head to head · Agent frameworks · October 2026 research run

Cursor Agent SDK vs LlamaIndex Framework

LlamaIndex Framework scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cursor Agent SDK leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do agent frameworks.

Best agent frameworks and SDKs · All 171 frameworks comparisons

Which one, for what

Cursor Agent SDK B

Best for Teams already on Cursor who want version-controlled agents for pull request review, triage and Slack, with evals in CI and one-command hosting.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 73
  • Maintenance & community, 74 against 69

Watch for

Closed source under Cursor's terms, with no public repository, CI or issue tracker

LlamaIndex Framework BB

Best for Python teams building retrieval-heavy agents over their own data, with many connectors.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 45
  • Security & auth, 74 against 68
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

Core is 0.14.x, and minor versions such as 0.13 and 0.14 carried breaking changes

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing LlamaIndex Framework +30

Cursor Agent SDK 30

Framework reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Per-million-token prices for Cursor models, including the default Grok 4.5 with Fast, and plan prices are public, but no price for managed hosting and no statement of which plans cover the Agent SDK were found (15). The package is free and the Free plan needs no card, but its usage is only described as limited agent requests (15). A person signs in through a browser or creates an API key in the dashboard before a model turn runs (0). 0+15+15+0 = 30.

LlamaIndex Framework 60

Self-hosted rule. Free MIT packages with nothing to buy for the framework itself (20 + 20 + 20). No payment protocol (0). LlamaCloud is graded on its own listing. 0+20+20+20 = 60.

Reliability LlamaIndex Framework +25

Cursor Agent SDK 45

Local-package reading, since the owner runs the framework, with Cursor's hosting as an option. Official npm package with Node 22.13 or newer stated in engines and in the docs, which also say never Bun (20). Closed source, so no public CI or test suite (0). No public issue tracker. github.com/cursor/cursor holds a README and SECURITY.md, and forum.cursor.com has no Agent SDK tag, so there's nothing to count open crashes against. The troubleshooting page lists known failures with fixes (5). A dated changelog of two entries, 0.2.29 and 0.3.0, both 23 October 2026, and 0.3.0 calls out the removed persistent option, but the 27 earlier @cursor/bdk versions and 123 @cursor/july versions have no notes, and one build ships under three package names (5). Version 0.3.0, but the changelog post of 20 October says generally available and the docs changelog labels 0.3.0 the GA release, which we read as declared stable (15). 20+0+5+5+15 = 45.

LlamaIndex Framework 70

Local-package reading. Official PyPI packages with Python 3.10 to below 4.0 (20). Public unit-test, type-check, lint, coverage and CodeQL workflows, with the type-check, lint and CodeQL runs on main passing on 3 November (25). 379 open issues and 1,291 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 241 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 28 had a comment and 3 were closed; a stale bot and an issue classifier run on the repository (12). A dated, generated changelog per package, but core is 0.x and minors such as 0.13 and 0.14 carried breaking changes (8). Core isn't 1.0; Workflows is at 2.x, so partial (5). 20+25+12+8+5 = 70.

Agent ergonomics Cursor Agent SDK +7

Cursor Agent SDK 80

Framework reading, scored on what it takes to run a tool-calling agent with MCP. One file per tool and one file per MCP connection, tools and disallowedTools filters with effects: "read", and an allowlist for the harness's built-in tools (22). Concurrency caps with queued turns, --fields, page tokens and limits on list commands, and a per-session cost view. We found no turn cap or spend cap for a run (12). Built-in routes return { ok: false, error } codes, direct tool calls have documented 400, 404, 409 and 500 codes, and the CLI has seven exit codes (18). Reads and idempotent calls retry up to three times, writes run once, MCP readOnlyHint and idempotentHint decide retries for connection tools, and dry-run sessions stub writes (20). agent-sdk init scaffolds a working project and every agent field is optional, but the framework is TypeScript only (8). 22+12+18+20+8 = 80.

LlamaIndex Framework 73

Framework reading. MCP tools through a separate llama-index-tools-mcp package, with allowed tools selectable (18). Memory token limits, iteration caps and streaming events (16). Tool errors returned to the agent, with few typed errors (12). Workflow context serialises and resumes, and the DBOS package makes runs durable (16). Few required parameters, but OpenAI is the silent default for LLM and embeddings, Python here with a separate TypeScript edition (11). 18+16+12+16+11 = 73.

Security & auth LlamaIndex Framework +6

Cursor Agent SDK 68

Framework reading. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt injection, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Every model turn goes through Cursor's backend with a Cursor credential, even on a self-hosted server, and the data-use page says Cursor may store and train on prompts and code with Privacy Mode off. Managed hosting stores the repository and agent data whatever the Privacy Mode setting. OpenTelemetry export is off until an endpoint is set, with prompt text and tool payloads behind separate flags, and the npm update check has a documented switch. Install copies skills into ~/.cursor/skills (18). needsApproval parks a tool call for a person, dry runs stub writes and the harness tools take an allowlist, but local.sandbox is off by default, so shell commands auto-approve with the host's environment and file tools reach any path the process can. Hosted deployments enforce an egress allowlist (12). The docs tell you to turn the sandbox on for webhook payloads, diffs and chat, document HMAC and shared-secret auth on webhook routes, and warn that anyone who can talk to the agent can drive Cursor account connectors. The scaffolded memory journal shares turns across sessions, with an instruction to treat it as untrusted (10). Sessions keep every message and tool call, hooks can mirror them for audit, and ctx.approvedBy records the approver (14). security.txt and SECURITY.md with a disclosure address and Cursor's GitHub advisories, no bug bounty found, and no advisory for the three package names in OSV on 2 November (14). SOC 2 and ISO 27001 aren't scored on the framework reading. 18+12+10+14+14 = 68.

LlamaIndex Framework 74

Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). No telemetry found in llama-index-core (25). Human-in-the-loop events in Workflows and agents can wait for a person, but there's no per-tool approval primitive and CodeActAgent's executor is the developer's to supply (12). The threat model puts input validation on the application, with no prompt-injection guidance in the agent pages (5). Instrumentation events and callback handlers for tracing (14). A huntr bug bounty, GitHub private reporting and public advisories with fixed versions (18). 25+12+5+14+18 = 74.

Maintenance & community Cursor Agent SDK +5

Cursor Agent SDK 74

0.3.0 on npm on 25 October 2026, per the 27 October check (npm not re-read on 2 November), and the docs changelog still ends at 0.3.0 of 23 October (30). Five @grok/agent-sdk versions from 22 to 25 October and 29 @cursor/bdk versions since 22 September, per the 27 October check (20). Closed product. A public changelog with two entries and a forum with no Agent SDK tag, so we couldn't see replies to SDK reports (8). The npm package is current and official, TypeScript only (12). Dependencies are current releases, but there's no public CI and the same build goes out under three names with a postinstall script (4). 30+20+8+12+4 = 74.

LlamaIndex Framework 69

llama-index-core 0.14.25 on 21 September 2026, 46 days before this check (20). Two core changelog entries in the 90 days (19 August and 21 September), with integration packages and Workflows (2.24.1 to 2.26.1) publishing in between, so partial (12). 379 open issues and 1,291 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 241 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 28 had a comment and 3 were closed; a stale bot and an issue classifier run on the repository (12). Core, Workflows and integrations are current (15). CI and CodeQL passing on main and a stale-package policy that moves unmaintained integrations out of main (10). 20+12+12+15+10 = 69.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCursor Agent SDKLlamaIndex FrameworkEdge
Reliability16%204570LlamaIndex Framework +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28285LlamaIndex Framework +3
Agent ergonomics13%16.28073Cursor Agent SDK +7
Security & auth14%17.56874LlamaIndex Framework +6
Payments & pricing10%12.53060LlamaIndex Framework +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87469Cursor Agent SDK +5
Transparency & trust7%8.87167Cursor Agent SDK +4
Negative events≤150-2
TotalB 63.7/100BB 70/100

Facts side by side

FactCursor Agent SDKLlamaIndex Framework
KindAgent frameworkAgent framework
VendorCursorLlamaIndex
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingYour planFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. The package's LICENSE.md reads "© Anysphere Inc. All rights reserved", with use subject to Cursor's Terms of Service (updated 3 September 2026). No source repository is publishedMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-252026-09-21
Terms last updated2026-09-03no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-292026-08-24
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Popularitynone53k stars, 1.3M PyPI/wk

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Cursor Agent SDK

An agent-as-code framework with typed tools, declared read and write effects that drive retries and dry runs, an approval gate per tool and evals that assert on tool calls. It's closed source, every model turn runs through Cursor's backend on a Cursor plan, local sandboxing is off by default, and the changelog has two entries.

LlamaIndex Framework

An MIT Python framework for retrieval and agents, with three agent types, multi-agent AgentWorkflow, resumable event-driven Workflows, MCP tools and a huntr bug bounty, and no telemetry found. Core is still 0.14 with breaking minors, OpenAI is the silent default, and approval and injection handling are left to the application.

Before you call either

Cursor Agent SDK

  1. Install @grok/agent-sdk, not @cursor/agent-sdk from the launch post. That name answers 404 on npm
  2. Set local.sandbox before a turn reads webhook payloads, pull request diffs or chat. Without it shell commands auto-approve with the host's credentials
  3. Give every tool an effect. A tool without one counts as a write, runs once and is stubbed in dry runs
  4. Start agent-sdk serve with --bearer-token on any shared host. --allow-anonymous admits every caller as one principal
  5. Delete bot/hooks/memory.ts when sessions serve different people. The journal shares each turn's message and result with later turns

LlamaIndex Framework

  1. Set Settings.llm and Settings.embed_model explicitly so calls don't go to OpenAI by default
  2. Install llama-index-tools-mcp for MCP tools and pass only the allowed tools the task needs
  3. Use Workflow human-in-the-loop events before tools that write or send
  4. Pin llama-index-core to a minor version, since minors have broken APIs
  5. Upgrade llama-index-core to 0.13.0 or later to clear the 2025 advisories

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cursor Agent SDK or LlamaIndex Framework?

LlamaIndex Framework scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cursor Agent SDK leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

Are Cursor Agent SDK and LlamaIndex Framework open source?

No open-source release is listed for Cursor Agent SDK. LlamaIndex Framework is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Cursor Agent SDK or LlamaIndex Framework

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