# Cursor Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK

> OpenAI Agents SDK scores 86.2 (AA) to Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-27

OpenAI Agents SDK scores 86.2 (AA) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent frameworks.

- Cursor Agent SDK: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #443 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.json
- OpenAI Agents SDK: grade AA, 86.2/100, rank #1 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-agents-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-agents-sdk.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 78 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cursor Agent SDK (B)

Good 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.

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

### OpenAI Agents SDK (AA)

Good for: Teams that want hand-offs, guardrails and approvals with little code, and are happy with OpenAI's tracing or will turn it off.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 82
- Agent ergonomics, 97 against 80
- Security & auth, 80 against 68
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 100 against 74
- Transparency & trust, 89 against 70

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

Watch for: Tracing on by default, with model and tool content, sent to OpenAI


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor Agent SDK | OpenAI Agents SDK | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 85 | OpenAI Agents SDK +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 95 | OpenAI Agents SDK +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 97 | OpenAI Agents SDK +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 80 | OpenAI Agents SDK +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | OpenAI Agents SDK +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 100 | OpenAI Agents SDK +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 89 | OpenAI Agents SDK +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.6 · B** | **86.2 · AA** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor Agent SDK | OpenAI Agents SDK |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Cursor | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Your plan | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. 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 published | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 30k stars, 1.3M npm/wk, 3M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.9/5 (8) |

## 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.

**OpenAI Agents SDK.** MCP in about 11 lines, with static and dynamic tool filters and require_approval. Tracing on by default, with model and tool content, sent to OpenAI.

## 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

### OpenAI Agents SDK

1. Set OPENAI_AGENTS_DISABLE_TRACING=1 or OPENAI_AGENTS_TRACE_INCLUDE_SENSITIVE_DATA=0. On versions before 0.24.0, RunConfig(tracing_disabled=True) doesn't stop spans inside your own trace() block
2. Pin to a minor version. Each 0.Y can break
3. Set require_approval on MCP servers that write
4. Name the model explicitly. The default changed in 0.20.0
5. Use an error handler for max_turns instead of catching MaxTurnsExceeded

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cursor Agent SDK or OpenAI Agents SDK?

OpenAI Agents SDK scores 86.2 (AA) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Cursor Agent SDK and OpenAI Agents SDK open source?

No open-source release is listed for Cursor Agent SDK. OpenAI Agents SDK is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cursor Agent SDK or OpenAI Agents SDK

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- [AgentOS vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
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- [Cursor Agent SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)
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- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
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- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)

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