# Cursor Agent SDK vs Strands Agents

> Strands Agents scores 80 (A) to Cursor Agent SDK's 63.7 (B) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-strands-agents
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-strands-agents.md (~5,200 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 Cursor Agent SDK's 63.7 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent frameworks.

- Cursor Agent SDK: grade B, 63.7/100, rank #503 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.json
- Strands Agents: grade A, 80/100, rank #15 of 1510. 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

### 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.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Strands Agents loses 4 points for them

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

### 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 45
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 82
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 80
- Security & auth, 89 against 68
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 74

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

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

### Reliability: Strands Agents +42

- 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.
- 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.

### Payments & pricing: Strands Agents +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.
- 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.

### Security & auth: Strands Agents +21

- 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.
- 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 +13

- Cursor Agent SDK (82): Framework reading. Typed TypeScript declarations ship in the package, tools take Zod or JSON Schema, `agent-sdk help --json` describes every command's flags and exit codes, and `GET /v1/info` and `GET /v1/tools/:name` return the discovered surface and each tool's schemas. No OpenAPI document for the HTTP routes (20). cursor.com/llms.txt lists every Agent SDK page with a Markdown twin, and the package ships the docs and an llms.txt (10). The overview has a table of when to use the Agent SDK, Automations or Grok Bot, and the hooks page has a table of what to use instead of a hook for each job (18). Typed config, `effect` as an enum or predicate, `timeArgs` checked against the input schema, and slug patterns stated (13). Examples on every page, with error tables for direct tool calls, HTTP 401, 403 and 409, the limit error's JSON and seven exit codes (15). A dated changelog, but only two entries, both from 23 October 2026 (6). 20+10+18+13+15+6 = 82.
- 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.

### Maintenance & community: Strands Agents +13

- 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.
- Strands Agents (87): Python 1.64.0 and TypeScript 1.24.0 tagged on 4 November 2026 (30). Python 1.55.0 on 8 September, 1.61.0 on 14 October, 1.62.0 on 21 October and 1.63.0 on 30 October among many releases in 90 days (20). 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). Both official SDKs are current (15). Dependency floors, security-audit workflows and CI passing on main (10). 30+20+12+15+10 = 87.

### Agent ergonomics: Strands Agents +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.
- 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.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor Agent SDK | Strands Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 87 | Strands Agents +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 95 | Strands Agents +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 87 | Strands Agents +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 89 | Strands Agents +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | Strands Agents +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 87 | Strands Agents +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 72 | Strands Agents +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **63.7 · B** | **80 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor Agent SDK | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Cursor | Amazon Web Services |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | none | 9.1k stars, 698k npm/wk, 8.9M PyPI/wk |

## How the scores have moved

### Cursor Agent SDK

- +0.1 on 28 October 2026: checklist

### Strands Agents

No score change since it was listed.

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Cursor Agent SDK or Strands Agents?

Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.7 (B), and leads in every scored category.

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

No open-source release is listed for Cursor Agent SDK. Strands Agents is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cursor Agent SDK or Strands Agents

- [AgentOS vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [AgentOS vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Agno vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [BoxLang AI vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [BoxLang AI vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [CrewAI vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [CrewAI vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Docker Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-docker-agent.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs LlamaIndex Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-llamaindex.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Mastra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-mastra.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs smolagents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-smolagents.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs AI SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.md)
- [Docker Agent vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [guilds.run vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [LangGraph vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [LlamaIndex Framework vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaindex-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Mastra vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastra-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Microsoft Agent Framework vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-agent-framework-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Pydantic AI vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pydantic-ai-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [smolagents vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smolagents-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Strands Agents vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-agents-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [Strands Agents vs AI SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-agents-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.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