# Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs guilds.run

> Agent Development Kit scores 74.7 (BB) to guilds.run's 56.5 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-guilds-run
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-guilds-run.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-guilds-run.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-guilds-run.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

Agent Development Kit (ADK) scores 74.7 (BB) on agent readiness against guilds.run's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent frameworks.

- Agent Development Kit (ADK): grade BB, 74.7/100, rank #69 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-adk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-adk.json
- guilds.run: grade C, 56.5/100, rank #677 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guilds-run.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guilds-run.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 55 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Development Kit (ADK) (BB)

Good for: Teams on Google Cloud or working outside Python, and for anyone who wants approval, guardrail callbacks and evaluation in one framework.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 53
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 58
- Security & auth, 92 against 68
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 41
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 52

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

Watch for: Two critical CVEs in 2026, one of them in tool confirmation itself

### guilds.run (C)

Good for: A person or small team that wants a standing, inspectable team of agents with schedules, shared tables and a web app, run on one machine, and is comfortable tracking main.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No tagged release, version number, changelog or published image. Users install whatever is on main


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | guilds.run | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 53 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 58 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 67 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 92 | 68 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 41 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +46 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 52 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **74.7 · BB** | **56.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | guilds.run |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Google | Cigale AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0-only |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-25 | none |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 22k stars | 57 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Agent Development Kit (ADK).** Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin. Two critical CVEs in 2026, one of them in tool confirmation itself.

**guilds.run.** A self-hosted multi-agent system that records each run's prompt, tool calls and memory changes, with per-agent models and tools and no telemetry by default. Public since 9 October 2026, it has no tagged release or published package, its own security register lists 13 open issues, and the site's terms and privacy links return 404.

## Before you call either

### Agent Development Kit (ADK)

1. Upgrade to 2.5.0 or later before relying on tool confirmation
2. Always pass tool_filter to McpToolset
3. Pin a 2.x minor and read the changelog's breaking section before each bump
4. Install the bigquery-analytics extra if you use pyarrow, since 2.7.0
5. Keep ADK Web off public interfaces, or run 1.28.1 or later at the least

### guilds.run

1. Keep the box on loopback or behind an authenticating proxy with AUTH_MODE=trusted-header. The default mode does not authenticate
2. Put agents that hold different secrets or GitHub tokens on different machines. Agents on one machine can read each other's homes and tokens
3. Back up the .env file written by ./setup.sh. It holds the only copy of the key that encrypts stored credentials
4. Set a spend limit at your model provider. guilds.run sets no spend cap, and max_tool_calls defaults to 50 per run
5. Pin a commit of main when you deploy. There are no tagged releases or versioned images yet

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or guilds.run?

Agent Development Kit (ADK) scores 74.7 (BB) on agent readiness against guilds.run's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Are Agent Development Kit (ADK) and guilds.run open source?

Yes. Agent Development Kit (ADK) is open source (Apache-2.0). guilds.run is open source (AGPL-3.0-only).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Development Kit (ADK) or guilds.run

- [AgentOS vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-google-adk.md)
- [AgentOS vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Agno vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Agno vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [CrewAI vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-google-adk.md)
- [CrewAI vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Docker Agent vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Docker Agent vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [guilds.run vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-langgraph.md)
- [guilds.run vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [guilds.run vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [guilds.run vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-pydantic-ai.md)