Head to head · Agent frameworks · October 2026 research run
Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs LlamaIndex Framework
LlamaIndex Framework scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Development Kit (ADK)'s 68.7 (B), and leads in 0 of 7 scored categories. Agent Development Kit (ADK) leads on reliability, agent ergonomics, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do agent frameworks.
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Which one, for what
Best 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 70
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 73
- Security & auth, 92 against 74
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 69
Watch for
Six CVEs in 2026, three of them critical, one in tool confirmation itself
Best for Python teams building retrieval-heavy agents over their own data, with many connectors.
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
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.
Maintenance & community Agent Development Kit (ADK) +21
Agent Development Kit (ADK) 90
2.13.0 on 2026-10-23 (30). 15 Python releases in the 90 days from 3 August across the 1.x and 2.x lines, from 2.6.2 to 2.13.0, the newest 1.x being 1.39.1 on 2026-08-27 (20). 300 open issues and 261 open pull requests per the 1 October check, and we couldn't see reply times (15). Python is current, @google/adk is at 2.4.0 on npm, the Go module at v1.9.0 (tagged 15 October) and the Java artefact at 1.13.0 (21 October) (15). CI passes per the 1 October check, and 2.7.0 fixed zizmor findings in the workflows (10).
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.
Security & auth Agent Development Kit (ADK) +18
Agent Development Kit (ADK) 92
We found no usage telemetry in the docs or the Python source, and capturing message content in traces is opt-in (30). Tool confirmation for human approval, extended to workflow tool nodes in 2.11.0 and to any workflow node through require_confirmation in 2.12.0, the docs say to always pass tool_filter to McpToolset, 2.12.0 limits the mutating /dev and agent builder endpoints of adk web to local clients by default, and sandboxed code execution is recommended for model-written code (20). Before-tool callbacks, an after_tool_callback that screens tool output since 2.12.0, plugins, a Model Armor plugin, an optional ToolCallIntegrityPlugin since 2.11.0, and a safety page that covers indirect prompt injection through tool results (15). OpenTelemetry traces with Cloud Trace and about 20 third-party integrations (15). SECURITY.md routes reports to Google's g.co/vulnz with a one-day triage target, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (the repository still has no SECURITY.md file and GitHub's security page answered 403). Google as CNA has published six 2026 CVEs with fixed versions, the newest on 23 and 28 October, but there are no repository advisories and no bounty is mentioned in the policy (12). Framework reading, so SOC 2 isn't scored.
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.
Reliability Agent Development Kit (ADK) +10
Agent Development Kit (ADK) 80
Official packages on PyPI (Requires-Python >=3.11 since 2.12.0, constraint files for 3.11 to 3.15) and npm (20). The continuous-integration workflow passes on main, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (25). 300 open issues and 261 open pull requests, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (12). The changelog calls out breaking changes, but they keep shipping in minor releases of a post-1.0 package (2.6.0 on 2026-07-29 and 2.7.0 on 2026-08-13), 2.12.0 on 2026-10-13 dropped Python 3.10 with no line in its changelog, and 2.8.0 reverted an A2A guard that had broken every tool confirmation. On 8 October the changelog relabelled the 2.11.0 dev UI config change a bug fix and the 2.9.0 resumption changes behaviour changes. 2.13.0 (22 October) marks one more breaking change, the telemetry schema default, in a minor release (8). 2.12.0, past 1.0 (15).
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 Agent Development Kit (ADK) +7
Agent Development Kit (ADK) 80
An agent with one MCP server is about 15 lines with the built-in McpToolset, and tool_filter limits which tools load, with no dynamic filtering or deferred loading that we saw (20). RunConfig caps model calls per run, and the context compression page documents token-based and sliding-window compaction through EventsCompactionConfig, plus context caching (20). No exception reference or MCP error handling documented (5). Invocations are resumable, model calls take retry options, and 2.11.0 adds an abort_signal for graceful cancellation (20). An agent needs a name, a model and an instruction, in Python, TypeScript, Go, Java or Kotlin (15).
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.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | LlamaIndex Framework | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 70 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 87 | 85 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 73 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +7 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 92 | 74 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 90 | 69 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +21 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 69 | 67 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -12 | -2 | |
| Total | B 68.7/100 | BB 70/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | LlamaIndex Framework |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | LlamaIndex | |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | 2026-09-21 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-08-24 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | 22k stars | 53k stars, 1.3M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (8) | none |
How the scores have moved
Verdicts
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin, with tool confirmation and context compaction built in. Google has published six CVEs against ADK in 2026, three of them critical, one in tool confirmation itself, and minor 2.x releases keep carrying breaking changes.
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
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
- Run Python 2.7.0 or later and Java 1.13.0 or later, which fix the adk web code-injection CVE, the tool-confirmation forgery and the Java dev server's cross-origin flaw
- Always pass tool_filter to McpToolset
- Pin a 2.x minor and read the changelog before each bump. 2.12.0 needs Python 3.11 or later, which its changelog doesn't say
- Set EventsCompactionConfig on the App for long sessions so context doesn't grow without limit
- Keep ADK Web off public interfaces
- Set
ADK_TELEMETRY_SCHEMA_VERSION_OPT_IN=otel_semconv_1_36on 2.13.0 or later if dashboards or alerts read thecall_llmspan
LlamaIndex Framework
- Set Settings.llm and Settings.embed_model explicitly so calls don't go to OpenAI by default
- Install llama-index-tools-mcp for MCP tools and pass only the allowed tools the task needs
- Use Workflow human-in-the-loop events before tools that write or send
- Pin llama-index-core to a minor version, since minors have broken APIs
- Upgrade llama-index-core to 0.13.0 or later to clear the 2025 advisories
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LlamaIndex Framework?
LlamaIndex Framework scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Development Kit (ADK)'s 68.7 (B), and leads in 0 of 7 scored categories. Agent Development Kit (ADK) leads on reliability, agent ergonomics, security & auth and maintenance & community.
Are Agent Development Kit (ADK) and LlamaIndex Framework open source?
Yes. Agent Development Kit (ADK) is open source (Apache-2.0). LlamaIndex Framework is open source (MIT).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/google-adk-vs-llamaindex.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/google-adk.json·/api/v1/tools/llamaindex.json - From a terminal
anchor compare google-adk llamaindex(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "google-adk", "b": "llamaindex"}at/mcp, no key