Head to head · Agent frameworks · October 2026 research run
Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs OpenAI Agents SDK
OpenAI Agents SDK has a score of 86.5 (AA) against Agent Development Kit (ADK)'s 74.9 (BB). Both do agent frameworks. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 27 points.
Agent Development Kit (ADK)Google · Agent framework
BB74.9/100#45 of 452
OpenAI Agents SDKOpenAI · Agent framework
AA86.5/100#1 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Agent Development Kit (ADK) for
- security & auth (+12)
Pick OpenAI Agents SDK for
- reliability (+5)
- schema & documentation (+8)
- agent ergonomics (+27)
- maintenance & community (+13)
- transparency & trust (+22)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | OpenAI Agents SDK | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 85 | OpenAI Agents SDK +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 87 | 95 | OpenAI Agents SDK +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 70 | 97 | OpenAI Agents SDK +27 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 92 | 80 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 87 | 100 | OpenAI Agents SDK +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 70 | 92 | OpenAI Agents SDK +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| Total | 74.9 · BB | 86.5 · AA |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | OpenAI Agents SDK |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | OpenAI | |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-17 |
| Popularity | 22k stars | 30k stars, 1.3M npm/wk, 3M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (8) | 3.9/5 (8) |
Verdicts
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin. Two critical CVEs in 2026, one of them in tool confirmation itself.
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
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
- Upgrade to 2.5.0 or later before relying on tool confirmation
- Always pass tool_filter to McpToolset
- Pin a 2.x minor and read the changelog's breaking section before each bump
- Install the bigquery-analytics extra if you use pyarrow, since 2.7.0
- Keep ADK Web off public interfaces, or run 1.28.1 or later at the least
OpenAI Agents SDK
- Set OPENAI_AGENTS_DISABLE_TRACING=1, or OPENAI_AGENTS_TRACE_INCLUDE_SENSITIVE_DATA=0 to keep content out of traces
- Pin to a minor version. Each 0.Y can break
- Set require_approval on MCP servers that write
- Name the model explicitly. The default changed in 0.20.0
- Use an error handler for max_turns instead of catching MaxTurnsExceeded