# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md (~1,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.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
- Updated: 2026-10-05

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): grade BB, 74.9/100, rank #45 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-adk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-adk.json
- OpenAI Agents SDK: grade AA, 86.5/100, rank #1 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-agents-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-agents-sdk.json

## 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 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | OpenAI Agents SDK | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 85 | OpenAI Agents SDK +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 95 | OpenAI Agents SDK +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 97 | OpenAI Agents SDK +27 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 92 | 80 | Agent Development Kit (ADK) +12 |
| 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 | 100 | OpenAI Agents SDK +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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 | Google | 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)

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

### OpenAI Agents SDK

1. Set OPENAI_AGENTS_DISABLE_TRACING=1, or OPENAI_AGENTS_TRACE_INCLUDE_SENSITIVE_DATA=0 to keep content out of traces
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

## Other comparisons with Agent Development Kit (ADK) or OpenAI Agents SDK

- [Claude Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [CrewAI vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-google-adk.md)
- [CrewAI vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [LangGraph vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)