# Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs smolagents (slim)

> Agent Development Kit scores 68.7 (B) to smolagents's 58.7 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-smolagents.md (~4,500 tokens) · this version ~2,380 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-smolagents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-smolagents
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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Agent Development Kit (ADK) scores 68.7 (B) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent frameworks.

- Agent Development Kit (ADK): B 68.7, rank #273 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-adk.min.md
- smolagents: C 58.7, rank #739 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smolagents.min.md
- Agent Development Kit (ADK), 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 64; Schema & documentation, 87 against 81; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 68; Security & auth, 92 against 66; Maintenance & community, 90 against 34.
- smolagents, good for Small Python projects and research that want code-writing agents with minimal abstraction.

| Category | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 64 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 87 | 81 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 68 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 92 | 66 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 90 | 34 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 69 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | Hugging Face |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | 2026-05-29 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2022-09-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2023-03-28 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 22k stars | 30k stars, 171k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (8) | none |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Agent Development Kit (ADK) +56: 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).); smolagents 34 (v1.26.0 on 29 May 2026, 161 days before this check (10). No release in the 90 days to 6 November (0). 416 open issues and 1,045 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 144 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 26 had a comment and 1 was closed. Two 2026 CVE records say the vendor didn't respond to the reporter, and seven commits reached main from 8 August to 6 November (6). Python only, and the package is the current one (10). CI with actions pinned to commit SHAs and Dependabot for actions (8). 10+0+6+10+8 = 34.)
- Security & auth, Agent Development Kit (ADK) +26: 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.); smolagents 66 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). No telemetry found in the source (25). No human approval hook beyond step callbacks; the local executor restricts imports but the guide says it isn't a security tool, and isolation needs a remote executor (10). The secure execution guide covers LLM-generated code risks, without prompt-injection guidance for tool output (7). OpenTelemetry tracing through OpenInference and run inspection (12). SECURITY.md with private reporting and CVE credit, and the remote-executor RCE was fixed in public, but two 2026 CVE records say the vendor didn't respond (12). 25+10+7+12+12 = 66.)
- Reliability, Agent Development Kit (ADK) +16: 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).); smolagents 64 (Local-package reading. Official PyPI package with Python 3.10 or newer (20). A public tests workflow runs pytest on Python 3.10 and 3.12 for pushes and pull requests; whether main passes wasn't read (15). 416 open issues and 1,045 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 144 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 26 had a comment and 1 was closed. Two 2026 CVE records say the vendor didn't respond to the reporter, and seven commits reached main from 8 August to 6 November (6). Release notes on GitHub tags but no changelog file, and the remote WasmExecutor was removed in a minor release (8). 1.0 since 31 December 2024 (15). 20+15+6+8+15 = 64.)
- Agent ergonomics, Agent Development Kit (ADK) +12: 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).); smolagents 68 (Framework reading. MCPClient loads an MCP server's tools in a few lines (20). max_steps, planning intervals and final_answer_checks bound a run (16). Errors from tools and code go back to the model as observations (14). No built-in retry, idempotency or resume beyond replaying memory (8). Few required parameters and many providers, Python only, and the default model needs a Hugging Face token (10). 20+16+14+8+10 = 68.)
- Schema & documentation, Agent Development Kit (ADK) +6: Agent Development Kit (ADK) 87 (An API reference on adk.dev (25). llms.txt with about 250 entries and Markdown versions of each page (10). The docs explain the agent types and when to use workflow agents, but say little about when not to use ADK (15). Tools are typed functions, and McpToolset keeps the server's schemas (12). Examples throughout, but the MCP page has no error handling section and we found no exception reference (10). Dated changelog and release notes (15).); smolagents 81 (Framework reading. A typed Python API with reference pages for agents, models, tools and executors (22). llms.txt and Markdown pages on huggingface.co (10). The docs say when to use CodeAgent or ToolCallingAgent and when a sandbox is needed (17). Tools declare typed inputs in a schema dictionary or from a decorated function (12). Many runnable examples; error classes exist but aren't catalogued (10). Versions tagged with release notes, no changelog file (10). 22+10+17+12+10+10 = 81.)