# Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs AI SDK (slim)

> AI SDK scores 89.8 (AA) to Agent Development Kit's 68.7 (B) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.md (~4,250 tokens) · this version ~2,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-vercel-ai-sdk
- 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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AI SDK scores 89.8 (AA) on agent readiness against Agent Development Kit (ADK)'s 68.7 (B), and leads in 5 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
- AI SDK: AA 89.8, rank #1 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-ai-sdk.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. Also No key needed to call it.
- AI SDK, good for TypeScript teams building agents and chat UIs who want one API across many providers and a short path to MCP. Ahead on Reliability, 93 against 80; Schema & documentation, 100 against 87; Agent ergonomics, 95 against 80; Maintenance & community, 97 against 90; Transparency & trust, 89 against 69. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; No incidents deducted, where Agent Development Kit (ADK) loses 12 points for them.

| Category | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | AI SDK |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 93 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 87 | 100 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 95 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 92 | 90 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 90 | 97 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 69 | 89 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | AI SDK |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | Vercel Inc. |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | 2026-11-05 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes, with an opt-out |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | 22k stars | 28k stars, 44.9M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (8) | none |

Why the edge:
- Transparency & trust, AI SDK +20: Agent Development Kit (ADK) 69 (Apache-2.0 (30). Google's general privacy policy applies and the observability docs say content capture is opt-in, but there's no ADK-specific statement of what, if anything, leaves the machine (15). Breaking changes are dated in the changelog and 1.x still gets releases, with no written support window (12). We found no telemetry statement either way on adk.dev (10).); AI SDK 89 (Apache 2.0 (30). The library stores nothing. The AI Gateway's ZDR page says it doesn't retain prompts or outputs and per-request ZDR is available on Pro and Enterprise, and Vercel's privacy notice is dated 1 June 2026, but we didn't read a DPA or subprocessor list (22). Deprecated APIs are removed only at majors with a migration guide, and 6.x and 5.x keep getting releases, without a written support window (14). Telemetry is opt-in and documented, with switches for inputs and outputs (20).)
- Agent ergonomics, AI SDK +15: 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).); AI SDK 95 (An MCP client in a few lines with createMCPClient and client.tools(), and tool search with deferLoading keeps unused tool definitions out of the prompt (25). stopWhen with a default of 20 steps, and prepareStep to trim messages, switch models or limit active tools per step (20). 38 typed errors with isInstance guards, and MCP results with isError go back to the model (20). maxRetries on model calls, opt-in retries for transient MCP failures only, and WorkflowAgent for durable steps with automatic retries (20). Few required parameters, but TypeScript only, and a string model ID needs an AI Gateway key unless a default provider is set (10).)
- Reliability, AI SDK +13: 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).); AI SDK 93 (Official npm packages, with `ai` 7.x requiring Node 22 or newer (20). A public CI workflow with lint, type checks, unit tests, Node-version tests, MCP tests on Windows and e2e tests runs on every push to main, and the newest completed CI runs on main passed on 6 November (25). 1,517 open issues and pull requests on 6 November from GitHub's API, with 1,059 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November; 47 of the 50 newest had a comment and 32 were closed (18). A written versioning page with breaking changes only in majors, experimental_ prefixes for unstable APIs and a migration guide per major (15). 7.0.163 (15). 20+25+18+15+15 = 93, up from 73 on 6 October, when GitHub couldn't be read.)
- Schema & documentation, AI SDK +13: 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).); AI SDK 100 (Typed TypeScript API with a reference section for every function (25). llms.txt and a Markdown copy of each page (10). The docs say when to use each piece, such as a table of WorkflowAgent against ToolLoopAgent, a when-to-use section for subagents and harnesses, and HTTP over stdio for MCP in production (20). Tools take Zod or JSON Schema inputs (15). 38 error types documented in the reference, with error-handling guides and examples throughout (15). Versioning page and a changesets CHANGELOG per package (15).)
- Maintenance & community, AI SDK +7: 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).); AI SDK 97 (7.0.163 on 2026-11-05 (30). 226 stable npm releases of `ai` across the 7.x, 6.x and 5.x lines in the 90 days to 6 November, 70 of them since 6 October (20). 47 of the 50 newest issues commented and 32 closed, with triage automation and backport workflows (22). `ai` and the provider packages are current, and 6.x and 5.x still get patches (15). Dependabot configured and CI passing on main (10). 30+20+22+15+10 = 97.)