# LangGraph vs Strands Agents

> Strands Agents scores 80 (A) to LangGraph's 69.8 (B) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
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- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against LangGraph's 69.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. LangGraph leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent frameworks.

- LangGraph: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #227 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/langgraph.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/langgraph.json
- Strands Agents: grade A, 80/100, rank #15 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-agents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-agents.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 171 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### LangGraph (B)

Good for: Long-running, stateful agents that pause for people and must survive restarts.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 81 against 72

Watch for: No MCP client of its own. LangChain's langchain.mcp is in beta

### Strands Agents (A)

Good for: Python or TypeScript teams, especially on AWS, who want a model-driven loop with MCP, multi-agent patterns and approval gates.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 87 against 75
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 89
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 70
- Security & auth, 89 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Three advisories in October 2026 on A2A session sharing and world-readable default session files, fixed in 1.43.0 and 1.48.0


## Why the edge

### Security & auth: Strands Agents +29

- LangGraph (60): The library sends nothing according to the data-storage page, re-read on 1 November. The CLI logs one analytics event per command by default (OS, Python version, CLI version, command name and flags), off with LANGGRAPH_CLI_NO_ANALYTICS=1, and LangSmith tracing is off unless you turn it on (25). Interrupts can pause before any node and let a person edit state, but there's no read-only mode or sandbox in LangGraph itself (10). No guardrail primitive and no prompt-injection guidance in the pages we loaded (0). LangSmith tracing, opt-in (10). LangChain's organisation SECURITY.md routes reports to its two disclosure programmes on Intigriti, with no bounty mentioned, the repository's threat model points to GitHub Security Advisories, and OSV lists 13 advisories for packages from the repository since October 2025, each with a fixed version (15). Framework reading, so SOC 2 isn't scored.
- Strands Agents (89): Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). No usage analytics found in either SDK, and OpenTelemetry is opt-in (25). Interrupts and the harness's interventions gate tool calls behind human approval or Cedar policies, but the default sandbox is the local host (16). Guardrails, PII redaction and trusted message history pages, with Bedrock Guardrails integration (13). OpenTelemetry traces for every model and tool call (15). The AWS Vulnerability Disclosure Program on HackerOne and three advisories in October 2026 published with fixed versions (20). 25+16+13+15+20 = 89.

### Agent ergonomics: Strands Agents +17

- LangGraph (70): No MCP client in LangGraph. It comes from LangChain's langchain.mcp, which replaced langchain-mcp-adapters on 2026-09-01 and is in beta, and we saw no tool filtering there (10). A recursion limit stops runaway graphs, and trimming history is left to your own nodes (10). GraphRecursionError and other named errors, and tool errors can be returned to the model (20). Per-node retry policies and checkpointed resume (20). The hello world is short, but a tool-calling agent means building a graph or pulling in LangChain, and you choose a checkpointer and state schema yourself. Python and TypeScript (10).
- Strands Agents (87): Framework reading. An MCPClient is passed straight to the agent in a few lines and its lifecycle is managed, with tool filtering per client (22). Conversation managers, turn limits, token budgets and cancellation bound each run (20). Stop reasons and typed events, and hooks that can retry a model or tool call (16). Retry strategies, session managers that persist and resume a conversation, and interrupts that resume where they paused (17). Two official languages, but the default provider is Bedrock, which needs AWS credentials and model access (12). 22+20+16+17+12 = 87.

### Reliability: Strands Agents +12

- LangGraph (75): Official packages on PyPI (Requires-Python >=3.10 in the pyproject at 1.2.19) and npm (node >=18, per the 1 October check) (20). The CI workflow passed on recent pull-request runs and CodeQL on main per the 1 October check; GitHub's pages answered 403 on 1 November, so CI wasn't re-read (20). 416 open issues and 230 open pull requests per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (8). Seven 1.2.x patch releases since 1.2.12 with conventional commit messages, but 1.2.18 (26 October) carries a commit marked breaking (`feat(langgraph)!`, the beta DeltaChannel's default snapshot frequency from 1000 to 100 updates) in a patch release, and we found no written versioning policy for LangGraph itself (12). 1.2.19, classed 5 - Production/Stable (15).
- Strands Agents (87): Local-package reading. Official PyPI and npm packages with Python 3.10 and Node 22 stated (20). A public CI workflow runs lint, type checks, unit and integration tests for each package on pull requests to main, plus security-audit workflows, and the latest Python, TypeScript, harness and MCP runs on main passed on 6 November (25). 664 open issues and 1,151 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 545 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 12 had a comment and 15 were closed, and 9 of the 40 newest open items carry a bug label. An issue-responder workflow runs on new issues (12). A written semantic versioning policy, experimental APIs kept apart, and deprecations removed only at a major (15). 1.0 since 15 July 2025 (15). 20+25+12+15+15 = 87.

### Transparency & trust: LangGraph +9

- LangGraph (81): MIT (30). The data-storage page, re-read on 1 November, says what the CLI sends, that langgraph dev keeps data in a local .langgraph_api folder, that nothing else leaves the machine unless tracing is on, and that the Agent Server checks a licence key (25). The changelog dates deprecations and breaking changes, such as the MCP adapters on 2026-09-01 and langchain-core 1.7.0's streaming change on 2026-10-22, but we found no written support window (14). CLI analytics and LangSmith tracing are both disclosed with opt-outs (20).
- Strands Agents (72): Apache-2.0 (30). A library that stores session state where the developer configures it. The default FileSessionManager kept sessions world-readable in /tmp until 1.48.0, which the October advisories record and fix (20). A written deprecation policy with warnings and removal at majors, without a dated support window (16). Telemetry is opt-in and documented (20). 30+20+16+20 = 86.

### Schema & documentation: Strands Agents +6

- LangGraph (89): A typed graph API with a reference site (25). llms.txt at docs.langchain.com, per the listing's earlier check (10). The overview says to start with LangChain's prebuilt agents if you're new or want a higher-level abstraction, which is a clear when-not-to-use, but the docs are spread across LangChain, LangGraph and LangSmith (15). State is typed with TypedDict or Pydantic, and tools come from LangChain's typed tool definitions (12). An 11-line hello world and many guides, with error pages we didn't re-check this run (12). Dated changelog (15).
- Strands Agents (95): Framework reading. Typed Python and TypeScript APIs with a reference for each (25). llms.txt with a Markdown twin of every page (10). The llms.txt and docs say when to use Strands over a hand-written loop and when to take the harness rather than the SDK (18). Tools are typed from decorated functions or Zod schemas (15). Python and TypeScript examples on every page, stop reasons and hook events documented, with no catalogue of exceptions (12). Versioning page and tagged releases per package (15). 25+10+18+15+12+15 = 95.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LangGraph | Strands Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 87 | Strands Agents +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 95 | Strands Agents +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 87 | Strands Agents +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 89 | Strands Agents +29 |
| 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) | 90 | 87 | LangGraph +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 72 | LangGraph +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **69.8 · B** | **80 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LangGraph | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | LangChain | Amazon Web Services |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 42k stars, 2.3M npm/wk, 10.4M PyPI/wk | 9.1k stars, 698k npm/wk, 8.9M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### LangGraph

- -1.0 on 1 November 2026 (BB to B): negative event
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Strands Agents

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**LangGraph.** Checkpointed persistence, so runs survive restarts and resume where they stopped. No MCP client of its own. LangChain's langchain.mcp is in beta.

**Strands Agents.** An Apache-2.0 agent SDK for Python and TypeScript with a managed MCP client, multi-agent patterns, interrupts and Cedar policies for approval, opt-in OpenTelemetry and no usage analytics. Bedrock is the default model, the default sandbox is the local host, and three session-isolation advisories were fixed in October 2026.

## Before you call either

### LangGraph

1. Use a persistent checkpointer in production, not the in-memory one
2. Move from langchain-mcp-adapters to langchain.mcp, and expect a LangChainBetaWarning
3. Set LANGGRAPH_CLI_NO_ANALYTICS=1 on build machines
4. Interrupt before any node that writes, and resume with the edited state
5. Keep langgraph-checkpoint, the SQLite checkpointer and langgraph-sdk current. The SDK's custom-auth decorators ignored actions before 0.4.4 (October 2026)

### Strands Agents

1. Upgrade to strands-agents 1.48.0 or later, and set a private session directory rather than the /tmp default
2. Pass a model explicitly when AWS credentials aren't configured, since Bedrock is the default
3. Use interrupts or the harness's `interventions` for tools that write, send or pay
4. Run shell and file tools in the Docker or SSH sandbox when the agent runs untrusted code
5. Pin a minor version when using A2A, MCP or experimental modules

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, LangGraph or Strands Agents?

Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against LangGraph's 69.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. LangGraph leads on transparency & trust.

### Are LangGraph and Strands Agents open source?

Yes. LangGraph is open source (MIT). Strands Agents is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-strands-agents.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-strands-agents.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "langgraph", "b": "strands-agents"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare langgraph strands-agents`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/langgraph.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-agents.json

## Other comparisons with LangGraph or Strands Agents

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- [AgentOS vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Agno vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-langgraph.md)
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- [Claude Agent SDK vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-langgraph.md)
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- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [guilds.run vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-langgraph.md)
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- [LangGraph vs LlamaIndex Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-llamaindex.md)
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- [LangGraph vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langgraph-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
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- [Microsoft Agent Framework vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-agent-framework-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [OpenAI Agents SDK vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-agents-sdk-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Pydantic AI vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pydantic-ai-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [smolagents vs Strands Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smolagents-vs-strands-agents.md)
- [Strands Agents vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-agents-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [Strands Agents vs AI SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-agents-vs-vercel-ai-sdk.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp