# LlamaIndex Framework vs Strands Agents (slim)

> Strands Agents scores 80 (A) to LlamaIndex Framework's 70 (BB) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaindex-vs-strands-agents.md (~4,350 tokens) · this version ~2,330 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaindex-vs-strands-agents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaindex-vs-strands-agents
- 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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Strands Agents scores 80 (A) on agent readiness against LlamaIndex Framework's 70 (BB), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent frameworks.

- LlamaIndex Framework: BB 70, rank #217 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/llamaindex.min.md
- Strands Agents: A 80, rank #15 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-agents.min.md
- LlamaIndex Framework, good for Python teams building retrieval-heavy agents over their own data, with many connectors.
- Strands Agents, 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 70; Schema & documentation, 95 against 85; Agent ergonomics, 87 against 73; Security & auth, 89 against 74; Maintenance & community, 87 against 69; Transparency & trust, 72 against 67.

| Category | LlamaIndex Framework | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 87 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 85 | 95 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 87 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 74 | 89 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 69 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 67 | 72 |

| Fact (where they differ) | LlamaIndex Framework | Strands Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | LlamaIndex | Amazon Web Services |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-11-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-24 | no document linked |
| Popularity | 53k stars, 1.3M PyPI/wk | 9.1k stars, 698k npm/wk, 8.9M PyPI/wk |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Strands Agents +18: LlamaIndex Framework 69 (llama-index-core 0.14.25 on 21 September 2026, 46 days before this check (20). Two core changelog entries in the 90 days (19 August and 21 September), with integration packages and Workflows (2.24.1 to 2.26.1) publishing in between, so partial (12). 379 open issues and 1,291 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 241 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 28 had a comment and 3 were closed; a stale bot and an issue classifier run on the repository (12). Core, Workflows and integrations are current (15). CI and CodeQL passing on main and a stale-package policy that moves unmaintained integrations out of main (10). 20+12+12+15+10 = 69.); Strands Agents 87 (Python 1.64.0 and TypeScript 1.24.0 tagged on 4 November 2026 (30). Python 1.55.0 on 8 September, 1.61.0 on 14 October, 1.62.0 on 21 October and 1.63.0 on 30 October among many releases in 90 days (20). 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). Both official SDKs are current (15). Dependency floors, security-audit workflows and CI passing on main (10). 30+20+12+15+10 = 87.)
- Reliability, Strands Agents +17: LlamaIndex Framework 70 (Local-package reading. Official PyPI packages with Python 3.10 to below 4.0 (20). Public unit-test, type-check, lint, coverage and CodeQL workflows, with the type-check, lint and CodeQL runs on main passing on 3 November (25). 379 open issues and 1,291 open issues and pull requests on 6 November, with 241 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November. Of the 50 newest, 28 had a comment and 3 were closed; a stale bot and an issue classifier run on the repository (12). A dated, generated changelog per package, but core is 0.x and minors such as 0.13 and 0.14 carried breaking changes (8). Core isn't 1.0; Workflows is at 2.x, so partial (5). 20+25+12+8+5 = 70.); 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.)
- Security & auth, Strands Agents +15: LlamaIndex Framework 74 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). No telemetry found in llama-index-core (25). Human-in-the-loop events in Workflows and agents can wait for a person, but there's no per-tool approval primitive and CodeActAgent's executor is the developer's to supply (12). The threat model puts input validation on the application, with no prompt-injection guidance in the agent pages (5). Instrumentation events and callback handlers for tracing (14). A huntr bug bounty, GitHub private reporting and public advisories with fixed versions (18). 25+12+5+14+18 = 74.); 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 +14: LlamaIndex Framework 73 (Framework reading. MCP tools through a separate llama-index-tools-mcp package, with allowed tools selectable (18). Memory token limits, iteration caps and streaming events (16). Tool errors returned to the agent, with few typed errors (12). Workflow context serialises and resumes, and the DBOS package makes runs durable (16). Few required parameters, but OpenAI is the silent default for LLM and embeddings, Python here with a separate TypeScript edition (11). 18+16+12+16+11 = 73.); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, Strands Agents +10: LlamaIndex Framework 85 (Framework reading. A typed Python API with a generated reference (22). llms.txt indexing the framework docs, plus a docs search API and an MCP server for the docs (10). The agents guide says what each agent class is for, and the MCP page lists the three ways to use MCP (15). Tools are typed from function signatures and Pydantic models (13). Many examples and notebooks, few documented error types (10). Dated changelog (15). 22+10+15+13+10+15 = 85.); 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.)
- Transparency & trust, Strands Agents +5: LlamaIndex Framework 67 (MIT (30). The library stores nothing itself; OpenAI is the default provider unless changed, which the docs show (20). A stale-package policy and removals noted in the changelog, such as deprecated IPEX integrations removed in 0.14.25, without dated notice (10). No telemetry, though no page states it (12). 30+20+10+12 = 72.); 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.)