# Mastra vs smolagents (slim)

> Mastra scores 74.2 (BB) 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/mastra-vs-smolagents.md (~3,900 tokens) · this version ~1,980 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastra-vs-smolagents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastra-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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Mastra scores 74.2 (BB) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent frameworks.

- Mastra: BB 74.2, rank #91 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastra.min.md
- smolagents: C 58.7, rank #739 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smolagents.min.md
- Mastra, good for TypeScript teams that want agents, workflows, memory, evals and a local Studio in one framework. Ahead on Reliability, 87 against 64; Schema & documentation, 98 against 81; Agent ergonomics, 92 against 68; Maintenance & community, 96 against 34; Transparency & trust, 72 against 65. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.
- smolagents, good for Small Python projects and research that want code-writing agents with minimal abstraction. Also No key needed to call it.

| Category | Mastra | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 87 | 64 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 98 | 81 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 92 | 68 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 67 | 66 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 96 | 34 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 72 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Mastra | smolagents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Kepler Software, Inc. | Hugging Face |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the core. Code under ee/ directories is source-available under the Mastra Enterprise License, free for development and testing | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-11-04 | 2026-05-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-26 | 2022-09-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2023-03-28 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 3.1M npm/wk | 30k stars, 171k PyPI/wk |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Mastra +62: Mastra 96 (@mastra/core 1.82.0 on 2026-11-04 (30). 27 stable releases in the 90 days to 6 November, 8 of them since 6 October (20). 436 open issues on 6 November, all 50 newest issues commented and 24 of them closed (22). Client, MCP and store packages are current, and @mastra/mcp 1.x stays supported beside 2.x (15). Renovate and CI configured, with the newest runs on main passing (9). 30+20+22+15+9 = 96.); 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.)
- Agent ergonomics, Mastra +24: Mastra 92 (An MCP client in about ten lines with listTools() for static or listToolsets() for per-request tools, and ToolSearchProcessor for loading tools on demand (25). Step limits, memory windows and processors such as a token limiter control what reaches the model (20). MastraError with ids and categories, and processors can abort with a reason the caller can read (17). Workflow step retries, snapshots and durable agents for resuming (20). create-mastra scaffolds a project and the model router takes a plain string, but it's TypeScript only (10).); 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.)
- Reliability, Mastra +23: Mastra 87 (Official npm packages, Node 22.13 or newer (20). Public CI workflows for unit, store, workspace and e2e tests; on 6 November the newest runs on main (Version Packages, Trigger Cloud Integration Tests) succeeded, while the test workflows themselves run on pull requests (22). 436 open issues and 795 open issues and pull requests on 6 November from GitHub's API, with 2,077 issues opened in the 90 days to 3 November; all 50 newest had a comment and 24 were closed, with issue-triage automation (18). A changesets CHANGELOG per package, a CI gate that needs approval for any major bump and migration guides, but no written versioning policy found, and `.network()` is deprecated without a removal date (12). 1.82.0 (15). 20+22+18+12+15 = 87, up from 74 on 6 October, when GitHub couldn't be read.); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, Mastra +17: Mastra 98 (Typed TypeScript API with a reference section (25). llms.txt with a when-to-use list and condensed instructions for coding agents (10). The docs say when to use durable agents, and point multi-agent users from `.network()` to supervisor agents (20). Tools take Zod schemas (15). Examples on every page, and MastraError with ids and categories documented, though errors are spread across pages (13). Per-package changelogs and migration guides (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.)
- Transparency & trust, Mastra +7: Mastra 72 (Apache 2.0 for the core, with ee/ directories source-available under the Mastra Enterprise License (25). The privacy policy (last published 25 April 2025) covers the website, the Teams plan states six months' retention, and the subprocessor list sits in a trust centre our reader couldn't render (15). Migration guides and deprecation warnings, without dated removal windows (12). Every telemetry stream is documented with links to its source and one opt-out, and the reference now spells out what the project identifiers can be correlated with (20).); smolagents 65 (Apache-2.0 (30). The library stores nothing itself; the default model sends prompts to Hugging Face's inference providers, which the docs show (20). Breaking removals such as WasmExecutor shipped in minor releases, without a written deprecation policy (5). No telemetry, though no page states it (12). 30+20+5+12 = 67.)