# smolagents vs TradingAgents

> TradingAgents scores 61.4 (C) to smolagents's 58.7 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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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

TradingAgents scores 61.4 (C) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. smolagents leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do agent frameworks.

- smolagents: grade C, 58.7/100, rank #735 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smolagents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smolagents.json
- TradingAgents: grade C, 61.4/100, rank #614 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tradingagents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tradingagents.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

### smolagents (C)

Good for: Small Python projects and research that want code-writing agents with minimal abstraction.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 64 against 52
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 61
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 61

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: No release since 1.26.0 on 29 May 2026, and few commits to main since August

### TradingAgents (C)

Good for: Researchers who want a fixed multi-agent analysis of one listed instrument or crypto pair on a date, with point-in-time data for backtests, and who will run Python.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 34

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where smolagents loses 6 points for them

Watch for: No MCP client or MCP server, so an agent drives it only through Python or the CLI


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: TradingAgents +44

- 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.
- TradingAgents (78): 0.7.1 on 27 October 2026 (30). Seven releases in the 90 days to 2 November, 0.4.0 (31 August), 0.5.0, 0.5.1, 0.5.2, 0.6.0, 0.7.0 and 0.7.1 (20). The earlier issue and pull request counts came from shields.io and are struck. On the clone, fixes cite issue numbers and each release credits the people who reported or fixed them (15 outside contributors in 0.7.1), but 251 of the 258 commits since 4 August are by one maintainer's accounts and reply times couldn't be read (13 of 25, as pipecat on clone evidence). No PyPI package; versions ship as GitHub releases with a wheel since 0.7.0 (8 of 15). CI with tests, lint and a clean-install check; dependencies set lower bounds only and no Dependabot configuration is in the repository (7 of 10). 30+20+13+8+7 = 78.

### Schema & documentation: smolagents +20

- 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.
- TradingAgents (61): Framework reading. No API reference or docs site. Typed interfaces exist in the source, Pydantic models for the research manager's, trader's and portfolio manager's outputs and Annotated signatures on the twelve data tools, with no py.typed marker (10 of 25). The README and changelog are Markdown in the repository; no llms.txt (4 of 10). The README states limits plainly, that runs vary, which statements past-dated runs withhold and why, and that it is a research tool, not advice (15 of 20). Configuration is a plain dict of string keys, though environment overrides are coerced to the default's type and fail loudly on a bad value (8 of 15). Runnable Python and CLI examples throughout the README; the vendor error hierarchy is documented only in source docstrings (9 of 15). Dated changelog for every release from 0.1.0 with upgrade notes (15).

### Reliability: smolagents +12

- 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.
- TradingAgents (52): Read with the local-software lines, because the owner runs it. Python 3.11 or later is stated and CI tests 3.11 to 3.14, but the project publishes no PyPI package. No workflow uploads one, and the README installs from a clone or Docker Compose. From 0.7.0 a release workflow builds a wheel and source archive from each tag and attaches them to the GitHub release (12 of 20). Public CI on every push and pull request runs the test suite (about 1,009 test functions at v0.7.1) on four Python versions and once in America/New_York, a clean-install import check and Ruff. The 25 October check read the pass state from shields.io, a third-party copy of GitHub data this run doesn't use, so that reading is struck, and the pass state on main is unread (15, as berth and agentvfs). Issue counts came from the same source and are struck too. On the clone, 0.7.1 (27 October) fixes 22 numbered issues, 17 of them above #1518, the newest fixed in 0.7.0 on 16 October, and credits 15 outside contributors; open crash or regression issues and reply times are unread (15, as berth on the same pattern). The changelog follows Keep a Changelog and Semantic Versioning and lists breaking changes under "Upgrading from", but 0.5.1, a patch release, moved import paths and removed classes (10 of 15). Version 0.7.1 with no stability statement (0). 12+15+15+10+0 = 52.

### Agent ergonomics: smolagents +7

- 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.
- TradingAgents (61): Framework reading, scored on what an outside agent needs to call it. No MCP client or server, so it can't be attached as tools; a run is four lines of Python (`TradingAgentsGraph(config=...).propagate(ticker, date)`) or one headless CLI command with flags (10 of 25). Analyst selection, debate and risk rounds (default 1), `max_tool_rounds` (20), `max_recur_limit` (100), article limits and `--no-html` size a run (14 of 20). A typed vendor error hierarchy separates unavailable from absent data, the headless CLI names the missing flag before a run starts, and an unparseable decision returns REVIEW rather than Hold (15 of 20). Checkpoint resume is opt-in, a backtest rerun with the same `run_id` skips finished cells, and settlement writes each decision once; nothing writes to an outside system (15 of 20). Sensible defaults, but the default provider is OpenAI's GPT-6 models with a key, and Python only (7 of 15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | smolagents | TradingAgents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 64 | 52 | smolagents +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 61 | smolagents +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 61 | smolagents +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 62 | smolagents +4 |
| 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) | 34 | 78 | TradingAgents +44 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 68 | TradingAgents +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **58.7 · C** | **61.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | smolagents | TradingAgents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Hugging Face | Tauric Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-05-29 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2022-09-15 | 2026-10-23 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-03-28 | 2026-10-23 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 30k stars, 171k PyPI/wk | none |

## How the scores have moved

### smolagents

No score change since it was listed.

### TradingAgents

- -3.3 on 2 November 2026 (B to C): correction
- -0.1 on 30 October 2026: checklist
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**smolagents.** A compact Python library for code-writing and tool-calling agents, with MCP tools, any model provider and remote sandboxes through E2B, Docker, Modal or Blaxel. The newest release is 1.26.0 of 29 May 2026, a critical remote-executor RCE took about eight weeks to fix, and the local executor isn't a security boundary.

**TradingAgents.** An Apache 2.0 LangGraph framework at 0.7.1 with seven releases in 90 days, a dated changelog with upgrade notes, a public test matrix and point-in-time rules for historical runs. It has no MCP client or server, no PyPI package and no documentation beyond the README, and its output is a model-written rating that places no orders.

## Before you call either

### smolagents

1. Run CodeAgent with `executor_type` set to e2b, docker, modal or blaxel whenever the model or its inputs aren't trusted
2. Use smolagents 1.24.0 or later to get the remote-executor deserialisation fix
3. Set max_steps and final_answer_checks so a run stops on its own
4. Pass structured_output explicitly to MCPClient to avoid the default-change warning
5. Pin the version, since minor releases have removed APIs

### TradingAgents

1. Run headless with `tradingagents --ticker <T> --date <YYYY-MM-DD> --analysts market,news,fundamentals --save --no-show`; a missing answer stops the run and names the flag
2. Guard on the REVIEW signal before mapping `propagate()`'s decision to a rating; it means no rating could be parsed
3. Set SEC_EDGAR_USER_AGENT to the operator's own name and address before fetching US fundamentals
4. Keep provider keys out of the working directory tree unless intended, since the package loads the nearest .env on import
5. Treat the rating as model output for research; the framework places no orders and its results vary between runs

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, smolagents or TradingAgents?

TradingAgents scores 61.4 (C) on agent readiness against smolagents's 58.7 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. smolagents leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

### Are smolagents and TradingAgents open source?

Yes. smolagents is open source (Apache-2.0). TradingAgents is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

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