LangChainvsLangGraph
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
LangChain
LangChain · Agent framework
OSSMCP
Panel
7.61 spec wins
- Reliability
- 7.2
- Usefulness
- 7.5
- Cost
- 7.5
- Longevity
- 8.2
“145,000 stars and 916 watchers, which is about the ratio of people who install it to people who read the changelog.”
LangGraph
LangChain · Agent framework
OSSMCP
Panel
7.62 spec wins
- Reliability
- 7.7
- Usefulness
- 7.3
- Cost
- 7.3
- Longevity
- 8.0
“You do not need LangChain to use LangGraph, says the LangChain documentation.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | LangChain | LangGraph |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Runs | local, cloud | local, cloud |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | No | No |
| Multi-file edits | No | No |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | No | YesNot in LangGraph itself: browser control comes from LangChain's own PlayWrightBrowserToolkit (Click, Navigate, ExtractText and related tools) in langchain-community, bound as agent tools. |
| Sandboxed execution | No | NoThe first-party langchain-sandbox package gave LangGraph agents a Pyodide/Deno PyodideSandboxTool but was archived in January 2026 with production use discouraged, so nothing current ships. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock, Azure, OpenRouter, Fireworks, HuggingFace, Ollama | any LangChain chat model, OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 147,373 | 42,591 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | LangChain | LangGraph | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.8 | 7.8 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 7.3 | 7.3 | no preference |
| El Profesor | 7.3 | 7.5 | LangGraph — Agents are graphs mixing deterministic and model-driven nodes, execution is durable and resumes from persisted state, and memory is split into short-term working and long-term cross-session tiers. |
| La Inversora | 7.8 | 7.8 | no preference |
| La Jefa | 7.0 | 7.0 | no preference |
| El Hacker | 8.5 | 8.3 | LangChain — MIT, 24,000 forks, Ollama and HuggingFace as first-class providers, and one pip extra, langchain[mcp], to turn any MCP server into tools; the hosted platform is a choice, not a requirement. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.