LangGraphvsOpenAI Agents SDK
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
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.”
OpenAI Agents SDK
OpenAI · Agent framework
OSSMCP
Panel
7.12 spec wins
- Reliability
- 7.2
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 7.2
- Longevity
- 7.0
“Billed as the production-ready upgrade of Swarm, which tells you what Swarm was.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | LangGraph | OpenAI Agents SDK |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Yes | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | No | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | No | Yes |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | 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. | Yes |
| Sandboxed execution | 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. | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | any LangChain chat model, OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama | GPT, any LiteLLM-supported model |
| 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 | 42,591 | 29,799 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | LangGraph | OpenAI Agents SDK | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.8 | 7.0 | LangGraph — Pick LangGraph if your agent has to stop, wait for a human, and resume a day later without losing state; pick CrewAI if you want roles and less plumbing. |
| El Crítico | 7.3 | 6.8 | LangGraph — The core is standalone, but local models arrive through LangChain's ChatOllama and MCP through langchain[mcp], so the dependency you were told you did not need is the one that ships the tools. |
| El Profesor | 7.5 | 6.5 | 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 | 7.5 | LangGraph — The library is the funnel and LangSmith is the company: a free Developer tier with 5k traces, named logos like Klarna, Uber and J.P. Morgan, and an observability business waiting for its acquirer. |
| La Jefa | 7.0 | 7.3 | OpenAI Agents SDK — As a dependency it costs nothing per seat, is maintained by the vendor already on our invoice, and sends traces to that vendor's dashboard by default, which is a retention question. |
| El Hacker | 8.3 | 7.5 | LangGraph — MIT, pip install -U langgraph, a checkpointer interface I can implement against my own Postgres, Ollama through ChatOllama, MCP tools with one extra install, and the hosted platform is optional. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.