# Alternatives to CrewAI > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/crewai/alternatives (current datasheets, evidence-ranked) Candidates share the baseline category or are previously researched peers. Requirements, preserved strengths, explicit trade-offs and research coverage decide the order; paid tier does not. ## Shortlist ### 1. LangGraph Open-source orchestration framework and runtime for stateful, long-running LLM agents, from LangChain. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [In your pipeline: yes — The vendor publishes a CI/CD reference pipeline with a companion repository: tests and offline evals on a PR, then quality-gated preview and production deploys via the Control Plane API.](https://docs.langchain.com/langsmith/cicd-pipeline-example) - [How it meters: yes — Two meters at once on the managed platform: a per-seat licence at 39 dollars per seat per month, plus consumption in LangChain Compute Units (1.50 dollars) and Storage Units (1.00 dollar). The library itself is free.](https://www.langchain.com/pricing) - [Pooled budget: yes — The included usage allowance is one organisation-wide balance that resets monthly, not a per-seat grant: 5 LCU on Developer, 25 LCU on Plus.](https://www.langchain.com/pricing) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Done-for-you service: no — You run the software. On selected annual contracts LangChain assigns an AI engineer, but the published scope is advisory - best practices, guidelines, troubleshooting and reviews.](https://www.langchain.com/support-plans) [View LangGraph](https://theagentsindex.com/langgraph) ### 2. Mastra Open-source TypeScript framework for building AI agents, with a hosted platform for running and observing them. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [Agent permissions: yes — Tool approval can gate any tool call, per server or by predicate on tool name/arguments; approvals propagate up a subagent delegation chain.](https://mastra.ai/ai-agent-framework) - [How it meters: yes — Plan fee plus consumption metering: observability events, CPU hours, egress, memory tokens, retrieval storage and database rows all have per-unit overage rates. Not per seat.](https://mastra.ai/pricing) - [Pooled budget: yes — Allowances are account-level (events, CPU hours, tokens, storage) and users are unlimited, so there is one shared balance rather than a per-user budget.](https://mastra.ai/pricing) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Certifications: partial — SOC 2 documentation is offered from the Teams plan; a DPA covering GDPR, UK GDPR and CCPA/CPRA is published, and a Vanta-hosted trust centre carries the security programme. No ISO 27001 claim found.](https://mastra.ai/pricing) [View Mastra](https://theagentsindex.com/mastra) ### 3. LangChain Open source agent frameworks plus LangSmith, a hosted platform to trace, evaluate, deploy and govern agents. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [Writes code: yes — The vendor ships dcode, a free open-source terminal coding agent that writes and runs code from a prompt; it is a separate package from the paid LangSmith platform.](https://www.langchain.com/dcode) - [Ships it: yes — LangSmith Deployment runs agents in production with one-click deploy from Studio and a control-plane API; the free Developer plan shows Deployment as N/A, so shipping starts at Plus.](https://docs.langchain.com/langsmith/studio) - [Agent permissions: yes — Human-in-the-loop interrupts gate agent actions in the framework, dcode gates code execution behind approval modes, and Fleet agents can run as themselves or as the calling user.](https://www.langchain.com/langgraph) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Self-hosted: partial — The open source frameworks run anywhere, but self-hosting or hybrid-hosting the LangSmith platform on Kubernetes is an Enterprise-plan option; Developer and Plus are cloud-only.](https://www.langchain.com/pricing) - [Open source: partial — The frameworks and the dcode coding agent are MIT-licensed and free, while the LangSmith platform that carries the price, seats and governance is proprietary and hosted.](https://www.langchain.com/langchain) - [Bring your own key: partial — You can bring your own provider keys through the gateway on every plan, or buy inference as Gateway Credits, but Engine refuses your keys and bills its model use as compute units.](https://docs.langchain.com/langsmith/engine) [View LangChain](https://theagentsindex.com/langchain) ### 4. n8n Workflow automation platform for building and running AI agents on a visual canvas, with code where needed. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [Agent permissions: yes — Approval is wired per tool: the workflow pauses and a reviewer approves or denies through Chat, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Gmail or Outlook. Tools with no review step execute unattended.](https://docs.n8n.io/build/integrate-ai/ai-examples/human-in-the-loop-for-tools) - [In your pipeline: yes — Git source control with workflow diffs gates what reaches production, the n8n CLI page names CI/CD pipeline integration as a fit, and the GitHub Trigger node fires on pull request events.](https://n8n.io/enterprise/) - [How it meters: yes — Metered per workflow execution, where one execution is one full run of a workflow regardless of steps or data; users are unlimited and AI Assistant credits are a separate monthly allowance.](https://n8n.io/pricing/) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Done-for-you service: no — Every plan is software you operate, on n8n Cloud or your own infrastructure; the only vendor-delivered service on the pricing page is support, dedicated with an SLA on Enterprise.](https://n8n.io/pricing/) - [Open source: partial — Source-available under the fair-code Sustainable Use License: free to use, modify and redistribute for internal business purposes, but not to resell or host for others. Files named .ee. sit under a separate enterprise licence.](https://docs.n8n.io/privacy-and-security/sustainable-use-license) - [Certifications: partial — SOC 2 audited with external pen tests and a public Trust Center; GDPR is covered by a pre-signed DPA carrying the Standard Contractual Clauses. No ISO 27001 claim appears anywhere on the site.](https://n8n.io/enterprise/) [View n8n](https://theagentsindex.com/n8n) ### 5. Agno Python SDK, open-source AgentOS runtime and hosted control plane for building and operating agents. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [Writes code: yes — Ships a CodingTools toolkit whose documented job is editing files and running commands in a scoped project directory.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) - [Debugs and fixes: yes — Bug fixing is a documented pattern: reproduce, patch, rerun the failing tests.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) - [In your editor: yes — `agno connect` writes MCP config for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex and Cursor so those clients can run your agents.](https://docs.agno.com/cli/connect) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Done-for-you service: no — You run the software in your own cloud; Enterprise adds dedicated build help, not a managed service.](https://www.agno.com/products/runtime) - [In your pipeline: no — The enumerated serving surfaces are REST, MCP in Claude/ChatGPT and chat apps; no pull-request or CI surface appears.](https://www.agno.com/) - [Open source: partial — SDK and AgentOS are Apache 2.0; the control plane is the commercial part and is not published as source.](https://www.agno.com/compare/agno-vs-langgraph) [View Agno](https://theagentsindex.com/agno) ### 6. Pydantic AI Open-source Python agent framework from the Pydantic team, with a typed agent loop and swappable models. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on CrewAI:** - [Agent permissions: yes — Tools can be marked as requiring human approval, and the run pauses with the pending calls so a person approves or denies each one before the tool body executes; the docs also warn approval is not an authorization boundary.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/tools-toolsets/deferred-tools/) - [In your pipeline: yes — A pydantic-ai engine for GitHub Agentic Workflows runs your agent from a Markdown workflow file on issues, pull requests or a schedule, writing back through gh-aw safe outputs; the engine declares itself experimental to gh-aw.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/harness/gh-aw/) **Trade-offs against CrewAI:** - [Done-for-you service: no — Nobody builds or runs the agent for you: this is a Python package you install from PyPI and operate yourself, with no managed or done-for-you service described anywhere in the docs.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/overview/install/) - [MCP server: partial — MCP is supported as a client: the MCP capability connects any MCP server's tools into your agent, and the CLI takes an mcpServers config file; the docs I read establish consumption, not your agent being queried as an MCP server.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/capabilities/mcp/) - [A company can buy it: partial — There is nothing to buy for the framework itself; purchasing applies to the surrounding Logfire platform, which is sold to organisations from a paid team plan up to Enterprise.](https://pydantic.dev/pricing) [View Pydantic AI](https://theagentsindex.com/pydantic-ai) ## Method Unknown data is never treated as a benefit or a trade-off. Featured placement is labelled but cannot alter recommendation order.