Vercel AI SDK
Free open source TypeScript toolkit from Vercel for building AI apps and agents across many model providers.
Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 27.5knpm a week 34M
CrewAI alternatives
7 tools you can use instead of CrewAI, ranked by live GitHub stars and npm downloads. Vercel AI SDK, LangChain and LlamaIndex are the most used. Stats updated 7 hours ago.
When CrewAI is not a good fit
CrewAI is a Python framework for orchestrating autonomous AI agents and production workflows, made by CrewAI Inc and released under the MIT license. It offers Crews, which are teams of role-based agents, and Flows, which are event-driven workflows. A commercial platform adds a visual editor and governance, with a free Basic plan of 50 executions a month.
It is a weaker choice for:
- TypeScript or JavaScript projects: the framework is Python
- Low-level control over every step: it favors higher-level abstractions
- Hosted use beyond 50 executions a month without an Enterprise quote
The alternatives
Most used first.
View Vercel AI SDK
LangChain
Open source framework for building applications with language models, paired with the LangSmith platform.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $39 a seat a month for LangSmith Plus, plus usage-based compute and storageOpen source yesStars 149knpm a week 3.7M
LlamaIndex
Open source data framework for connecting language models to your own data, plus a paid parsing platform.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $50 a month for the LlamaParse Starter planOpen source yesStars 52.7knpm a week 159k
Mastra
TypeScript framework for AI agents and workflows, Apache 2.0 licensed, with a managed platform.
Pricing Open sourcePaid from $250 a month for TeamsOpen source yesStars 29.1knpm a week 2.3M
LangGraph
Low-level orchestration framework from LangChain for long-running, stateful agents.
Pricing Open sourcePaid from $39 per seat a month for LangSmith PlusOpen source yesStars 43.9k
DSPy
Python framework from Stanford NLP for programming language model systems instead of writing prompts.
Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 38.8k
Haystack
Open source Python framework from deepset for building LLM applications, RAG pipelines and agents.
Pricing Open sourceOpen source yesStars 26.9k
CrewAI and its alternatives, side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free plan | Paid from | Open source | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrewAI | Open source | The framework is free and open source. The hosted Basic plan is $0 a month with 50 executions a month. | Enterprise: custom quote | Yes, MIT | 60.1k |
| Vercel AI SDK | Open source | The library is free and open source. You pay the model providers you call. | Not listed | Yes, Apache-2.0 | 27.5k |
| LangChain | Freemium | Yes: the LangChain framework is free and open source; LangSmith has a free Developer tier with up to 5,000 base traces a month | $39 a seat a month for LangSmith Plus, plus usage-based compute and storage | Yes, MIT | 149k |
| LlamaIndex | Freemium | Yes: the LlamaIndex framework is free and open source; LlamaParse has a free tier with 10,000 credits | $50 a month for the LlamaParse Starter plan | Yes, MIT | 52.7k |
| Mastra | Open source | The self-hosted framework is free. The managed Starter plan is $0 a month with 100K events and 24 CPU hours included. | $250 a month for Teams | Yes, Apache-2.0 (core), Mastra Enterprise License (ee directories) | 29.1k |
| LangGraph | Open source | The framework is free and open source. LangSmith has a Developer plan at $0 per seat a month, with up to 5k base traces a month. | $39 per seat a month for LangSmith Plus | Yes, MIT | 43.9k |
| DSPy | Open source | Yes: free and open source | Not listed | Yes, MIT | 38.8k |
| Haystack | Open source | Yes: the framework is free and open source | Not listed | Yes, Apache-2.0 | 26.9k |
Pricing facts come from each tool's official pricing page, with the checked date on the tool's own page.
Questions
What is the most popular alternative to CrewAI?
By GitHub stars, Vercel AI SDK is the most used alternative to CrewAI listed on ScratchDB, with 27.5k stars.
Which CrewAI alternatives are open source?
Vercel AI SDK, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Mastra, LangGraph, DSPy and Haystack are open source.
Which CrewAI alternatives have a free plan?
LangChain, LlamaIndex, DSPy and Haystack have a free plan. The table on this page shows what each one includes.