Vercel AI SDK

Name: Vercel AI SDK
Author: Vercel

The Vercel AI SDK, also called AI SDK, is a free open source TypeScript library for building AI-powered applications and agents. It is made by Vercel and the Next.js team and gives one API for text generation, structured output, tool calling and chat interfaces across providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. The documentation site lists version 7 as the latest major version.

By VercelOpen sourceSince 2023LLM Frameworks

Facts checked on 6 October 2026 against the sources listed at the end of this page.

Visit ai-sdk.dev

Pricing: Open sourceFree plan: The library is free and open source. You pay the model providers you call.
Open source: YesApache-2.0
GitHub stars: 27,527
npm downloads a week: 34Mup 9% on the week before
Latest release: @ai-sdk/vue@3.…17 hours ago
Releases in 90 days: 10about 3 a month

A good fit for

TypeScript teams that want to switch between model providers without rewriting code
Chat and streaming interfaces in Next.js, React, Svelte or Vue apps
Applications that need typed, schema-checked model output
Agents with a modest number of tools that run inside an existing web app

Not a good fit for

Python projects: the SDK is TypeScript only
Long-running, durable agent workflows with state saved between steps: it does not include a hosted workflow engine
Teams that want a visual editor or a managed observability product from the same vendor

Vercel AI SDK pricing

The AI SDK is free and open source with no paid tier. Costs come from the model providers you use and from wherever you host your app.

Plan	Price	What you get
AI SDK	$0	The full open source library.

Prices in USD, checked on 6 October 2026. Current prices on ai-sdk.dev.

Main features

Unified provider API: One interface for models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other providers.
Text generation: Generate and stream text responses from a model.
Structured output: Generate typed objects that match a schema, with Zod integration.
Tool calling and agents: Give models tools and run them in a loop with the ToolLoopAgent class.
UI hooks: Framework-agnostic hooks for chat and generative interfaces in React, Svelte and Vue.
Framework support: Works with Next.js and other frameworks, and with the Node.js runtime.

About Vercel AI SDK

The AI SDK is a TypeScript toolkit. Its core package, ai, wraps many model providers behind one interface, so code written for one provider can switch to another by changing the model.

It covers text generation, structured data generation with schemas such as Zod, and agents that call tools in a loop. A separate UI layer provides framework-agnostic hooks for chatbots and generative interfaces.

The project is maintained by Vercel and the Next.js team in the vercel/ai repository. It does not need Vercel hosting.

Made by: Vercel
Launched: 2023
Based in: San Francisco, California
Free plan: The library is free and open source. You pay the model providers you call.
Available on: TypeScript, Node.js, Next.js, React, Svelte, Vue

Usage and activity

Weekly npm downloads of ai, last 12 months.

Recent releases

Vercel AI SDK alternatives

Tool	Pricing	GitHub stars
LangChainOpen source framework for building applications with language models, paired with the LangSmith platform.	Freemium	149k
CrewAIMIT-licensed Python framework for multi-agent workflows, with a paid platform for deployment.	Open source	60.1k
LlamaIndexOpen source data framework for connecting language models to your own data, plus a paid parsing platform.	Freemium	52.7k
MastraTypeScript framework for AI agents and workflows, Apache 2.0 licensed, with a managed platform.	Open source	29.1k
LangGraphLow-level orchestration framework from LangChain for long-running, stateful agents.	Open source	43.9k
DSPyPython framework from Stanford NLP for programming language model systems instead of writing prompts.	Open source	38.8k

All 7 alternatives to Vercel AI SDK, side by side

Getting started

Install the core package.
```
npm install ai
```
Follow the quickstart for your framework in the documentation.

Questions about Vercel AI SDK

Is the Vercel AI SDK free?

Yes. It is a free open source library. You pay only the model providers you call and your own hosting.

Do I need to host on Vercel to use the AI SDK?

No. It is a TypeScript library that runs in Node.js and works with several frameworks, so it does not require Vercel hosting.

What language does the AI SDK use?

TypeScript. It is installed from npm as the ai package.

Which model providers does it support?

The documentation names OpenAI, Anthropic and Google among others, all behind one API.

Vercel AI SDK vs LangGraph: which should I use?

The AI SDK is a TypeScript toolkit for provider access, streaming and chat UIs. LangGraph is a Python and JavaScript framework for stateful, long-running agent graphs.

Sources and links

Work on Vercel AI SDK? Claim this listing. Something wrong or out of date? Suggest a correction. Stats come from the public GitHub and npm APIs and update every day.