OpenAI Agents SDK alternatives

The short answer

5 tools on this index are recorded as a substitute for OpenAI Agents SDK. 5 of these run the same way you already deploy OpenAI Agents SDK (self-hosted), and 4 are permissively licensed, so they do not change what you can ship. All of them sit in Agent Frameworks, so the choice is a real one rather than a category change. There is no overall winner here: which one is right depends on traffic shape, operational budget and how much of OpenAI Agents SDK you have already built around.

By Lattice editorial · Comparison reviewed 2026-09 · method

• Mastraframework · Apache-2.0

  TypeScript agent framework with typed workflows and evals.

  Use when TypeScript agents with typed workflows and evals built in.

  Skip when You are working in Python.

• Claude Agent SDKframework · proprietary

  Anthropic's toolkit for building agents with tool use and hooks.

  Use when Building agents against Anthropic models, with tool use and hooks.

  Skip when You need provider independence at the framework layer.

• Lettaplatform · Apache-2.0

  Agent runtime with persistent, editable memory as a first-class primitive.

  Use when Agents whose memory is a first-class, inspectable and editable state.

  Skip when You want memory to be a detail the framework handles for you.

• Vercel AI SDKlibrary · Apache-2.0

  Provider-agnostic building blocks for streaming apps and agents.

  Use when Streaming model calls in a TypeScript app, provider-agnostically.

  Skip when You need agent orchestration rather than model calls.

• smolagentsframework · Apache-2.0

  Minimal code-first agent loop from the Hugging Face team.

  Use when Reading the whole agent loop in a page — it is deliberately tiny.

  Skip when You need a rich tool ecosystem around it.