CrewAI vs Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose CrewAI if you want open-source framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborating multi-agent teams (Supervised agent, freemium); choose Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) if you want open-source framework for building and orchestrating multi-agent systems (Supervised agent, free).
| CrewAI | Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborating multi-agent teams | Open-source framework for building and orchestrating multi-agent systems |
| Type | framework | framework |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | freemium · Framework free (open source); paid tiers reported from ~$25/mo | free · Free (open source; pay model + cloud usage) |
| Best for | developers, enterprise, mid-market | developers, enterprise |
| Deployment | self-hosted, api, saas | self-hosted, api |
| Modalities | text, code, api | text, code, api |
| Models | model-agnostic, gpt, claude | gemini, model-agnostic |
| Protocols | function-calling, mcp, rest-api | a2a, mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | OpenAI, Anthropic, Slack, Serper, Datadog | Vertex AI, Cloud Run, Gemini, LiteLLM, MCP servers |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 3 documented |
CrewAI
- +Clean, lean abstraction (Crews + Flows) that many developers find simpler and faster than heavier frameworks
- +Standalone (no LangChain dependency) with strong multi-agent collaboration primitives out of the box
- +Provides a managed enterprise control plane (observability, RBAC, human-in-the-loop) for moving to production
- -Multi-agent designs can compound error rates and cost; not always cheaper or more reliable than a single agent
- -Newer and smaller ecosystem than LangChain, with fewer integrations and less battle-testing
Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)
- +Backed by Google with first-class deployment to Vertex AI and Cloud Run
- +Built around the open A2A protocol for cross-framework agent interoperability
- +Model-agnostic via LiteLLM despite Gemini-first defaults
- -A framework, not a product: you build, host, and secure agents yourself
- -Strongest when paired with Google Cloud, which can imply lock-in
Which should you choose?
CrewAI is open-source framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborating multi-agent teams, best for developers, enterprise, mid-market. Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) is open-source framework for building and orchestrating multi-agent systems, best for developers, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced CrewAI and Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.