CrewAI vs Mastra
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 Mastra if you want typescript framework for building ai agents and workflows (Supervised agent, free).
| CrewAI | Mastra | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborating multi-agent teams | TypeScript framework for building AI agents and workflows |
| 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 underlying model usage) |
| Best for | developers, enterprise, mid-market | developers |
| Deployment | self-hosted, api, saas | self-hosted, api |
| Modalities | text, code, api | text, code, api |
| Models | model-agnostic, gpt, claude | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | function-calling, mcp, rest-api | mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | OpenAI, Anthropic, Slack, Serper, Datadog | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Node.js, 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
Mastra
- +TypeScript-first, filling a gap for JS/TS teams in a Python-dominated space
- +Includes agents, workflows, memory, and observability out of the box
- +Apache-2.0 licensed and backed by the experienced Gatsby team
- -TypeScript/JavaScript only
- -A framework, not a product: you build, host, and secure your agents
Which should you choose?
CrewAI is open-source framework for orchestrating role-based, collaborating multi-agent teams, best for developers, enterprise, mid-market. Mastra is typescript framework for building ai agents and workflows, best for developers. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.