Mastra vs Vercel AI SDK
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Mastra if you want typescript framework for building ai agents and workflows (Supervised agent, free); choose Vercel AI SDK if you want open-source typescript toolkit for building ai apps and agents (Supervised agent, free).
| Mastra | Vercel AI SDK | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | TypeScript framework for building AI agents and workflows | Open-source TypeScript toolkit for building AI apps and agents |
| Type | framework | framework |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | free · Free (open source; pay underlying model usage) | free |
| Best for | developers | developers, smb, enterprise |
| Deployment | self-hosted, api | self-hosted, api |
| Modalities | text, code, api | text, code, api, image |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | mcp, function-calling, rest-api | function-calling, mcp, rest-api |
| Integrations | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Node.js, MCP servers | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Next.js, React, Svelte |
| Capabilities | 3 documented | 4 documented |
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
Vercel AI SDK
- +De facto standard for building AI features in TypeScript, with a large ecosystem and strong docs
- +Genuinely provider-agnostic: swap models behind one clean API
- +Excellent streaming and generative-UI integration, especially with Next.js
- -TypeScript/JavaScript only; no Python support
- -Agent orchestration is lighter than dedicated multi-agent frameworks
Which should you choose?
Mastra is typescript framework for building ai agents and workflows, best for developers. Vercel AI SDK is open-source typescript toolkit for building ai apps and agents, best for developers, smb, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.