Side-by-side comparison
AutoGen vs CrewAI
vs
Side-by-side comparison based on our agenticness evaluation framework
At a glance
Quick Facts
| Feature | AutoGen | CrewAI |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Multi-Agent Orchestration, Agent Frameworks & Orchestration | Multi-Agent Orchestration, Agent Frameworks & Orchestration |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Hybrid (cloud + self-hosted) |
| Autonomy Level | Semi-autonomous | Semi-autonomous |
| Model Support | Multi-model | Single model |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes |
| MCP Support | Yes | -- |
| Team Support | Small team | Enterprise |
| Pricing Model | Free / open source | Freemium |
| Interface | api, gui, cli | gui, web, api |
36-point evaluation
Agenticness
13/36
Adaptive Collaborator
AutoGen
12/36
Guided Assistant
CrewAI
Dimension Breakdown (0-4 each)
Action Capability
AutoGen
3
CrewAI
2
Autonomy
AutoGen
1
CrewAI
1
Planning
AutoGen
2
CrewAI
1
Adaptation
AutoGen
1
CrewAI
0
State & Memory
AutoGen
1
CrewAI
1
Reliability
AutoGen
0
CrewAI
2
Interoperability
AutoGen
2
CrewAI
1
Safety
AutoGen
1
CrewAI
2
Scores from our agenticness evaluation framework. Higher is more autonomous.
Features & Use Cases
AutoGen
Features
- Builds multi-agent AI applications
- Provides a low-level Core API for message passing and event-driven agents
- Includes AgentChat for higher-level multi-agent patterns
- Supports extensions for model clients and tools
- Can connect to MCP servers for external tool use
- Works with OpenAI models in the quickstart examples
- Includes AutoGen Studio for no-code workflow prototyping
- Supports browser-based workflows through Playwright MCP
Use Cases
- Developing custom multi-agent assistants for internal workflows
- Prototyping agent workflows without writing code in AutoGen Studio
- Building tool-using assistants that can browse the web through MCP
- Orchestrating expert sub-agents for tasks like math, research, or domain-specific reasoning
- Extending existing applications with agent behavior and external integrations
CrewAI
Features
- Visual editor for building agentic workflows
- AI copilot for workflow creation
- Integrated tools and triggers
- Workflow execution limits by plan
- Cloud SaaS deployment
- Self-hosted deployment via Kubernetes and VPC for Enterprise
- SSO for Enterprise
- Secret manager integration for Enterprise
Use Cases
- Teams building production AI agent workflows with a visual interface
- Organizations that want to deploy agents in a managed cloud environment
- Enterprises that need self-hosted agent infrastructure on private cloud or on-prem systems
- Developers who want to prototype an agent workflow and later scale it for production
Pricing
AutoGen
- **Free / open source** — full functionality available at no cost.
CrewAI
- **Free (Basic):** Free tier with a visual editor, AI copilot, integrated tools and triggers, and 50 workflow executions per month.
- **Professional ($25/month):** Includes everything in Basic, plus 1 additional seat, 100 workflow executions per month, and support via the community forum.
- **Enterprise:** Custom pricing. Includes SaaS or self-hosted deployment via Kubernetes and VPC, SOC2, SSO, secret manager integration, PII detection and masking, dedicated support, uptime SLAs, Slack or Teams support channels, and forward-deployed engineers.
Analysis
Our Verdict
Pick AutoGen when you need a developer-first, code-centric framework to build custom multi-agent orchestrations with fine control over agent-to-agent messaging, tool use, and MCP/Playwright-driven browser workflows, especially since it’s fully open source and self-hosted. Pick CrewAI AMP when you want a more production-ready platform for building, testing, deploying, and operating agentic workflows using a visual editor/AI copilot, with clear scaling paths from a limited free tier into hosted or enterprise self-hosted Kubernetes/VPC deployments and enterprise-grade capabilities like SSO, secret management, PII masking, and uptime/support commitments.
Choose AutoGen if...
- +Choose AutoGen if you’re a developer building a fully custom multi-agent system and want to orchestrate agent-to-agent interaction using a low-level Core API plus a higher-level AgentChat API for faster multi-agent patterns.
- +Choose AutoGen if you need flexible tool and web-browsing integration via MCP servers and you want browser-based workflows driven by Playwright MCP as part of your agent workflow.
- +Choose AutoGen if you care about prototyping agent behavior inside a code-first workflow (Python 3.10+, pip installs, examples with OpenAI integrations) and also want AutoGen Studio for no-code workflow prototyping when iterating quickly.
- +Choose AutoGen if you want a fully self-hosted, free/open-source setup without per-workflow execution pricing and you’re comfortable managing the engineering/runtime yourself.
Choose CrewAI if...
- +Choose CrewAI AMP if your team wants a production-oriented agent platform with a visual editor and an AI copilot for creating agentic workflows, then scaling them with managed workflow execution.
- +Choose CrewAI if you need the option to run agents in a hosted cloud environment now, but later move to enterprise self-hosted deployment with Kubernetes + VPC, plus enterprise controls like SSO, secret manager integration, and PII detection/masking.
- +Choose CrewAI if you’re optimizing for operations and governance (workflow execution limits by plan, enterprise uptime SLAs, dedicated support/forward-deployed engineers) rather than building everything from a framework-level multi-agent runtime.
- +Choose CrewAI if you expect to grow from prototyping to team deployment under a workflow execution + seat model (e.g., free Basic with 50 executions/month, then Professional), so scaling is handled by the platform.