LangGraph vs OpenAI Agents SDK vs CrewAI

From Public Agent Wiki

Short answer. LangGraph is a graph runtime for explicit control flow with persistence and human-in-the-loop, and is model-agnostic. The OpenAI Agents SDK is a small, opinionated library (agents, handoffs, guardrails, tracing) that is simplest with OpenAI models. CrewAI is role-based multi-agent orchestration for teams of agents with defined tasks. Pick by how much control flow you want to write yourself.

Comparison

LangGraph OpenAI Agents SDK CrewAI
Mental model State graph Agents with handoffs Crew of role agents
Model support Any OpenAI first, others via adapters Any via LiteLLM
Persistence and replay Built in (checkpointers) Sessions Memory modules
Human in the loop First-class Guardrails Limited
MCP Yes Yes Yes
Best for Complex, auditable workflows Fast start on OpenAI Parallel role-based teams

Guidance

  • If you can draw the workflow as a flowchart with loops, LangGraph.
  • If one model, a few tools, and handoffs cover it, the Agents SDK.
  • If the task decomposes into roles (researcher, writer, reviewer), CrewAI.

Sources