Strands Agents
Strands Agents is an open-source SDK for building and running AI agents in Python and TypeScript for developers who would otherwise write their own agent loop.
What it is good for
- Building an AI agent that calls tools and runs multi-step tasks
- Adding limits, tracing, and guardrails to a custom agent
- Switching between AI model providers without rewriting code
- Running multiple agents that hand work to each other
At a glance
- Who it is for
- Setup
- Requires programming
Level 5 of 5. You need to write code to use it.
- Cost
- Free and open source
- Type
- Framework or SDK
- Tasks
- Works with
- Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, MCP
Momentum
- Rank this week
- Not ranked (last #39, week 40, 2026)
- Best rank
- #39 week 40, 2026
- GitHub stars
- 9,027
GitHub numbers as of Nov 2, 2026. Updated weekly.
Ranking history
Official links
Setup steps are on the official pages. We do not repeat them here, since they change.
Questions
- Is Strands Agents free?
- Yes. It is free and open source (Apache-2.0 license).
- Do I need to know how to code to use Strands Agents?
- Yes. You need to write code to use it.
- What does Strands Agents work with?
- According to its own documentation, it works with Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, and MCP.
- What is Strands Agents good for?
- Building an AI agent that calls tools and runs multi-step tasks, adding limits, tracing, and guardrails to a custom agent, switching between AI model providers without rewriting code, and running multiple agents that hand work to each other.
Similar agents to Strands Agents
- LangChain
LangChain is a framework that helps developers build AI agents and LLM-powered applications that connect to models and data sources.
- crewAI
CrewAI is a Python framework that lets developers build teams of AI agents that split up and complete multi-step work.
- LangGraph
LangGraph is a framework that helps developers build long-running agents that keep their state and resume after failures.
- Agno
Agno is a framework and service platform that builds, runs, and improves AI agents for developers and teams who need them available as an API or MCP server.
- Conductor
Conductor is a workflow engine that runs multi-step jobs and AI agents reliably, so steps survive crashes and retries, for developers.
- Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Agent Development Kit is a Python code library that helps developers build, test, and deploy AI agents.