head to head · open source
haystack vs agent-framework
haystack has 26,559 GitHub stars, 3,153 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-framework has 13,604 stars, 2,344 forks, 617 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. haystack leads on adoption by 95% (26,559 vs 13,604 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; agent-framework is written in Python under MIT. haystack has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, agent-framework 17%. haystack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (agent-framework, agentic-ai, agents, ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| haystack | agent-framework | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick haystack if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-framework if
- You want the agent-framework feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and agent-framework fits your workflow better
About haystack
Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework written in Python under the Apache 2.0 licence, for building context engineered, production ready large language model applications as modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation, and it is aimed at developers and teams building scalable agents, retrieval augmented generation, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and conversational systems.
read the full haystack overview →
About agent-framework
Microsoft Agent Framework is an open, MIT licensed, multi language framework for building, orchestrating and deploying production grade AI agents and multi agent workflows in Python and .NET, aimed at teams moving agents from prototype to production.
read the full agent-framework overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or agent-framework more popular?
haystack has 26,559 GitHub stars and agent-framework has 13,604. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and agent-framework free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and agent-framework under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and agent-framework?
haystack is written in Python and agent-framework in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, haystack or agent-framework?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,559 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose agent-framework if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.