head to head · open source
haystack vs agent-framework
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars, 3,384 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-framework has 14,499 stars, 2,558 forks, 617 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack leads on adoption by 86% (26,913 vs 14,499 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; agent-framework is written in Python under MIT. haystack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, agent-framework 18%. agent-framework 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| 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 3.0 is out! ✨🎊🎉 Read the announcement here! 🥳 🎈 🎆 🪅 🎇 🍾 🥂 🎁 🌈 Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework for building production ready LLM applications in Python. Design modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation. Build scalable RAG systems, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and autonomous agents, all in a transparent architecture that lets you experiment, customize deeply, and deploy with confidence. Table of Contents Installation Documentation Features Haystack Enterprise: Support &…
read the full haystack overview →
About agent-framework
Welcome to Microsoft Agent Framework! Microsoft Agent Framework (MAF) is an open, multi language framework for building production grade AI agents and multi agent workflows in .NET and Python . Microsoft Agent Framework is built for teams taking agents from prototype to production. It provides a consistent foundation for building, orchestrating, and operating agent systems across Python, .NET and Go, while keeping architecture choices open as requirements evolve, and supports a broad ecosystem including Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, and the GitHub Copilot SDK, with samples and hosting patterns for…
read the full agent-framework overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or agent-framework more popular?
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars and agent-framework has 14,499. 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 (26,913 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.