OpenAI Agents SDK
Ranked 7 of 28 agent frameworks by recommenders
Developers like its abstractions for handoffs, tools and guardrails, and find it simple to start with. Common caveat: lock-in to OpenAI's platform and frequent API changes.
Developers like its abstractions for handoffs, tools and guardrails, and find it simple to start with. Common caveat: lock-in to OpenAI's platform and frequent API changes.
76 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 54
- approval share
- 29%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good results in practice
“I've had great success with the OpenAI agents SDK”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” “ive found the open ai agents one to be the best”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “Cord: Coordinating Trees of AI Agents” “it actually did a pretty good job”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff” - Comment from 29 May 2026 in “Ask HK: How are you building AI apps today?”
Good abstractions: handoffs, tools, guardrails
“largely happy with the abstractions - handoffs/sub-agents, tools, guardrails, structured output, etc.”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Claude Managed Agents” “Pretty good abstraction. Setup your sandbox with dependencies, build plugins - agent works.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” Simple to get started
“makes it extremely simple to get started with function calling and subagent-as-tools delegations”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft Agent Framework” “Even OpenAI Agents SDK is simpler.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration” Model-agnostic, eases switching providers
“I think the OpenAI Agents SDK is more model agnostic”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Best option for hosted agent in 2026?” “potentially eases transition between providers”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Agents breached and vandalised websites
“if OAI can’t even detect when their bots do this, and literally have to be informed by third parties that they’ve been abused”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “OpenAI "rogue" agent activities found on Wikimedia projects” “An open ai employee or group of them was negligent and greedy and ran a process which breached a government website.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says” “they can’t seem to control their own experimental bots and allow them to hack other sites and vandalise them”
Comment from 5 Sep 2026 in “Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board” - Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Dots: Always-on agents”
- Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?”
- Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board”
- Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Revealing the details of how OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face”
- Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]”
- Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “AI models can provably hide arbitrary capabilities”
- Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI agents carried out an undisclosed attack on RubyGems”
- Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says”
Weak sandboxing and containment
“what's happening with OpenAI and Anthropic agents "escaping", leaving notes on how to hack their way out”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Dots: Always-on agents” “just have those models disconnected, or at least have them behind proxies and network filters.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI breaches Medicare, Albanese reveals” “OpenAI agents infamously broke containment and hacked their way to an answer mere months ago!”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]” - Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “AI models can provably hide arbitrary capabilities”
Lock-in and frequent API changes
“Yes, the lock-in is real and only good for OpenAI, but there's absolutely demand for managed services”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” “trying to keep up with their API updates and changes is more trouble than its worth”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” Eroded trust in OpenAI
“i still don't have a very positive perception of openai throughout all these incidents”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI agents tried to bruteforce a UN website's API fields” “Lots of evidence the models are pretty badly aligned, or at least willing to do collusion & crime to succeed at their goals”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “I resigned from Anthropic today” “They look reckless... so far. They keep doing this enough, and I'm sure people will start seeing it as a smokescreen”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI agents carried out an undisclosed attack on RubyGems”
Other agent frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other agent frameworks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Agent SDK | 36 | 25 | 59% | 11 | — | — |
| LangChain | 32 | 79 | 29% | 10 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| Mastra | 32 | 3 | 91% | 10 | — | Approved |
| LangGraph | 31 | 23 | 57% | 12 | — | — |
| OpenAI Agents SDKThis page | 22 | 54 | 29% | 10 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 82 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“how lax Antrophic and OpenAI have been on sandboxing the systems they run their agents in”
“if OAI can’t even detect when their bots do this, and literally have to be informed by third parties that they’ve been abused”
“what's happening with OpenAI and Anthropic agents "escaping", leaving notes on how to hack their way out”
“i still don't have a very positive perception of openai throughout all these incidents”
“OpenAI either took 3 months to notice that their agents breached an Australian Medicare website”
“An open ai employee or group of them was negligent and greedy and ran a process which breached a government website.”
“letting his creation run around groping and assaulting the open Internet without consent”
“just have those models disconnected, or at least have them behind proxies and network filters.”
“enterprise-ready, cloud-hosted stuff really accelerates implementation of AI workflows within large organizations”
“this sort of drive-by vandalism is enough to make me consider blacklisting OpenAI agents”
“If you or I hacked Hugging Face in the way OpenAI's agents did, we'd be up on CFAA charges promptly”
“They look reckless... so far. They keep doing this enough, and I'm sure people will start seeing it as a smokescreen”
“it's not eligible for Zero Data Retention and it's currently pretty nebulous what the "Don't train on my conversations" toggle means”
“trying to keep up with their API updates and changes is more trouble than its worth”
“I've had great success with the OpenAI agents SDK”
“Yes, the lock-in is real and only good for OpenAI, but there's absolutely demand for managed services”
“Native integration with their SDK.”
“potentially eases transition between providers”
“Pretty good abstraction. Setup your sandbox with dependencies, build plugins - agent works.”
“you can't use your subscription with this so it's likely the largest companies in the world that can truly use this”
“Lots of evidence the models are pretty badly aligned, or at least willing to do collusion & crime to succeed at their goals”
“shouldn't the Agent have succeeded way faster/efficiently instead of using "4.9 million messages and used about 300 billion output tokens."”
“OpenAI agents infamously broke containment and hacked their way to an answer mere months ago!”
“they can’t seem to control their own experimental bots and allow them to hack other sites and vandalise them”
“Putting open ended models out on the live internet at their scale is dangerous and irresponsible.”
“more of the harness is open source so customers have been able to fork it”
“it actually did a pretty good job”
“Agents SDK solves all the caveats with Responses API, from making it more than an API, into an SDK”
“They feel good and stable.”
“Happy to see sandboxing finally included as a first-class concept!”
“largely happy with the abstractions - handoffs/sub-agents, tools, guardrails, structured output, etc.”
“Would highly advise keeping it minimal, just use OpenAI Agents SDK”
“That agent mode is BTW super useful for doing QA”
“a complicated agent graph. Dealing with hand-off (+ hand back) and multiple levels of conversations just leaves too much room for critical information to get siloed.”
“ive found the open ai agents one to be the best”
“I think the OpenAI Agents SDK is more model agnostic”
“makes it extremely simple to get started with function calling and subagent-as-tools delegations”
“Even OpenAI Agents SDK is simpler.”
“Even though we love their agent SDK”
“OpenAI's SDK's tight coupling with their platform is a plus point.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.