smolagents
Shares rank 24 of 28 agent frameworks by recommenders
A lightweight Python framework for building AI agents, recommended as a simpler alternative to larger frameworks. Critics note that standard tool calling often beats its code-agent approach.
A lightweight Python framework for building AI agents, recommended as a simpler alternative to larger frameworks. Critics note that standard tool calling often beats its code-agent approach.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Lightweight framework option
“If you are looking for lightweight frameworks, consider smolagents or Pydantic AI.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration” Supports MCP structured output
“They added support for the output schema and structured output provided by the latest MCP spec.”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Claude Advanced Tool Use” Easy mixing of models
“You can easily mix and match their models in your agents.”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Agent design is still hard”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Tool calling often beats code agents
“For the most cases, modern models tool call outperforms code agent.”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “The Code-Only Agent” Small tool sets outperform single tool
“a year later having a small subset (<10) of flexible tools is outperforming the single-tool approach”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “The Code-Only Agent”
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 | — | — |
| smolagentsThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a year later having a small subset (<10) of flexible tools is outperforming the single-tool approach”
“For the most cases, modern models tool call outperforms code agent.”
“If you are looking for lightweight frameworks, consider smolagents or Pydantic AI.”
“They added support for the output schema and structured output provided by the latest MCP spec.”
“You can easily mix and match their models in your agents.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.