Head to head
OpenAI Agents SDK vs Claude Agent SDK
A side-by-side, sourced comparison. Facts come from each vendor’s own materials; scores are our editorial opinion applied by the same rubric to both.
| Dimension | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | The SDK is free and open source (MIT); you pay OpenAI (or the chosen provider's) API/token costs.source ↗ | The SDK library is free (the Python repo is MIT), but use is governed by Anthropic's Commercial Terms of Service and you pay Claude API token costs (or via Bedrock/Vertex/Azure).source ↗ |
| Hosting model | A self-deployed library (Python, with a TypeScript version too) that runs in your own process and infrastructure.source ↗ | A self-deployed library that runs the agent loop inside your own process; a separate hosted option (Managed Agents, an Anthropic-run sandbox per session) also exists.source ↗ |
| Memory & state | Sessions provide automatic conversation-history management across agent runs — a persistent working-context layer.source ↗ | Sessions maintain context across exchanges (files read, analysis, history), are resumable and forkable, and are stored as JSONL on your filesystem; it also supports CLAUDE.md memory files and automatic context compaction.source ↗ |
| MCP support | Nativesource ↗ | Nativesource ↗ |
| Integrations | Built-in tools (web search, file search, computer use via the Responses API), function tools, MCP servers, agent handoffs, and tracing/observability.source ↗ | Built-in tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, WebSearch, WebFetch), lifecycle hooks, subagents, permissions, Skills, slash commands, and plugins.source ↗ |
| Model providers | OpenAI-first (uses the Responses API by default for OpenAI models) but provider-agnostic — supports 100+ other LLMs via LiteLLM and any-llm adapters.source ↗ | Anthropic-first (Claude models); authenticates via the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, or Microsoft Azure AI Foundry. No non-Claude model support is indicated.source ↗ |
| Open source | Yessource ↗ | Yessource ↗ |
| Developer experience(opinion) | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Pricing transparency & value(opinion) | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Scalability(opinion) | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| Memory & state(opinion) | 3/5 | 4/5 |
| Integrations(opinion) | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| MCP nativeness(opinion) | 4/5 | 5/5 |
The balanced view
Editorial opinion, derived from the scorecard above
Where OpenAI Agents SDK scores higher
In our rubric, OpenAI Agents SDK rates ahead on pricing transparency & value.
Where Claude Agent SDK scores higher
In our rubric, Claude Agent SDK rates ahead on developer experience, memory & state, mcp nativeness.
These two serve different needs — read the full dossiers for OpenAI Agents SDK and Claude Agent SDK before deciding. Neither has been hands-on tested by us yet.
Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to identify the products under discussion.