Which AI agent framework should you use — LangGraph, CrewAI, or AutoGen?
They make different bets. LangGraph models an agent as an explicit graph of steps and state, so you trade simplicity for fine control. CrewAI organizes work as a 'crew' of role-playing agents with tasks, which is fast to stand up when the work splits cleanly by role. AutoGen centers on conversations between agents, good for open-ended problem-solving. Pick by how much control versus convention you want — and remember the strongest option is often no framework at all for a simple agent.
They’re not the same kind of tool
“Agent framework” covers three pretty different philosophies, and choosing well means matching the philosophy to your problem.
LangGraph: control as a graph
LangGraph models your agent as an explicit graph — nodes are steps, edges are transitions, and state is passed along and updated. You write more of the control flow yourself, which is the point: when you need deterministic branching, loops, retries, and inspectable state, the graph gives you that visibility. The cost is more upfront wiring than a convention-heavy framework.
CrewAI: roles and tasks
CrewAI organizes work as a crew of agents, each with a role, a goal, and tasks. When a job splits cleanly into specialties — a researcher, a writer, a reviewer — that abstraction is fast to stand up and easy to reason about. You trade some low-level control for the convention.
AutoGen: agents in conversation
AutoGen centers on multi-agent conversations: agents (and humans) message each other to work toward a result. It shines on open-ended, exploratory problems where the path isn’t known in advance, and is more free-form than a fixed graph or crew.
The honest default
Before any of them, ask whether you need a framework at all. A single agent with a clear set of tools and a plain loop covers a lot of ground without the abstraction. Reach for a framework when the orchestration is complex enough to earn it — not because the demo used one.
From the conversation
This explainer is drawn from these episodes — each carries its full transcript.
