Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs Microsoft Agent Framework
A side-by-side comparison of Agent Development Kit (ADK) and Microsoft Agent Framework, two Orchestration tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
OrchestrationOpen-source, code-first framework for building and deploying multi-agent systems.
View Agent Development Kit (ADK)Microsoft Agent Framework
OrchestrationOpen SDK for production AI agents in .NET and Python.
View Microsoft Agent FrameworkAt a glance
| Attribute | Agent Development Kit (ADK) | Microsoft Agent Framework |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Orchestration | Orchestration |
| Pricing | FREE | FREE |
| License | Open source | Open source |
| Deployment | — | — |
| Platforms (differs) | API, CLI | API |
| Model support | Model-agnostic | Model-agnostic |
| Vendor (differs) | Microsoft |
The honest brief
Agent Development Kit (ADK)
Native bidirectional audio/video streaming and the same engine behind Google's own production agents set it apart from text-only agent frameworks.
- Backed by Google, code-first design
- Model- and deployment-agnostic
- Composes agents into hierarchies
- Built-in evaluation and dev UI
- Multi-language: Python, Java, Go, TS
- Optimized for Gemini and Google Cloud
- Younger than LangChain / LlamaIndex
- Enterprise features lean on Vertex AI
Microsoft Agent Framework
Microsoft-backed with first-class .NET and Python parity plus built-in durability, observability, and human-in-the-loop from a single vendor.
- MIT-licensed and open source
- Durability and observability built in
- Human-in-the-loop control
- Migration paths from SK and AutoGen
- Younger than the frameworks it replaces
- Tilts toward the Azure ecosystem
- Smaller community than LangChain