Strands Agents

What is Strands Agents?

Strands Agents is an open-source SDK that lets you create and run AI agents with Python or TypeScript. It is meant for teams that would otherwise hand-write an agent loop: the SDK runs inside your own process with no hosted control plane, and bundles lifecycle controls such as turn limits, token budgets and cancellation, tool use, structured output, MCP support, multi-agent patterns, memory, sessions, streaming, guardrails, tracing and evals. It is model agnostic: Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini are directly supported, along with Ollama and other providers. For a quick start, a single create_harness call in Python or createHarness in TypeScript assembles a ready-to-use agent with default settings you can override, and the lower-level SDKs let you wire everything yourself. The repository also contains a strands CLI, an MCP server for coding agents, and the documentation site. There is no price: it is free under the Apache License 2.0.

Use cases

• Build AI agents in Python
• Build AI agents in TypeScript
• Switch between model providers
• Connect agents to MCP tools
• Orchestrate multi-agent workflows
• Trace and evaluate agent runs
• Prototype agents from a terminal CLI

Who it's for

• Python developers
• TypeScript developers
• AI engineers
• Cloud teams

Why use Strands Agents

• There is no hosted control plane, so agents run in your own process and environment.
• Model-agnostic providers let you swap backends as you scale without rewriting agent code.
• Built-in tracing and hooks let you log, validate or redirect any step of the agent loop.
• Guardrails and steering handlers help catch mistakes before they run.
• A one-call harness gets you a working agent quickly, and the SDK lets you take over each part later.

Strands Agents features

• Python and TypeScript SDKs
• Fully assembled harness via create_harness or createHarness
• Agent loop with turn limits, token budgets and cancellation
• Tools and structured output
• MCP tool support
• Multi-agent patterns
• Memory and session management
• Streaming, including bidirectional streaming in Python
• Guardrails and steering handlers
• Tracing, hooks and an evals SDK
• strands CLI for prototyping

Strands Agents integrations

• Amazon Bedrock
• Anthropic
• OpenAI
• Gemini
• Ollama
• MCP
• Claude Code
• Codex
• Cursor

How to get started with Strands Agents

1. Install the harness or SDK, for example pip install strands-harness or npm install @strands-agents/harness.
2. Choose a model provider such as Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini or Ollama and configure its credentials.
3. Create an agent with create_harness, or with Agent and the tools you want.
4. Call the agent with a prompt and add tools, MCP servers, memory or multi-agent patterns as needed.
5. Use tracing, guardrails and the deployment guide to move the agent to production.

Strands Agents limitations

• Requires programming skills
• Python SDK needs Python 3.10 or newer
• TypeScript SDK needs Node.js 22 or newer in an ESM project
• The TypeScript Agent uses Amazon Bedrock by default, so AWS credentials or another model must be configured
• You supply and pay for model access and hosting

Strands Agents pricing

Strands Agents is open source, so you can use and self-host it for free.

Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

Strands Agents alternatives

The main Strands Agents alternatives listed on Debuly are LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Mastra, Pydantic AI, CrewAI and AG2. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

1. 

   AG2

   Open-source multi-agent framework, formerly AutoGen, plus an AgentOS platform for coordinating and deploying teams of AI agents.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit AG2 (official site)
2. 

   CrewAI

   Multi-agent framework and platform for building AI agent crews in Python or a visual editor, then deploying and monitoring them.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit CrewAI (official site)
3. 

   LangGraph

   Low-level open-source orchestration framework and runtime for building stateful, long-running AI agents as graphs.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit LangGraph (official site)
4. 

   Mastra

   Open source TypeScript framework for building AI agents and workflows, plus a hosted platform for Studio, Server, memory and observability.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit Mastra (official site)
5. 

   OpenAI Agents SDK

   Open-source Python framework for building multi-agent workflows with tools, handoffs, guardrails, tracing, sandboxes and voice agents.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit OpenAI Agents SDK (official site)
6. 

   Pydantic AI

   A type-safe, model-agnostic Python framework for building agents and LLM applications, from the team behind Pydantic.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit Pydantic AI (official site)

Strands Agents FAQ

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

Image credits

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