Which is more popular, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?

LangChain has more GitHub stars (147,383 vs 21,690).

Which is more actively developed, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?

Agent Development Kit (ADK) had more commits in the last 90 days (1,360 vs 546).

Should I use Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?

Compare their capabilities, limitations and "best for" notes above. Both are open source, so trying each on a small task is the fastest way to decide.

Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs LangChain

Side-by-side comparison of two AI agent tools

Short answer

LangChain is growing faster: +23,217 GitHub stars in the last 30 days vs +30 for Agent Development Kit (ADK).
Pick Agent Development Kit (ADK) for: an open-source, code-first Python toolkit for building, evaluating, and deploying sophisticated AI agents. Pick LangChain for: the agent engineering platform.

From GitHub data refreshed daily.

Agent Development Kit (ADK)open-source

An open-source, code-first Python toolkit for building, evaluating, and deploying sophisticated AI agents with flexibility and control.

LangChainopen-source

The agent engineering platform

Metrics

	Agent Development Kit (ADK)	LangChain
Stars	21.7k	147.4k
Star velocity /mo	30	23.2k
Commits (90d)	1.4k	546
Releases (6m)	10	10
Overall score	0.7141691885622203	0.9025020701905048

Pros

+Extensive ecosystem with seamless integration between LangGraph, LangSmith, and hundreds of third-party components
+Future-proof architecture that adapts to evolving LLM technologies without requiring application rewrites
+Strong community support with 131k+ GitHub stars and comprehensive documentation for both Python and JavaScript

Cons

-Significant learning curve due to the framework's extensive feature set and multiple abstraction layers
-Potential over-engineering for simple use cases that might be better served by direct API calls
-Heavy dependency on the LangChain ecosystem which can create vendor lock-in concerns

Use Cases

•Building complex multi-agent systems that require planning, tool use, and coordination between different AI components
•Creating production LLM applications with observability, debugging, and deployment infrastructure via LangSmith
•Developing chatbots and conversational AI with memory, context management, and integration with external data sources

View Agent Development Kit (ADK) Details View LangChain Details

FAQ

Which is more popular, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?: LangChain has more GitHub stars (147,383 vs 21,690).
Which is more actively developed, Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?: Agent Development Kit (ADK) had more commits in the last 90 days (1,360 vs 546).
Should I use Agent Development Kit (ADK) or LangChain?: Compare their capabilities, limitations and "best for" notes above. Both are open source, so trying each on a small task is the fastest way to decide.