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Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)

active

4.3M PyPI downloads/month for a framework under 10 months old. v1.27.2 (2026-03-17), multi-language (Python, TypeScript, Go, Java), model-agnostic (Gemini, Claude, Ollama, vLLM, LiteLLM). Native Cloud Run + Vertex AI Agent Engine deployment. ADK 2.0 Alpha adds graph-based workflows. Best for GCP/Vertex AI teams.

Score 92

Where it wins

4.4M PyPI downloads/month — fastest absolute star growth (18.5K in <12 months)

Multi-language: Python, TypeScript, Go, Java — widest language breadth in category

Model-agnostic despite Google origins: Gemini, Claude, Ollama, vLLM, LiteLLM

Pre-built Workflow agents (Sequential, Parallel, Loop) reduce boilerplate

Native Cloud Run + Vertex AI Agent Engine deployment — unique GCP advantage

Most complete DevOps story: built-in evaluation, testing, containerization, deployment pipelines

Named customers: Renault Group, Box, Revionics (Google blog, self-reported)

Where to be skeptical

GCP/Vertex lock-in concern — unfavorable tradeoff vs LangGraph for non-GCP teams

Bi-weekly release cadence may introduce instability

Named customers from Google-controlled publications only

Editorial verdict

Strong download velocity for its age — GCP-native deployment and multi-language commitment give it a longer runway than single-language frameworks. Best for teams already on GCP/Vertex AI. No independently-verified production case studies outside Google-controlled publications.

Videos

Reviews, tutorials, and comparisons from the community.

Introduction to Google ADK

Google·2025

Related

Teams of Agents / Multi-Agent Orchestration

#F06of 23

GCP-native teams wanting fastest path from prototype to deployed agent

Claude Code

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Anthropic's official agentic coding CLI. v2.1.81 (Mar 20) shipped `--bare`, smarter worktree resume, and improved MCP OAuth while the repo crossed 82,204 stars and logged ~14 commits/week across 10+ maintainers. Terminal-native, tool-use-driven, with deep file system + shell access, #1 SWE-bench Pro standardized (45.89%), ~4% of GitHub public commits (SemiAnalysis), $2.5B annualized revenue. 8M+ npm weekly downloads. Opus 4.6 with 1M context.

LangGraph

95

#1 Python agent framework by production evidence — 40.2M PyPI downloads/month, Fortune 500 deployments (LinkedIn, Uber, Replit, Elastic, Klarna, Cloudflare, Coinbase), ~400 LangGraph Platform companies, LangSmith rated best-in-class observability. Stable v1.x API, model-agnostic, MCP support.

Pydantic AI

95

#3 Python agent framework by downloads — 15.6M PyPI/month. Built by the Pydantic team. Runtime type enforcement is a genuine differentiator no other framework offers. V1 shipped with Temporal integration for durable execution and Logfire observability. Emerging pattern: 'Pydantic AI for agent logic, LangGraph for orchestration' (ZenML).

AutoGen (Microsoft)

95

⚠️ MAINTENANCE MODE — Microsoft officially confirmed bug fixes and security patches only, no new features (VentureBeat 2026-02-19). 55.9K stars but only 1.57M PyPI/month — DL/star ratio of 28, the most inflated among active frameworks. Being replaced by Microsoft Agent Framework (AutoGen + Semantic Kernel merge, GA targeted ~Q2 2026). Teams on AutoGen should plan migration.

Public evidence

Raw GitHub source

GitHub README peek

Constrained peek so you can sanity-check the source material without leaving the site.

Agent Development Kit (ADK)

Python Unit Tests <a href="https://codewiki.google/github.com/google/adk-python"><img src="https://www.gstatic.com/_/boq-sdlc-agents-ui/_/r/Mvosg4klCA4.svg" alt="Ask Code Wiki" height="20"></a>

<html> <h2 align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/google/adk-python/main/assets/agent-development-kit.png" width="256"/> </h2> <h3 align="center"> An open-source, code-first Python framework for building, evaluating, and deploying sophisticated AI agents with flexibility and control. </h3> <h3 align="center"> Important Links: <a href="https://google.github.io/adk-docs/">Docs</a>, <a href="https://github.com/google/adk-samples">Samples</a>, <a href="https://github.com/google/adk-java">Java ADK</a>, <a href="https://github.com/google/adk-go">Go ADK</a> & <a href="https://github.com/google/adk-web">ADK Web</a>. </h3> </html>

Agent Development Kit (ADK) is a flexible and modular framework that applies software development principles to AI agent creation. It is designed to simplify building, deploying, and orchestrating agent workflows, from simple tasks to complex systems. While optimized for Gemini, ADK is model-agnostic, deployment-agnostic, and compatible with other frameworks.

🔥 What's new

  • Custom Service Registration: Add a service registry to provide a generic way to register custom service implementations to be used in FastAPI server. See short instruction. (391628f)

  • Rewind: Add the ability to rewind a session to before a previous invocation (9dce06f).

  • New CodeExecutor: Introduces a new AgentEngineSandboxCodeExecutor class that supports executing agent-generated code using the Vertex AI Code Execution Sandbox API (ee39a89)

✨ Key Features

  • Rich Tool Ecosystem: Utilize pre-built tools, custom functions, OpenAPI specs, MCP tools or integrate existing tools to give agents diverse capabilities, all for tight integration with the Google ecosystem.

  • Code-First Development: Define agent logic, tools, and orchestration directly in Python for ultimate flexibility, testability, and versioning.

  • Agent Config: Build agents without code. Check out the Agent Config feature.

  • Tool Confirmation: A tool confirmation flow(HITL) that can guard tool execution with explicit confirmation and custom input.

  • Modular Multi-Agent Systems: Design scalable applications by composing multiple specialized agents into flexible hierarchies.

  • Deploy Anywhere: Easily containerize and deploy agents on Cloud Run or scale seamlessly with Vertex AI Agent Engine.

🚀 Installation

Stable Release (Recommended)

You can install the latest stable version of ADK using pip:

pip install google-adk

The release cadence is roughly bi-weekly.

This version is recommended for most users as it represents the most recent official release.

Development Version

Bug fixes and new features are merged into the main branch on GitHub first. If you need access to changes that haven't been included in an official PyPI release yet, you can install directly from the main branch:

pip install git+https://github.com/google/adk-python.git@main

Note: The development version is built directly from the latest code commits. While it includes the newest fixes and features, it may also contain experimental changes or bugs not present in the stable release. Use it primarily for testing upcoming changes or accessing critical fixes before they are officially released.

🤖 Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol and ADK Integration

For remote agent-to-agent communication, ADK integrates with the A2A protocol. See this example for how they can work together.

📚 Documentation

Explore the full documentation for detailed guides on building, evaluating, and deploying agents:

  • Documentation

🏁 Feature Highlight

Define a single agent:
from google.adk.agents import Agent
from google.adk.tools import google_search

root_agent = Agent(
    name="search_assistant",
    model="gemini-2.5-flash", # Or your preferred Gemini model
    instruction="You are a helpful assistant. Answer user questions using Google Search when needed.",
    description="An assistant that can search the web.",
    tools=[google_search]
)
Define a multi-agent system:

Define a multi-agent system with coordinator agent, greeter agent, and task execution agent. Then ADK engine and the model will guide the agents to work together to accomplish the task.

from google.adk.agents import LlmAgent, BaseAgent

# Define individual agents
greeter = LlmAgent(name="greeter", model="gemini-2.5-flash", ...)
task_executor = LlmAgent(name="task_executor", model="gemini-2.5-flash", ...)

# Create parent agent and assign children via sub_agents
coordinator = LlmAgent(
    name="Coordinator",
    model="gemini-2.5-flash",
    description="I coordinate greetings and tasks.",
    sub_agents=[ # Assign sub_agents here
        greeter,
        task_executor
    ]
)
Development UI

A built-in development UI to help you test, evaluate, debug, and showcase your agent(s).

<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/google/adk-python/main/assets/adk-web-dev-ui-function-call.png"/>
View on GitHub →