OpenAI Agents SDK vs Claude Agent SDK (2026): Tools, Control and Costs

Quick verdict

• S
  Coding or file-and-shell agents with Claude Code's loop

  Claude Agent SDK
• A
  Small multi-agent apps, voice and multiple providers

  OpenAI Agents SDK
• A
  Explicit, durable workflows

  LangGraph
• B
  Role-based multi-agent teams

  CrewAI

The short answer

Pick the Claude Agent SDK when the agent's job looks like Claude Code's: working in a codebase or file system, running shell commands, and doing long multi-step tasks with hooks, subagents and permission controls already built in. Pick the OpenAI Agents SDK when you want a small, readable layer for orchestrating several agents with handoffs and guardrails, need realtime voice agents, or want to point the same code at models from more than one provider.

Claude Agent SDK details →OpenAI Agents SDK details →

Design: primitives vs an embedded agent

OpenAI describes its SDK as a lightweight package with very few abstractions and a production-ready upgrade of its earlier Swarm experiment. It has three core primitives: agents (LLMs with instructions and tools), agents as tools or handoffs to delegate work, and guardrails to validate inputs and outputs. A built-in loop keeps running until the task is complete, and tracing is built in so you can visualize and debug runs.

Anthropic describes the Agent SDK as the same tools, agent loop and context management that power Claude Code, programmable in Python and TypeScript. Its docs call it a library that runs the Claude Code binary, and the Python package bundles the Claude Code CLI so you don't install it separately. The result is less to assemble but more opinionated: you configure the Claude Code agent rather than build the loop yourself.

Built-in tools and sandboxes

Claude Agent SDK agents get Claude Code's built-in tools by default: read, write and edit files, run commands and search the web. The allowed_tools option is a permission allowlist that auto-approves listed tools rather than removing tools, and disallowed_tools blocks specific ones. The SDK also loads skills, commands and memory from your project's .claude/ folder and ~/.claude/, the same as Claude Code, and supports plugins that bundle skills, agents, hooks and MCP servers.

The OpenAI Agents SDK is tool-agnostic by default: function tools turn any Python or TypeScript function into a tool with automatic schema generation, MCP servers expose remote tools, and hosted tools are available. For work that needs a real workspace, it adds sandbox agents that run inside isolated workspaces with manifest-defined files, a choice of sandbox client and resumable sandbox sessions. The Python docs list local Unix and Docker sandbox clients.

Claude Agent SDK details →OpenAI Agents SDK details →

Orchestration, memory and human control

OpenAI's strength is multi-agent hand-offs written in plain code: agents can delegate to other agents as tools or through handoffs, guardrails run in parallel with the agent and fail fast when a check does not pass, and human-in-the-loop mechanisms let a person step in during a run. Sessions provide a persistent memory layer, and the Python docs list SQLAlchemy, advanced SQLite and encrypted session options, with Redis support through an optional install extra.

Anthropic's SDK exposes the Claude Code lifecycle instead: hooks run your code at key points in the agent lifecycle, subagents handle focused subtasks, permissions control which tools run automatically and which need approval, and sessions let you maintain context, resume or fork later. For voice, OpenAI's SDK documents realtime agents built on gpt-realtime-2.1 and a speech-to-text, agent, text-to-speech voice pipeline; we did not find an equivalent in Anthropic's Agent SDK overview.

Languages, models and setup

Both SDKs ship for Python (3.10 or newer) and TypeScript. Install is pip install openai-agents or npm install @openai/agents zod (the TypeScript package requires Zod v4) for OpenAI, and pip install claude-agent-sdk for Claude's Python SDK.

On models, the OpenAI SDK uses the Responses API by default for OpenAI models, and its README says it is provider-agnostic, supporting the Responses and Chat Completions APIs and 100+ other LLMs. The Claude Agent SDK docs frame it around Claude and the Claude Code agent; we did not find multi-provider support described on its overview page. If you need to drive the same loop from another language, Anthropic's docs suggest running the CLI as a subprocess with the -p flag and --output-format json.

Licensing, authentication and release pace

The OpenAI Agents SDK repos for Python and JavaScript are MIT-licensed. Anthropic's Python SDK repo carries an MIT license file, but the TypeScript SDK's license says all rights reserved, subject to Anthropic's Commercial Terms of Service, and the Agent SDK overview says use of the SDK is governed by those Commercial Terms. Read them before embedding the SDK in a product you sell.

Authentication matters too. Anthropic's docs say that unless previously approved, third-party developers may not offer claude.ai login or its rate limits in products built on the Claude Agent SDK, so use API-key authentication. Both projects are pre-1.0 and move fast: as of November 4, 2026 the Claude Agent SDK was at Python v0.2.178 and TypeScript v0.3.318 (both released November 4, UTC), while OpenAI's Python SDK had v0.24.0 as its latest stable release (October 15, UTC) with a v0.24.0-alpha.6 pre-release on November 3 and its JavaScript packages were at 0.21.0 (October 20). Pin your versions.

What they cost (verified Nov 4, 2026)

Both SDKs are free; you pay for model usage on each vendor's API. OpenAI's API pricing page lists standard rates per 1M tokens of $2.00 input and $10.00 output for gpt-6.1-sol and $1.00 input and $5.00 output for gpt-6.1-terra, plus $10.00 per 1,000 web search calls and hosted container sessions from $0.03 for a 1 GB container per 20-minute session. Anthropic's pricing page lists token rates per model, web search at $10 per 1,000 searches, and code execution containers at $0.05 per hour after 50 free hours a day per organization.

If you would rather not run the loop yourself, Anthropic's hosted Managed Agents charge $0.08 per session-hour of active runtime plus standard token rates. Estimate your own costs from the vendors' pricing pages, since token use depends on how many tool calls and turns your agent takes.

Where they sit on ToolTier, and the alternatives

In our agent-framework tier list the Claude Agent SDK is ranked S and the OpenAI Agents SDK A. Choose between them first on the shape of the work (a coding-style agent vs multi-agent orchestration or voice), then on which models you want to run. When you outgrow either, LangGraph gives you explicit graphs with durable state and CrewAI gives you role-based teams; our LangGraph vs CrewAI and Best AI agent frameworks guides cover both.

The Agent Builder pack's tool schemas, guardrails and eval cases work with either SDK, and the free Claude Code subagents in the ToolTier Library help you review agent code before it ships.

LangGraph details →CrewAI details →