AutoGen vs Smolagents

AutoGen is an open-source framework developed by Microsoft for building multi-agent AI systems and advanced LLM-powered applications.

It enables developers to create autonomous agents that can collaborate, converse, and solve problems together, or with human feedback integrated into the loop.

AutoGen provides abstractions for defining roles, tasks, and communication protocols between agents, allowing flexible setups from simple assistants to complex, multi-agent ecosystems.

It is designed for rapid prototyping as well as production deployment, with features like conversation orchestration, human-AI collaboration, and tool integration.

Smolagents is an open-source, lightweight framework designed for building small, efficient AI agents. Its philosophy emphasizes simplicity and modularity, enabling developers to create agents that perform specific tasks without the overhead of large frameworks.

Smolagents provides the core functionality needed for chaining prompts, managing memory, and integrating tools, while remaining easy to understand and extend.

This makes it especially appealing for developers and researchers experimenting with agent design, as well as for production use cases where minimalism and efficiency are priorities.

The framework integrates smoothly with Python ecosystems and popular LLM providers, allowing quick setup and customization.