Agno vs Vellum
Vellum scores higher on the AgentReady, 88/100 against 65/100. They differ on 14 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.
What each one is
Agno. Agno is a self-driving agent platform that runs in your cloud.
Vellum. A personal AI assistant that lives in the secure Vellum Cloud, has its own identity, and actually does things in the world.
Where Agno is ahead
Agno passes authentication documented, and Vellum does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.
It also holds operate: agent compatibility verified. Vellum misses it.
Where Vellum is ahead
Vellum passes structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided and errors and status codes documented, and Agno does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.
It also holds adopt: agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart and cli available. Agno misses those.
And on operate, machine-readable errors and retry behavior documented. Agno misses those.
What neither does
Both fail limits / constraints documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.
Score, pillar by pillar
The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.
Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Vellum leads 85 to 31. Agno misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Vellum misses authentication documented, limits / constraints documented.
Adopt. Vellum leads 100 to 65. Agno misses agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, cli available; Vellum misses nothing.
Operate. Vellum leads 67 to 65. Agno misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable; Vellum misses idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.
Pricing
Agno starts at $0/mo and has a free tier. Vellum starts at $30/mo and has a free tier.
| Agno plans | Vellum plans |
|---|---|
| Free $0/month | Mighty $30/month |
| Pro $150/month | Super $100/month |
| Enterprise Custom | Ultra $200/month |
| - | Custom Plan Custom |
Signal by signal
| Signal | Agno | Vellum |
|---|---|---|
| AgentReady | 65 | 88 |
| Discovery | 100 | 100 |
| Understanding | 31 | 85 |
| Adoption | 65 | 100 |
| Operability | 65 | 67 |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| OpenAPI spec | Unknown | Yes |
| CLI | Unknown | Yes |
| llms.txt | Yes | Yes |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
Which to pick
Vellum clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Agno and Vellum. Alternatives to each: Agno, Vellum.
An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["agno", "vellum"]}