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CrewAI vs LlamaIndex

CrewAI scores higher on the AgentReady, 79/100 against 52/100. They differ on 13 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

CrewAI. CrewAI is an enterprise agent build and runtime platform that enables business and technical teams to build agents while giving platform teams control to govern them.

LlamaIndex. LlamaIndex provides document parsing and extraction tools that turn complex documents into AI-ready context.

Where CrewAI is ahead

CrewAI passes clear canonical domain and mcp discoverable, and LlamaIndex does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided and errors and status codes documented. LlamaIndex misses those.

And on adopt, programmatic credential creation and mcp integration available. LlamaIndex misses those.

Finally, on operate, structured, predictable output and machine-readable errors. LlamaIndex misses those.

Where LlamaIndex is ahead

LlamaIndex passes limits / constraints documented, and CrewAI 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. CrewAI misses it.

What neither does

Both fail clear product positioning, no mandatory sales call, cli available, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified. 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.

Discover. CrewAI leads 87 to 67. CrewAI misses clear product positioning; LlamaIndex misses clear canonical domain, clear product positioning, mcp discoverable.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. CrewAI leads 92 to 46. CrewAI misses limits / constraints documented; LlamaIndex misses openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented.

Adopt. CrewAI leads 75 to 60. CrewAI misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, cli available; LlamaIndex misses no mandatory sales call, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available.

Operate. CrewAI leads 61 to 35. CrewAI misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; LlamaIndex misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

CrewAI starts at $0/mo and has a free tier. LlamaIndex starts at $0/mo and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

CrewAI clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: CrewAI and LlamaIndex. Alternatives to each: CrewAI, LlamaIndex.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["crewai", "llamaindex"]}