# Alternatives to LlamaIndex

LlamaIndex is a data framework for building LLM applications and agent workflows over your own data (RAG + agents).

LlamaIndex ranks #2 of 10 in AI agent frameworks, with an Alt Score of 96. It is licensed under MIT License and open source with paid hosting from $50/month (LlamaParse Starter). 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/llamaindex/
Category: AI agent frameworks

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Python (and, historically, JS/TS) developers building LLM applications and agents that need to reason over private or domain-specific data, from RAG chatbots and document agents to multi-agent workflows.
- **What you get**: An open-source (MIT-licensed) data framework with data connectors, indexing, retrieval, and an event-driven Workflows/AgentWorkflow system for building single- and multi-agent applications with tool use, memory, streaming, human-in-the-loop, and observability integrations; LlamaCloud/LlamaParse adds a paid, hosted platform for document parsing, extraction, and managed RAG indexing.
- **How it works**: Developers ingest and index data using LlamaIndex's connectors and index abstractions, then build agents or query/chat engines on top of that data using a model-agnostic LLM interface; more complex multi-step or multi-agent behavior is composed as an event-driven Workflow, which can be run locally or paired with LlamaCloud's hosted services for parsing and indexing at scale.

## Profile

- **License**: MIT License (verified 2026-07-16)
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-16)
- **Starts at**: $50/month (LlamaParse Starter) (verified 2026-07-16)
- **Platforms**: ?
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-16)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [LangGraph](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/langgraph.md) | 100 | MIT License | Linux, macOS, Windows, Web |
| 2 | [CrewAI](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/crewai.md) | 93 | MIT | Linux, macOS, Windows, Web |
| 3 | [Haystack](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/haystack.md) | 93 | Apache-2.0 | ? |
| 4 | [Mastra](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mastra.md) | 93 | Apache License 2.0 | ? |
| 5 | [Agno](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/agno.md) | 86 | Apache-2.0 | ? |
| 6 | [AutoGen](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/autogen.md) | 86 | MIT | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| 7 | [Semantic Kernel](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/semantic-kernel.md) | 86 | MIT | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| 8 | [OpenAI Agents SDK](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/openai-agents-sdk.md) | 83 | MIT | ? |
| 9 | [Pydantic AI](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pydantic-ai.md) | 79 | MIT | ? |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| AI agent frameworks checklist | LlamaIndex | LangGraph | CrewAI | Haystack | Mastra | Agno |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting |
| Starts at | $50/month (LlamaParse Starter) | $39/seat/month (LangSmith Plus plan, includes LangGraph hosted deployment; usage-based charges apply on top) | Free | Free | $250/month | $150/month |
| License | MIT License | MIT License | MIT | Apache-2.0 | Apache License 2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | ? | Linux, macOS, Windows, Web | Linux, macOS, Windows, Web | ? | ? | ? |
| Open source | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Language (Python) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
| Language (JS/TS) | Partial | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Graph / stateful workflows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Human-in-the-loop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Streaming support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in memory / state persistence | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Model-agnostic (multi-provider) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Observability / tracing integration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Managed / hosted deployment | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RAG support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for LlamaIndex. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: MIT License — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/run-llama/llama_index/main/LICENSE> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “The MIT License”
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — <https://www.llamaindex.ai/pricing> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Note: Confirms LlamaIndex/Workflows framework is open source while LlamaParse/LlamaCloud (the credits-based platform on the same pricing page) is paid hosted.
  - Quote: “It provides a generous provision of 10k free credits a month to all new users, but is not open source. Our open source projects, LlamaIndex and Workflows, provide AI builders with the foundational bui”
- **Starts at**: $50/month (LlamaParse Starter) — <https://www.llamaindex.ai/pricing> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Note: Cheapest paid LlamaCloud/LlamaParse tier; a $0/month 'Free' tier with 10K credits also exists on the same page.
  - Quote: “Starter $50 /month Get started Includes 40K credits Pay-as-you-go up to 400K credits 100 users Basic support”
- **Status**: active — <https://github.com/run-llama/llama_index/releases> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Note: Release v0.14.23 published 2026-06-24 per the release page's timestamp, and the repository's GitHub API metadata shows pushed_at 2026-07-16 and archived:false, both indicating ongoing active developme
  - Quote: “v0.14.23”
- **Open source**: Yes — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/run-llama/llama_index/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “LlamaIndex OSS (by LlamaIndex) is an open-source framework to build agentic applications.”
- **Language (Python)**: Yes — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/run-llama/llama_index/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “Building with LlamaIndex typically involves working with LlamaIndex core and a chosen set of integrations (or plugins). There are two ways to start building with LlamaIndex in
Python:”
- **Language (JS/TS)**: Partial — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/run-llama/LlamaIndexTS/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Note: LlamaIndex.TS (npm package 'llamaindex', still published, v0.12.1) provided full JS/TS support historically, but its README now carries a deprecation notice directing users to LlamaCloud/LlamaParse Py
  - Quote: “This project is deprecated and no longer maintained.”
- **Multi-agent orchestration**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/agent/multi_agent/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “When more than one specialist is required to solve a task you have several options in LlamaIndex, each trading off convenience for flexibility. This page walks through the three most common patterns..”
- **Graph / stateful workflows**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “Workflows are multi-step processes that combine one or more agents, data connectors, and other tools to complete a task. They are event-driven software that allows you”
- **Human-in-the-loop**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/agent/human_in_the_loop/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “Tools can also be defined that get a human in the loop. This is useful for tasks that require human input, such as confirming a tool call or providing feedback.”
- **Streaming support**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/agent/streaming/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “In real-world use, agents can take a long time to run. Providing feedback to the user about the progress of the agent is critical, and streaming allows you to do that.”
- **Built-in memory / state persistence**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/module_guides/deploying/agents/memory/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “Memory is a core component of agentic systems. It allows you to store and retrieve information from the past.”
- **Tool / function calling**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/agent/tools/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “The core of expanding agent capabilities is the tools available, and we have good news: LlamaHub from LlamaIndex has hundreds of integrations, including dozens of existing agent tools that you can use”
- **Model-agnostic (multi-provider)**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/using_llms/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “LlamaIndex provides a single interface to a large number of different LLMs.”
- **Observability / tracing integration**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/module_guides/observability/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “LlamaIndex provides one-click observability 🔭 to allow you to build principled LLM applications in a production setting.”
- **Managed / hosted deployment**: Yes — <https://www.llamaindex.ai/pricing> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Note: LlamaParse/LlamaCloud is LlamaIndex's managed hosted offering.
  - Quote: “LlamaParse SaaS is hosted on a secure cloud tenant, with data encrypted in transit and at rest.”
- **RAG support**: Yes — <https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/understanding/rag/> (verified 2026-07-16)
  - Quote: “LLMs are trained on enormous bodies of data but they aren’t trained on your data. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solves this problem by adding your data to the data LLMs already have access to.”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/