Skip to main content
CrewAIProduct page

CrewAI Signals

What teams building AI features on CrewAI report, with every finding tied to its evidence.

Read the findings

What the evidence says

Whose sources count

Practitioner sentiment, all practitioners

−7 Mixed from 30 sources that take a side

How this figure is made

Mixed overall signal, net 7 points negative

From 30 authors in 29 discussions. Build one pilot agent to measure the glue code and debugging time the framework adds.

Analyzed
69 total sources
Top praise
Fast to a Working Crew (10 of 10 sources) See praise evidence
Top concern
Async, Memory & Checkpoint Defects (10 of 10 sources) See concern evidence

Jan 2025 to Oct 2026.

55 sources from practitioners, by month and sentiment.

Speed to a first working crew is the most consistent praise. Runtime defects draw the most concerns, followed by control over what agents do once workflows grow and by defaults and dependencies, where every release now requires a ChromaDB version under a critical advisory.

Positive, mixed and negative sources

The score counts each source once, as the split does. See How the numbers work.

See the evidence

Below: 2 praise themes, 5 concerns, 3 close to agreement and 1 disagreement.

Findings

Counted for All practitioners, from 55 sources. Change group

What practitioners praise

Every capability practitioners describe positively, ranked by how many sources say so. Open one to read who said it.

  1. Fast to a Working CrewAll 10 sources on it praise itAgents defined by role, goal, and backstory get a multi-agent prototype running faster than graph frameworks.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. Positive

      Emmanuel Chukwu (Emagzimus), builder posting on X

      Post on building a research and writing crewPost on X

      Says CrewAI feels like managing a team; built a pipeline where a research agent searches the web and a content agent writes the blog post.

      Published Oct 8, 2026self-described: A research agent and a content agent that draft blog posts

    2. Mixed

      sunnydachs, developer writing on dev.to

      I built the same agent in Strands, LangGraph, and CrewAI and recorded every LLM callPersonal blog post, dev.to

      CrewAI produced byte-identical output across runs and was quick to prototype, but its install weighed 699 MB across 142 packages against 71 MB for LangGraph.

      Published Sep 21, 2026self-described: 27 recorded runs of one agent across three frameworks

    3. Mixed

      jamilxt, dev.to author

      LangGraph vs CrewAI vs OpenAI Agents SDK: Picking Your Agent Framework in 2026dev.to post

      Finds CrewAI the shortest route to a working multi-agent prototype, citing published comparisons that put one under 20 lines of Python.

      Published Sep 15, 2026self-described: A researched comparison of three agent frameworks, built from documentation and published reports

    4. Mixed

      ashg2099, developer writing on dev.to

      Why I'm Betting on CrewAI for Multi-Agent Orchestration (And Where It Falls Short)Personal blog post, dev.to

      Bets on CrewAI for research, analysis, and content pipelines with explicit roles and tasks, and lists token costs that compound with every agent call as a real limitation.

      Published Jul 8, 2026self-described: Technical review of CrewAI for research and content pipelines

    5. Mixed

      Kacper Wlodarczyk, AI engineer at Vstorm

      One Chat App, 4 AI Frameworks ComparedCompany engineering blog

      CrewAI's version of the app took about 420 lines against about 160 for Pydantic AI, with research and writer roles out of the box, but needed a background thread for streaming and run_in_executor for async.

      Published Mar 13, 2026self-described: The same FastAPI and Next.js chat app built on Pydantic AI, LangChain, LangGraph, and CrewAI

    6. Positive

      kingabzpro, Reddit poster in r/AI_Agents

      I built an open-source app where LLM agents debate a stock before a manager agent decides the tradeReddit post

      Runs analyst, bull, bear, judge, and manager agents locally on FastAPI and CrewAI with any OpenAI-compatible API; a first session on DeepSeek costs about US$0.01.

      Published Oct 24, 2026self-described: BetterTradingAgents, an open-source stock research app on FastAPI and CrewAI

    7. Mixed

      Shaam (shaam_ai), dev.to author

      Agentic AI Frameworks Compared 2026: LangGraph Winsdev.to post

      Names CrewAI the best start for beginners because role-based crews map onto how people describe work, lists coarser control, moving abstractions and docs churn as the cost, and advises testing run latency early on complex crews.

      "A: CrewAI, because role-based crews map onto how people already describe work."
      Excerpt, Shaam

      Published Oct 2, 2026self-described: Scoring five agent frameworks on control, license and production use

    8. Mixed

      Apart-Currency7380, Reddit commenter in r/LangChain

      Comment on: LangGraph or CrewAI for agent handoffsReddit comment

      CrewAI feels more natural for role-based workflows, but LangGraph's explicit state, checkpoints, and retries make complex handoffs easier once context grows.

      Published Sep 22, 2026self-described: Choosing a framework where handoffs between agents were the pain point

    9. Mixed

      Jangwook Kim, dev.to author

      AI Agent Frameworks Compared 2026: LangGraph vs CrewAI vs OpenAI SDKdev.to post

      Rates CrewAI the fastest of six frameworks from idea to working prototype, and finds its role-playing abstraction harder to predict and debug in production, because agents make their own delegation decisions.

      "Simple agent patterns require significantly more code in LangGraph than in frameworks designed for rapid prototyping."
      Excerpt, Jangwook Kim

      Published Aug 9, 2026self-described: Comparing six agent frameworks for production

    10. Positive

      Thoughtworks, Technology Radar volume 32

      CrewAI, Technology Radar (Assess)Company technology publication

      Thoughtworks placed CrewAI in Assess after using it several times on production problems, from validating promotion codes to investigating transaction failures and customer support queries.

      Published Apr 2, 2025self-described: Thoughtworks teams using CrewAI on client production problems

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.CrewAI documents Crews as teams of autonomous agents that collaborate on tasks, inside Flows that manage state and control execution. CrewAI introduction

    Open them in the record
  2. Crews in Real WorkAll 7 sources on it praise itBuilders and companies run CrewAI agents on real tasks, from local research setups to client production problems.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. Positive

      kingabzpro, Reddit poster in r/AI_Agents

      I built an open-source app where LLM agents debate a stock before a manager agent decides the tradeReddit post

      Runs analyst, bull, bear, judge, and manager agents locally on FastAPI and CrewAI with any OpenAI-compatible API; a first session on DeepSeek costs about US$0.01.

      Published Oct 24, 2026self-described: BetterTradingAgents, an open-source stock research app on FastAPI and CrewAI

    2. Mixed

      Carlos Matias Baglieri, founder of FACTA

      Post on graph engineering in production multi-agent buildsPost on X

      Builds production multi-agent systems on CrewAI, LangGraph, and Agno, and says orchestration structure with human oversight is what keeps dozens of agents under control.

      Published Sep 6, 2026self-described: Production multi-agent builds on CrewAI, LangGraph, and Agno

    3. Positive

      stockanalyst987, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: Show HN, RiskKernel, kill -9 an AI agent and resume it without paying twiceHacker News comment

      Runs an agentic system built on CrewAI and planned to try a tool because it supports CrewAI.

      Published Jun 10, 2026self-described: An agentic system built on CrewAI

    4. Positive

      matbanik, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: building agent workflows across coding agentsHacker News comment

      Tests agent instructions in OpenCode, then ports the logic into LangGraph or CrewAI on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, which takes about an afternoon to set up for production and then runs with little intervention.

      "…port the agent logic into a framework like LangGraph or CrewAI and run everything on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore."
      Excerpt, matbanik

      Published Jun 1, 2026self-described: Runs agent workflows for business on the API and on subscriptions for personal work

    5. Positive

      sherwin27, Hacker News commenter who contributed tools to CrewAI

      Comment on: I added native time awareness to CrewAI to fix LLM date hallucinationsHacker News comment

      Runs agents in production and contributed a TimeAwarenessTool and an IDGenerationTool to the core CrewAI repository to fix date hallucination and support log tracing.

      Published Dec 14, 2025self-described: AI agents in production that hallucinated the current date

    6. Positive

      Thoughtworks, Technology Radar volume 32

      CrewAI, Technology Radar (Assess)Company technology publication

      Thoughtworks placed CrewAI in Assess after using it several times on production problems, from validating promotion codes to investigating transaction failures and customer support queries.

      Published Apr 2, 2025self-described: Thoughtworks teams using CrewAI on client production problems

    7. Positive

      dabe19, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: Ask HN, open-source AI agents building platform?Hacker News comment

      Runs the crewAI library with ChromaDB and local Ollama models, and had to customize CrewAI's RAG tool to work with them; likes the class setup for building fully custom tools.

      Published Jan 8, 2025self-described: Local RAG setup on a personal PC with an RTX 3060, ChromaDB, and Ollama models

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.CrewAI AMP deploys crews and flows to managed infrastructure behind a REST API, and Enterprise runs on CrewAI cloud, a dedicated VPC, or the customer's infrastructure. CrewAI pricing

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.Self-hosted AMP deployments ship logs to Datadog through the Datadog Agent or Datadog's OTLP intake, and CrewAI provides a ready-made operations dashboard for the integration. CrewAI AMP docs: Datadog integration

    Open them in the record

What concerns them

Every concern practitioners raise, most raised first.

  1. Async, Memory & Checkpoint DefectsAll 10 sources on it raise it as a concernProduction bugs in async guardrails, concurrent flows, memory storage, and checkpoint restore, plus persistence that stops short of durable execution.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. No opinion stated

      Yifan Xiong (yifanxiong272), GitHub user filing an issue

      Two agents set up at the same time can fail with RuntimeError: dictionary changed size during iterationGitHub issue

      A flow class builds and caches its definition without a lock on first use, so two instances created at once can crash.

      Published Oct 28, 2026self-described: Flows instantiated concurrently in one process

    2. No opinion stated

      ssshr-66, GitHub user filing an issue

      A failed task can be skipped after checkpoint restore because its output remains setGitHub issue

      When a task's output file write fails, the checkpoint still stores its output, and a restore can skip the failed task as if it completed.

      Published Oct 28, 2026self-described: Checkpoints triggered on task failure

    3. No opinion stated

      Wilson0511, GitHub user filing an issue

      UploadCache sync wrappers deadlock 30s inside a running event loopGitHub issue

      Every synchronous upload-cache call made inside a running event loop froze for 30 seconds and then failed with a bare timeout.

      Published Oct 24, 2026self-described: File uploads from async apps and Jupyter on crewai-files 1.15.30

    4. Negative

      yiddo_bhushan, operations at Shogo, one of the eight platforms tested

      Ran one build on eight agent platforms. Two finished.Reddit post

      CrewAI and LangGraph both reported a Slack integration as connected and delivered nothing, with no error and nothing in the channel.

      Published Sep 25, 2026self-described: One document question-and-answer job run on eight agent platforms by a non-developer

    5. Mixed

      Lucas Kim, AI/ML engineer and consultant whose GitHub profile lists AWS

      [BUG] GPT-6 Astra agents with tools fail on Bedrock's OpenAI-compatible API because the retry sends reasoning_effort 'none'GitHub issue

      GPT-6 Sol and Luna agents with tools worked through Bedrock, but every GPT-6 Astra agent with a tool failed with a 400, because CrewAI's retry sent a reasoning setting Astra rejects. Setting the Responses API worked.

      Published Sep 24, 2026self-described: CrewAI agents with tools on GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6 Sol, and GPT-6 Luna through Bedrock's OpenAI-compatible endpoints

    6. No opinion stated

      Rohit Kanithi (Rohitkanithi), GitHub user filing an issue

      LanceDBStorage.delete() ignores scope/older_than filters and causes accidental mass deletionGitHub issue

      Memory delete ignored scope and age filters in some cases and removed records outside the requested scope.

      Published Sep 12, 2026self-described: Scoped, multi-tenant memory on the default LanceDB store

    7. No opinion stated

      suqinghen, GitHub user filing an issue

      Memoized CrewBase methods retain per-instance Agent/Task/Crew in global cacheGitHub issue

      Creating a crew per request left every Agent, Task, and Crew object in a module-level cache, so process memory grew with request count.

      Published Sep 8, 2026self-described: A new crew instance created per request in a service

    8. No opinion stated

      Jucelio Quentino (jquentino-ambev), engineer at AB InBev filing an issue

      Agent.kickoff_async guardrail retry calls sync invoke inside event loopGitHub issue

      When a guardrail rejected an async agent's first output, the retry ran through the synchronous path and passed a coroutine on as the result, crashing the run.

      Published Sep 3, 2026self-described: Agents run with kickoff_async and output guardrails

    9. No opinion stated

      Joaquin DG (JoaquinDG), GitHub user filing an issue

      Truncated responses are detected in the Bedrock provider onlyGitHub issue

      Only the Bedrock provider flagged responses cut off at the token limit; other providers passed truncated output on as if complete.

      Published Aug 17, 2026self-described: Reproduced against crewai 1.15.16 across native providers

    10. No opinion stated

      Thomas Connally (tcconnally), GitHub user filing an issue

      Tool exceptions are caught and replaced with generic error messagesGitHub issue

      CrewAI replaced tool exceptions with a generic error string and dropped the type, message, and traceback, so the cause of a failure could not be found.

      Published Jun 20, 2026self-described: Debugging failed tool calls

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.crewai 1.15.32 shipped on October 27, 2026, the fifth release between October 14 and October 27, so pin a version and retest on each upgrade. CrewAI releases on GitHub

    Open them in the record
  2. Coarse Control Over AgentsAll 9 sources on it raise it as a concernAgents left to collaborate drift from the spec, delegate past their tools, or invent steps, and teams want explicit state as workflows grow.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. Mixed

      Shaam (shaam_ai), dev.to author

      Agentic AI Frameworks Compared 2026: LangGraph Winsdev.to post

      Names CrewAI the best start for beginners because role-based crews map onto how people describe work, lists coarser control, moving abstractions and docs churn as the cost, and advises testing run latency early on complex crews.

      "A: CrewAI, because role-based crews map onto how people already describe work."
      Excerpt, Shaam

      Published Oct 2, 2026self-described: Scoring five agent frameworks on control, license and production use

    2. Mixed

      windexh8er, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: An Accidental BlackboardHacker News comment

      Left to work it out among themselves, CrewAI agents collaborate awkwardly; defining coordination in the initial spec helps, though agents still drift from it.

      Published Sep 9, 2026self-described: About two years of watching agents collaborate in CrewAI

    3. Negative

      Rafael Asor, author of the attenu-guard tool-gating library

      I delegated a review in CrewAI. The reviewer ran an export tool the orchestrator never had.Personal blog post, dev.to

      With allow_delegation=True, an orchestrator holding only a query tool delegated to a coworker that then ran an export tool the orchestrator never had.

      Published Sep 3, 2026self-described: Delegation test on crewai 1.15.18 with a scripted LLM and recorded tool calls

    4. Mixed

      Jangwook Kim, dev.to author

      AI Agent Frameworks Compared 2026: LangGraph vs CrewAI vs OpenAI SDKdev.to post

      Rates CrewAI the fastest of six frameworks from idea to working prototype, and finds its role-playing abstraction harder to predict and debug in production, because agents make their own delegation decisions.

      "Simple agent patterns require significantly more code in LangGraph than in frameworks designed for rapid prototyping."
      Excerpt, Jangwook Kim

      Published Aug 9, 2026self-described: Comparing six agent frameworks for production

    5. Mixed

      dsteel, Hacker News commenter whose team runs 14 AI agents

      Comment on: How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'?Hacker News comment

      Says CrewAI, LangGraph, and similar frameworks solve how agents pass data but not which agent has authority over which domain or what happens when two agents disagree.

      Published Apr 5, 2026self-described: A team running 14 AI agents

    6. Mixed

      Apart-Currency7380, Reddit commenter in r/LangChain

      Comment on: LangGraph or CrewAI for agent handoffsReddit comment

      CrewAI feels more natural for role-based workflows, but LangGraph's explicit state, checkpoints, and retries make complex handoffs easier once context grows.

      Published Sep 22, 2026self-described: Choosing a framework where handoffs between agents were the pain point

    7. Mixed

      Kacper Wlodarczyk, AI engineer at Vstorm

      One Chat App, 4 AI Frameworks ComparedCompany engineering blog

      CrewAI's version of the app took about 420 lines against about 160 for Pydantic AI, with research and writer roles out of the box, but needed a background thread for streaming and run_in_executor for async.

      Published Mar 13, 2026self-described: The same FastAPI and Next.js chat app built on Pydantic AI, LangChain, LangGraph, and CrewAI

    8. No opinion stated

      redvelvets, GitHub user filing an issue

      Agent does not actually invoke tools, only simulates tool usage with fabricated outputGitHub issue

      The agent wrote a plausible Thought, Action, Observation trace while never running the search tool; the model invented the observation.

      Published Jul 14, 2025self-described: Custom LLM with a web search tool and Phoenix memory

    9. Negative

      nickwatson, Hacker News commenter building a research tool

      Comment on: Show HN, Cleverb.ee, an open-source agent that writes a cited research reportHacker News comment

      Rebuilt the research tool with CrewAI but found it limiting, and was rebuilding it again on AutoGen.

      Published May 3, 2025self-described: Multi-agent research tool with critique and fact-check roles

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.Flows add start, listen, and router steps and @persist state, so code decides which crew runs next. Flows

    Open them in the record
  3. Defaults, Telemetry & DependenciesAll 9 sources on it raise it as a concernTelemetry and tracing that are on by default, the LiteLLM fallback, a heavy install, and provider-specific defaults catch teams out.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. No opinion stated

      axelgbl, GitHub user filing an issue

      input_files (PDFFile) are passed as base64 via read_file tool, causing context overflowGitHub issue

      PDF inputs reached the agent as base64 text through the read_file tool where native file inputs were expected, overflowing the context.

      Published May 26, 2026self-described: Crews that take PDF inputs

    2. No opinion stated

      Hamza-BinRiaz, GitHub user filing an issue

      cache_breakpoint injected into messages for non-Anthropic providersGitHub issue

      A cache_breakpoint flag meant for Anthropic was sent to every provider, and Groq and other OpenAI-compatible APIs rejected the requests.

      Published May 21, 2026self-described: Agents on Groq and OpenAI-compatible endpoints

    3. Negative

      Acacian, Hacker News commenter and author of the aegis guardrail library

      Comment on: Show HN, I tested 11 AI frameworks for basic securityHacker News comment

      Found no runtime injection detection, PII masking, or audit trail in 11 frameworks including CrewAI, and wrote a layer that patches them.

      Published Apr 2, 2026self-described: Reviewed 11 frameworks for injection detection, PII masking, and audit trails

    4. Mixed

      eoskx, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: Tell HN, Litellm 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on PyPI are compromisedHacker News comment

      Pointed out that CrewAI imports LiteLLM directly and falls back to it when the OpenAI, Anthropic, and other provider SDKs are not installed.

      Published Mar 24, 2026self-described: Dependency exposure of agent frameworks during the March 2026 LiteLLM compromise

    5. Negative

      mathis-l, Hacker News commenter

      Comment on: Tell HN, Litellm 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on PyPI are compromisedHacker News comment

      Noted that CrewAI pinned LiteLLM to 1.82.6, the last good version, with a commit message that did not mention the compromise, and asked why users were not warned.

      Published Mar 24, 2026self-described: CrewAI's response to the March 2026 LiteLLM 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 compromise

    6. No opinion stated

      IbrahimCanKALYA, GitHub user filing an issue

      How can disable tracing prompt?GitHub issue

      A tracing prompt added about 20 seconds to each run and kept appearing after setting tracing=False and CREWAI_TRACING_ENABLED=false.

      Published Oct 24, 2025self-described: Crews run repeatedly from a script

    7. No opinion stated

      fzozyurt, GitHub user filing an issue

      Even though I turned off the telemetry feature, telemetry is still being sentGitHub issue

      Set CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY to true as the docs describe and still saw telemetry sent.

      Published Jun 3, 2025self-described: Crew created with crewai create, telemetry disabled in main.py

    8. Mixed

      sunnydachs, developer writing on dev.to

      I built the same agent in Strands, LangGraph, and CrewAI and recorded every LLM callPersonal blog post, dev.to

      CrewAI produced byte-identical output across runs and was quick to prototype, but its install weighed 699 MB across 142 packages against 71 MB for LangGraph.

      Published Sep 21, 2026self-described: 27 recorded runs of one agent across three frameworks

    9. No opinion stated

      DipakBundheliya, GitHub user filing an issue

      Tool Called Multiple Times in CrewAI v0.121.0GitHub issue

      After upgrading to 0.121.0, a tool ran several times within one task although the first call succeeded; 0.120.0 called it once.

      Published May 22, 2025self-described: Agent with one tool that worked on 0.120.0

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.Anonymous telemetry is on by default. CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY or OTEL_SDK_DISABLED turns it off, and AMP tracing needs CREWAI_TRACING_ENABLED=false separately. Telemetry

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.CrewAI's trust center lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report from June 2026, a HIPAA audit report, and data retention procedures, each released on request. CrewAI Trust Center

    Open them in the record
  4. Token Burn & Usage AccountingAll 7 sources on it raise it as a concernContext passed between agents multiplies tokens, and CrewAI's own usage counts disagree with what providers bill.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. No opinion stated

      r14dd, GitHub user filing an issue

      Bedrock prompt_tokens excludes cache reads and writes, unlike other native providersGitHub issue

      For a call with 1,200 prompt tokens, 1,000 of them cache reads, the Bedrock provider reported 200 prompt tokens while other providers reported 1,200.

      Published Oct 26, 2026self-described: Comparing token counts across CrewAI's native providers

    2. No opinion stated

      giskard09, GitHub user filing an issue

      ToolUsage retries a failed tool call twice per outer attempt, not onceGitHub issue

      A failed tool call is retried inside each outer attempt as well as by the outer loop, so a failing tool runs more often than the retry setting suggests.

      Published Sep 14, 2026self-described: Counting retries on failing tool calls

    3. No opinion stated

      parthiban-sivakumar, GitHub user filing an issue

      crew.usage_metrics multiplies token usage by the number of agents sharing an LLM instanceGitHub issue

      With two agents sharing one LLM instance, crew.usage_metrics reported 310 tokens for a run that used 155, double the real count.

      Published Sep 4, 2026self-described: Several agents sharing one LLM object

    4. Negative

      wartzarbee, developer writing a cost-audit series on dev.to

      CrewAI's quadratic context problem: why a 5-agent crew costs 6x more than you expectPersonal blog post, dev.to

      With default context passing, each task in a sequential crew re-sends earlier outputs, so a five-agent crew uses about six times the tokens of isolated tasks; scoping the context parameter fixes it.

      Published Jul 26, 2026self-described: Token cost of a sequential five-agent crew with default context passing

    5. No opinion stated

      Devasy, GitHub user filing an issue

      Token tracking race condition in threading-based async_executionGitHub issue

      Per-task token tracking captured counts before tasks ran in parallel threads, so concurrent tasks were credited each other's tokens.

      Published Jan 3, 2026self-described: Tasks with async_execution=True on one agent

    6. Mixed

      ashg2099, developer writing on dev.to

      Why I'm Betting on CrewAI for Multi-Agent Orchestration (And Where It Falls Short)Personal blog post, dev.to

      Bets on CrewAI for research, analysis, and content pipelines with explicit roles and tasks, and lists token costs that compound with every agent call as a real limitation.

      Published Jul 8, 2026self-described: Technical review of CrewAI for research and content pipelines

    7. No opinion stated

      axelgbl, GitHub user filing an issue

      input_files (PDFFile) are passed as base64 via read_file tool, causing context overflowGitHub issue

      PDF inputs reached the agent as base64 text through the read_file tool where native file inputs were expected, overflowing the context.

      Published May 26, 2026self-described: Crews that take PDF inputs

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.CrewAI AMP lists a usage dashboard with token counts on both Basic and Enterprise. CrewAI pricing

    Open them in the record
  5. Tools That Run Twice or Not at AllAll 7 sources on it raise it as a concernRetries re-run tools with side effects, upgrades call tools repeatedly, and models report tool results they never fetched.

    Counted for All practitioners.

    1. Mixed

      frogscooper, AI engineer posting on X

      Post on once, an idempotency library for agent tool callsPost on X

      Built once, a Python library that keys each agent tool call so retries do not repeat paid calls, with support for CrewAI and other frameworks.

      Published Oct 25, 2026self-described: Built a library that runs each agent tool call at most once per key

    2. No opinion stated

      Thomas Connally (tcconnally), GitHub user filing an issue

      Tool exceptions are caught and replaced with generic error messagesGitHub issue

      CrewAI replaced tool exceptions with a generic error string and dropped the type, message, and traceback, so the cause of a failure could not be found.

      Published Jun 20, 2026self-described: Debugging failed tool calls

    3. No opinion stated

      azender1, GitHub user filing an issue

      Tool re-execution on task retry has no idempotency guardGitHub issue

      When a task is retried, every tool that already ran runs again, with no way to detect a completed call, so payments, emails, or trades can repeat.

      Published May 14, 2026self-described: Tools that call payment, email, or trading APIs

    4. No opinion stated

      redvelvets, GitHub user filing an issue

      Agent does not actually invoke tools, only simulates tool usage with fabricated outputGitHub issue

      The agent wrote a plausible Thought, Action, Observation trace while never running the search tool; the model invented the observation.

      Published Jul 14, 2025self-described: Custom LLM with a web search tool and Phoenix memory

    5. No opinion stated

      DipakBundheliya, GitHub user filing an issue

      Tool Called Multiple Times in CrewAI v0.121.0GitHub issue

      After upgrading to 0.121.0, a tool ran several times within one task although the first call succeeded; 0.120.0 called it once.

      Published May 22, 2025self-described: Agent with one tool that worked on 0.120.0

    6. No opinion stated

      giskard09, GitHub user filing an issue

      ToolUsage retries a failed tool call twice per outer attempt, not onceGitHub issue

      A failed tool call is retried inside each outer attempt as well as by the outer loop, so a failing tool runs more often than the retry setting suggests.

      Published Sep 14, 2026self-described: Counting retries on failing tool calls

    7. Negative

      Rafael Asor, author of the attenu-guard tool-gating library

      I delegated a review in CrewAI. The reviewer ran an export tool the orchestrator never had.Personal blog post, dev.to

      With allow_delegation=True, an orchestrator holding only a query tool delegated to a coworker that then ran an export tool the orchestrator never had.

      Published Sep 3, 2026self-described: Delegation test on crewai 1.15.18 with a scripted LLM and recorded tool calls

    GILD's fact checks, which don't count as sources

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.On restore from a checkpoint, CrewAI skips completed tasks and reruns the rest, so a tool inside an unfinished task runs again. Checkpointing

    Checked Oct 28, 2026.CrewAI documents MCP servers as agent tools, through the crewai-tools library or the mcps field on an agent. CrewAI docs: MCP servers as tools

    Open them in the record

Where the evidence agrees

Statements this group's sources agree on, then the ones close to agreement.

Close to agreement: each needs 11 supporting sources

  1. Below threshold

    CrewAI's token counts and retry behavior need checking against the provider's bill before production.

    9 supporting sources
  2. Below threshold

    CrewAI gets a role-based multi-agent prototype working faster than graph frameworks.

    8 supporting sources
  3. Below threshold

    As workflows grow, teams want explicit state and control that role-based crews do not give, and some rebuild in LangGraph or their own code.

    8 supporting sources

Where it disagrees

Questions the sources split on, with the count on each side.

  • Evidence remains split

    Once a team has built on CrewAI, does it keep it or move on?

    • Kept CrewAI, 7 sources

      Thoughtworks, a founder running production builds, and individual builders keep crews running on real work, locally, in a service, or on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore.

    • Moved to other code, 5 sources

      Others moved to AutoGen, Spring AI, a C++ framework, or a small framework of their own, citing limits, learning curve, and speed.

The evidence

Whose experience this is

The three groups, then every practitioner by the context they work in, and how emphasis changes with scale.

Three groups drawn from the same sources. Choose a group to select whose experience counts. Within that group, each author counts once in the practitioner sentiment, with their latest view. Signals open on All practitioners. Teams and leaders have 4 accounts; GILD prints their sentiment from 20.

  • Teams and technical leaders

    11 sources. Company teams and founders describe where CrewAI ran in their work and where its persistence and control stopped.

  • Individual builders

    44 sources. Individual builders describe crews they prototyped, the bugs they filed, and the token and tool behavior they had to work around.

  • All practitioners

    55 sources. These accounts combine company publications with solo developers, from local setups on one PC to services that create a crew per request.

55 sources from practitioners, by the context they work in. Filled rows count for this group.

  1. Individual builderDevelopers building on the platform on their own44 sources, counted here

    Emphasizes Prototype speed, tool retries, and token counts

  2. Small product team2 to 10 engineers, or an unnamed startup team3 sources, counted here

    Emphasizes Authority between agents once a team runs many of them

  3. Product or platform team11 to 50 engineers, or a named company's team5 sources, counted here

    Emphasizes Client production work, async defects in company use, and EpicStaff's and Browserbase's removals

  4. Technical leadershipLeaders setting model and platform choices across teams3 sources, counted here

    Emphasizes Durability and human oversight in production builds

  5. Organization-wideEnterprise or company-wide AI platformNo sources from this setting yet

What changes with scale. Individual builders praise how quickly a role-based crew comes together and file most of the defects. Named companies appear as Thoughtworks' client work, an AB InBev engineer's bug report, engineering posts from Diagrid and Vstorm, and pull requests in which EpicStaff, Browserbase and Headroom removed CrewAI. Company-wide rollouts at PwC, Gelato and IBM Consulting appear only in CrewAI's own case studies.

Where the sources come from

Where this group's sources were published.

Counted for All practitioners, from 55 sources. Change group

69 sources for this group, 14 of them documentation

  • Developer Communities44, 64% of 69 sources
  • Product Documentation14, 20% of 69 sources
  • Engineering Blogs & Reviews10, 14% of 69 sources
  • Podcasts, Talks & Videos1, 1% of 69 sources

Earlier evidence remains when it still applies. Records tied to issues GitHub shows closed carry Needs a recheck.

See sources by origin

The record

Who each source is, how it knows, whether it still applies and what it counts toward.

About this read

What changed, and how we count

What changed

  • Every record links to a public source and names its author and publication date.
  • A page shows a finding when at least 5 sources from 3 different authors discuss it. A disagreement also requires at least 2 sources on each side.
  • Telemetry, token, checkpoint, and pricing findings are checked against CrewAI's documentation, pricing page, and repository as of October 28, 2026.
  • Oct 28, 2026: adds 6 Operator Insights (EpicStaff's removal of its vendored CrewAI, PwC, Gelato and IBM Consulting from CrewAI's case studies, Pydantic's founder ruling CrewAI out, and tinyAgent's builder leaving), ledger quotes on 4 insights, and 11 records: 4 pull requests from GitHub, 3 Hacker News comments, 3 dev.to posts and a Software Engineering Daily episode. Two repository pages join the documentation: the ChromaDB dependency and the gpt-4.1-mini default model in code.
  • Oct 30, 2026: a second-model check removed two Show HN comments that state no product experience, a course author's and a CrewAI employee's, and cut a dev.to comparison to its prototype-speed opinion, since its feature claims were not checked against CrewAI's pages. EpicStaff's pull request now lists as a competitor's. CrewAI's case studies carry no date, so the cards say when GILD read them. Individual builders move from -11 to -12 on 26 counted sources, and all practitioners from -6 to -7 on 30.

Method

A running review of what teams building AI features on CrewAI report, from individual builders to technical leaders. Each finding links to its sources, and each conflict shows both sides.

Counts cover only the sources GILD reviewed.

Who counts

Teams and technical leaders
Small product team, Product or platform team, Technical leadership, Organization-wide
Individual builders
Individual builder
All practitioners
Everyone in the teams and leaders and individual builders groups

Choose a group to select whose experience counts. Within that group, each author counts once in the practitioner sentiment, with their latest view. GILD files each source in a group from how the account describes its author. A role or employer marked self-described is what the source states about themselves. Documentation checks facts for every group and never counts toward sentiment.

How the numbers work

  • Overall signal. Positive votes minus negative ones, per 100 votes from the sources that take a side. Each author counts once, with their latest view, whoever they are and wherever they posted. The older weighted reading, where accounts GILD matched to a named person count three times when GILD lists the author among technical leaders and twice otherwise, is shown beside it as a second view. Where an author wrote more than one source, the line beside the split gives the votes, one per author, so the score follows from it. When one author's sources from the same day disagree, that author counts as mixed, and a half point rounds away from zero. Sources with no opinion are listed and not counted. Strong positive is +50 or higher, positive +20 to +49, mixed −19 to +19, negative −20 to −49, strong negative −50 or lower.
  • Weighted reading, second view. Counted the older way, where an account GILD matched to a named person counts two or three times, all practitioners read −7 mixed (method sentiment/S1). GILD printed that number as "GILD score" until October 29, 2026; most of those matches rest on a name or a self-described role.
  • Method change, Oct 30, 2026. GILD changed how practitioner sentiment counts, to one vote per author. Under both methods it reads −12 Mixed. No evidence changed.
  • Unscored. A group gets a score only with 20 sources from 15 authors. Below that, one source moves the score about 5 points, so the read says "Unscored until 20 sources from 15 authors" and shows its counts.
  • Independence. A source whose author works for the vendor, for one of its partners or programs, or for a competitor, and a page the vendor published or ran, is listed with that tie and counts toward nothing. One author counts on at most two records per product. The line under the score says how many authors and how many separate discussions the counted sources come from: comments in one thread are one discussion.
  • Praise and concerns. How many of the sources that discuss a theme praise it or raise it.
  • Consensus. A statement joins when 20% of the group's sources support it and fewer contradict it. Contradicting sources are counted separately. Below that line a statement shows as building. At 40% or more it reads Strong agreement; below, Recurring point.
  • Disagreements. The count on each side. GILD names no winner and gives no share of all users.
  • Minimum evidence. A finding needs 5 sources from 3 authors; a disagreement also needs 2 on each side. Smaller counts stay in the table below, marked under the minimum.

Labels on a source

A source's date and whether it still applies are separate: a recent post can describe an old version, and an old one can still hold.

Documented
Stated in official documentation.
Reported
A practitioner's account of their own use.
Measured
Backed by the source's own measurements, such as a comparative test or tracked team metrics.
GILD analysis
GILD's check of a claim against official documentation.
Current
Describes the product as it is now.
Still applicable
Older, and the behavior or lesson still holds.
Needs a recheck
May depend on a plan, version or setting that changed since it was written. It keeps counting until GILD rechecks it, since the rest of the account usually holds, and its card says so.
Out of date
No longer accurate. Kept in the record; counts toward nothing current.

Flagged for a recheck, of the sources that take a side: teams and leaders 1 of 4, individual builders 0 of 26, all practitioners 1 of 30.

Limits

  • The counts cover 55 public sources: 14 Hacker News comments, 20 GitHub issues and 4 pull requests, 3 Reddit posts and comments, 3 posts on X, 7 dev.to posts, 3 company publications, and 1 podcast episode. The 4 pull requests, from EpicStaff, Browserbase, Headroom and ai-agent-assembly, state no stance and count toward no figure. The podcast, by Pydantic's founder, is listed and not counted, and EpicStaff's pull request lists as a competitor's, since EpicStaff builds its own agent-flow platform. They do not represent all CrewAI users. GitHub issues are bug reports, which tilt that share toward problems. CrewAI's own community forum, blog, and case studies are left out.
  • Sources run from crewai 0.120 in May 2025 to 1.15.32 in October 2026. Each record keeps the version it states. Issues that GitHub shows closed, and the 2025 Thoughtworks Radar entry, carry Needs a recheck.

Every count, and the sources behind it

13 findings for 3 groups

Each row opens its sources for the group you are reading.

FindingTeams and technical leadersIndividual buildersAll practitionersSources
Current readCurrent sentiment1 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative6 positive, 11 mixed, 9 negative7 positive, 14 mixed, 9 negativeSources
PraiseFast to a Working Crew2 of 2 positive (under the minimum)8 of 8 positive10 of 10 positiveSources
PraiseCrews in Real Work2 of 2 positive (under the minimum)5 of 5 positive7 of 7 positiveSources
ConcernCoarse Control Over Agents2 of 2 raise it (under the minimum)7 of 7 raise it9 of 9 raise itSources
ConcernToken Burn & Usage Accounting0 of 0 raise it (under the minimum)7 of 7 raise it7 of 7 raise itSources
ConcernTools That Run Twice or Not at All0 of 0 raise it (under the minimum)7 of 7 raise it7 of 7 raise itSources
ConcernDefaults, Telemetry & Dependencies0 of 0 raise it (under the minimum)9 of 9 raise it9 of 9 raise itSources
ConcernAsync, Memory & Checkpoint Defects1 of 1 raise it (under the minimum)9 of 9 raise it10 of 10 raise itSources
ConsensusFastest route to a crew2 supporting (under the minimum)6 supporting (below threshold)8 supporting (below threshold)Sources
ConsensusState matters more as work grows2 supporting (under the minimum)6 supporting (below threshold)8 supporting (below threshold)Sources
ConsensusCheck the meter yourself0 supporting (under the minimum)9 supporting9 supporting (below threshold)Sources
DisagreementOnce a team has built on CrewAI, does it keep it or move on?Kept CrewAI 2, Moved to other code 0 (under the minimum)Kept CrewAI 5, Moved to other code 5Kept CrewAI 7, Moved to other code 5Sources
Current readEvidence mix25 sources58 sources69 sourcesSources

Fact checks

GILD's checks of claims against official documentation, kept apart from the source counts.

  • Fast to a Working Crew. CrewAI documents Crews as teams of autonomous agents that collaborate on tasks, inside Flows that manage state and control execution. CrewAI introduction, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Crews in Real Work. CrewAI AMP deploys crews and flows to managed infrastructure behind a REST API, and Enterprise runs on CrewAI cloud, a dedicated VPC, or the customer's infrastructure. CrewAI pricing, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Crews in Real Work. Self-hosted AMP deployments ship logs to Datadog through the Datadog Agent or Datadog's OTLP intake, and CrewAI provides a ready-made operations dashboard for the integration. CrewAI AMP docs: Datadog integration, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Coarse Control Over Agents. Flows add start, listen, and router steps and @persist state, so code decides which crew runs next. Flows, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Token Burn & Usage Accounting. CrewAI AMP lists a usage dashboard with token counts on both Basic and Enterprise. CrewAI pricing, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Tools That Run Twice or Not at All. On restore from a checkpoint, CrewAI skips completed tasks and reruns the rest, so a tool inside an unfinished task runs again. Checkpointing, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Tools That Run Twice or Not at All. CrewAI documents MCP servers as agent tools, through the crewai-tools library or the mcps field on an agent. CrewAI docs: MCP servers as tools, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Defaults, Telemetry & Dependencies. Anonymous telemetry is on by default. CREWAI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY or OTEL_SDK_DISABLED turns it off, and AMP tracing needs CREWAI_TRACING_ENABLED=false separately. Telemetry, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Defaults, Telemetry & Dependencies. CrewAI's trust center lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report from June 2026, a HIPAA audit report, and data retention procedures, each released on request. CrewAI Trust Center, checked Oct 28, 2026
  • Async, Memory & Checkpoint Defects. crewai 1.15.32 shipped on October 27, 2026, the fifth release between October 14 and October 27, so pin a version and retest on each upgrade. CrewAI releases on GitHub, checked Oct 28, 2026