Topic guide
Open-Source Agent Frameworks: The Real Cost of Free
Free library license; non-zero everything else. The honest TCO comparison across five OSS frameworks.
Five frameworks at a glance
$0
License cost
Across all five frameworks
5
Frameworks tracked
CrewAI, LangGraph, AutoGen, LlamaIndex, Agno
~$60-90K
Year-one TCO
Typical mid-market self-host deployment
30-50%
Engineering share
Dominant cost line in every case
Framework heatmap
Green = included on the cheapest published / OSS tier. Amber = partial or add-on. Red = not included. Grey = quote only.
| Feature | CrewAI | LangGraph | AutoGen | LlamaIndex | Agno |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free open-source library | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Commercial Enterprise tier | ? | ◐ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Built-in observability | ◐ | ✓ | ◐ | ✓ | ◐ |
| Clean multi-agent model | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ | ◐ | ✓ |
| Major commercial backing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ |
| Active 2026 release cadence | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Real-cost ledger (illustrative example, not a real company)
OSS-only path (CrewAI, self-hosted)
01Library cost
$002Hosting (small instance, 12 mo)
$1,200031 engineer at 30%, $180K loaded
$54,00004LLM tokens, 10K runs / mo
~$6,500Year-one TCO~$61,700
OSS + commercial managed tier (LlamaCloud Pro)
01LlamaCloud Pro
$6,000021 engineer at 20%, $180K loaded
$36,00003LLM tokens, 10K runs / mo
~$6,50004Eval / observability (light)
$2,400Year-one TCO~$50,900
Counter-intuitively, paying for a managed tier can lower year-one TCO because it cuts the engineering share. The commercial-tier license cost is usually smaller than the engineering hours it removes.