Claude Agent SDK vs LlamaIndex

Pick two tools from the same category to compare side-by-side.

	Claude Agent SDK Anthropic's official SDK for building production agents on Claude.	LlamaIndex Data framework for connecting LLMs to private data, with RAG, agents, and event-driven workflows.
Category	framework	framework
Vendor type	commercial	hybrid
Pricing	free	freemium
Strengths	+ First-class Claude features (prompt caching, extended thinking) + Designed around production agent patterns + Compatible with the Skills standard	+ Extensive data connectors and RAG tooling + Strong document parsing and ingestion (LlamaParse/LlamaCloud) + Agents and event-driven workflows built in + Large ecosystem and integrations
Tradeoffs	− Claude-only (cross-provider needs a gateway like Portkey)	− Broad API surface can be complex to navigate − Heritage is RAG-centric rather than agent-first − Frequent API changes across versions
Used in stacks	9	0