Haystack vs smolagents

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

	Haystack Open-source Python orchestration framework from deepset for production LLM and RAG applications.	smolagents Hugging Face's minimalist agent library where agents act by writing and running code.
Category	framework	framework
Vendor type	hybrid	open source
Pricing	freemium	free
Strengths	+ Transparent, modular pipeline architecture + Strong, mature support for RAG and retrieval workflows + Broad ecosystem of model and document-store integrations + Production focus with a commercial platform option from deepset	+ Minimal, readable codebase with few abstractions + Code-agent approach can reduce steps and LLM calls + Model-agnostic via LiteLLM and the Hub + Sandboxed execution options (E2B, Modal, Docker)
Tradeoffs	− Pipeline/component model adds boilerplate for simple tasks − Historically RAG-centric, with agents added more recently	− Minimalism means fewer built-in features for complex orchestration − Executing model-written code requires careful sandboxing − Younger, smaller ecosystem than larger frameworks
Used in stacks	0	0