# Guidance vs OpenAI Agents SDK — Fit & Features

Canonical: https://trutool.co/compare/guidance-vs-openai-agents-sdk
Author: Snehil (https://trutool.co/authors/snehil)

Compare Guidance and OpenAI Agents SDK by use case, features, limitations, and evaluation questions.

## Compare fit, features, and limitations

### Guidance
Control language model generation with structured programming patterns.
Best fit: Developers composing agents, structured model outputs, and tool workflows.
- Constrained generation
- Prompt programming
- Model integration
Before you choose: Check licensing, provider compatibility, maintenance, and tool permissions. Test failure recovery before enabling agent actions.
Pricing: https://guidance.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
- [Read Guidance profile](https://trutool.co/tools/guidance): Read Guidance profile

### OpenAI Agents SDK
SDK for agent tools, handoffs, guardrails, and tracing.
Best fit: Developers building and evaluating custom agents.
- SDK for agent tools, handoffs, guardrails, and tracing
Before you choose: Check licensing, maintenance status, supported providers, and hosting or inference costs.
Pricing: https://openai.github.io/openai-agents-python/
- [Read OpenAI Agents SDK profile](https://trutool.co/tools/openai-agents-sdk): Read OpenAI Agents SDK profile