What is the difference between an agent framework and an agent orchestration tool?

An agent framework (CrewAI, LangGraph) is a library you use to write code that defines how agents interact. An orchestration tool (Fleet, Factory) is a finished product that manages agents for a specific use case — in Fleet's case, software delivery — without requiring you to write the coordination logic yourself.

Do I need agent orchestration if I am only using one agent?

Not necessarily. One agent handling tasks sequentially does not need orchestration. Orchestration becomes valuable when you want parallel execution across multiple repos, role-based handoffs (developer to reviewer to release manager), budget enforcement, or an audit trail across many agents.

Best AI Agent Orchestration Platforms & Tools (2026)

AI agent orchestration platforms coordinate how multiple agents receive work, share state, pass artifacts, retry failures, and stop for approval. The best AI agent orchestration tools also expose cost, provenance, and failure handling instead of leaving teams to wire every handoff themselves.

This list compares two categories: programmable frameworks for teams building custom agent systems, and finished orchestration platforms for teams running software-delivery workflows. The right choice depends on whether you want building blocks or an operational control plane.

CrewAI

Python framework for defining multi-agent crews with role assignments, task delegation, and sequential or parallel execution. Large community and good documentation. Requires writing Python to define agent behavior.

Best for: Python developers who want to build custom multi-agent workflows with full code control over agent roles and task routing.

LangGraph

Graph-based agent orchestration from LangChain. Models agent coordination as a state machine with explicit nodes and edges. Highly flexible and composable for complex workflows.

Best for: Teams that need fine-grained control over agent execution flow and are comfortable with a graph/state-machine programming model.

Fleet

A self-hosted Go worker that executes saved, typed workflows across repos while the control plane coordinates runs. Workflows can include code, review, approval, publish, merge, notify, and check steps with bounded retries, artifacts, budgets, provenance, and exact-reviewed-head merge safety. Source code is never sent to Fleet; it goes only to your configured model backend and GitHub.

Best for: Engineering teams that want an operational AI agent orchestration platform with approval gates, budgets, and audit trails rather than a framework they must assemble themselves.

Factory

Cloud SaaS platform that manages agent droids for software delivery. Handles the infrastructure so teams do not need to run anything themselves.

Best for: Teams that want managed agent orchestration without any internal infrastructure.

Devin

Single cloud engineer agent from Cognition. Not an orchestration framework but can be considered orchestration at the task level — handles planning, coding, and PR creation in one agent.

Best for: Teams that want a single managed autonomous agent rather than a framework for coordinating many.

Claude Squad / Conductor

Third-party tools for running multiple Claude Code (and Codex) sessions in parallel. Conductor is a Mac app from Melty Labs and Claude Squad is open source; both manage parallel agent windows in isolated git worktrees without the full governance layer.

Best for: Developers who want to run several Claude Code instances simultaneously without building a full orchestration system.

OpenHands

Self-hosted agent runtime that can be treated as an orchestration layer when running multiple instances. Browser UI provides visibility into agent execution.

Best for: Teams that want self-hosted agent coordination within a Docker-based sandboxed environment.

Where Fleet fits

Fleet is a finished AI agent orchestration platform for governed work, especially software delivery. You design a typed workflow; the Fleet worker executes it on your infrastructure and records artifacts, provenance, bounded retries, budget use, human approvals, and merge decisions. CrewAI and LangGraph provide general-purpose building blocks. Fleet provides the operational workflow, controls, and run history without asking your team to write the orchestration layer first.

How to choose

Pick CrewAI or LangGraph if you need to build a custom multi-agent pipeline with Python and want full code control.

Pick Fleet if you want a finished self-hosted orchestration system for an autonomous software delivery team.

Pick Factory if you want the same autonomy fully managed as SaaS.

Pick Claude Squad / Conductor if you just need to run multiple Claude Code windows in parallel without governance.