Google Agent Development Kit vs Houston
Google Agent Development Kit
adk.dev
Houston
gethouston.aiSide by side
| Figure | Google Agent Development Kit | Houston |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $12/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 3 |
| Spec score · AI Agent Platforms | 8.8 (#7) | 8.4 (#14) |
| Integrations | The integrations catalog includes tools and connectors for MCP, Google Cloud, databases, search, observability, and third-party services. | Houston advertises more than 1,000 integrations and names Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, HubSpot, and Google Drive as examples. |
| Models | ADK supports Gemini and adapters for other model providers, including locally running models. | Houston says agents can use more than 400 models, with a different model selectable per agent. |
| Security | The security guidance covers identity and authorization, input and output guardrails, sandboxed code execution, and network controls. | The privacy policy lists HTTPS/TLS in transit, provider-supported encryption at rest, access controls, and audit logging as security measures. |
Plans
Google Agent Development Kit
- ADK frameworkFree
- Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)Free
In their own words
Google Agent Development Kit
Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) is an open-source framework for building, debugging, evaluating, and deploying AI agents. It is available in Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, and Kotlin. Graph-based workflows can combine deterministic code with adaptive AI reasoning, and hierarchical agents can delegate work to specialized agents. ADK supports Gemini and adapters for other model providers, including locally running models. Its integrations catalog includes tools and connectors for MCP, Google Cloud, databases, search, observability, and third-party services. Teams can create multi-turn evaluation datasets and run evaluations locally through the CLI or development UI. ADK also supports live agents with bidirectional text and audio streaming, manages session context, and connects to longer-term memory services. Deployment options include Google Cloud Agent Runtime, Cloud Run, GKE, container-friendly infrastructure, and local Docker or Podman environments. Security guidance covers identity, authorization, guardrails, sandboxed code execution, and network controls. ADK is free; model and cloud-service use may require separate access or billing. Agent Config is narrower: it currently supports only Gemini models and requires Python.