The Strands Agents SDK empowers developers to quickly build, manage, evaluate and deploy AI-powered agents. These quick start guides get you set up and running a simple agent in less than 20 minutes.

[Python Quickstart](../python/index.md)Create your first Python Strands agent with full feature access!

[TypeScript Quickstart](../typescript/index.md)Create your first TypeScript Strands agent!

---

## A library, not a platform

Strands runs inside your own process. Creating an agent is constructing an object in Python or Node.js: there is no hosted control plane, scheduler, or database to stand up first. Any [model provider](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/index.md) works. Amazon Bedrock is the default; switching to Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or Ollama means installing that provider’s package and changing one line, so an AWS account is only required if you keep the default. Adding an agent to an existing FastAPI, Express, or Next.js app is a dependency and a few lines of code, not new infrastructure.

## Language support

Strands Agents SDK is available in both Python and TypeScript.

### Feature availability

The table below compares feature availability between the Python and TypeScript SDKs.

| Category | Feature | Python | TypeScript |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Core** | [Agent creation and invocation](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/agent-loop/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Streaming responses](/docs/user-guide/concepts/streaming/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Structured output](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/structured-output/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Model providers** | [Amazon Bedrock](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/amazon-bedrock/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [OpenAI](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/openai/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [OpenAI Responses API](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/openai-responses/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Anthropic](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/anthropic/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Google](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/google/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Ollama](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/ollama/index.md) | ✅ | ❌ |
|  | [LiteLLM](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/litellm/index.md) | ✅ | ❌ |
|  | [Custom providers](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/custom_model_provider/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Additional providers](/docs/user-guide/concepts/model-providers/index.md) | 5+ | 1+ |
| **Tools** | [Custom function tools](/docs/user-guide/concepts/tools/custom-tools/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [MCP (Model Context Protocol)](/docs/user-guide/concepts/tools/mcp-tools/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Built-in tools](/docs/user-guide/concepts/tools/community-tools-package/index.md) | 30+ via community package | 4 built-in |
| **Conversation** | [Null manager](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/conversation-management/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Sliding window manager](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/conversation-management/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Summarizing manager](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/conversation-management/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Hooks** | [Lifecycle hooks](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/hooks/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Custom hook providers](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/hooks/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Multi-agent** | [Swarms](/docs/user-guide/concepts/multi-agent/swarm/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Graphs](/docs/user-guide/concepts/multi-agent/graph/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Workflows](/docs/user-guide/concepts/multi-agent/workflow/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Agents as tools](/docs/user-guide/concepts/multi-agent/agents-as-tools/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
|  | [Agent-to-Agent (A2A)](/docs/user-guide/concepts/multi-agent/agent-to-agent/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Session management** | [File, S3, repository managers](/docs/user-guide/concepts/agents/session-management/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Observability** | [OpenTelemetry integration](/docs/user-guide/observability-evaluation/observability/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Steering** | [Agent steering](/docs/user-guide/concepts/plugins/steering/index.md) | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Experimental** | [Bidirectional streaming](/docs/user-guide/concepts/bidirectional-streaming/quickstart/index.md) | ✅ | ❌ |

## Related pages

- [Python Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/quickstart/python/index.md) (1 shared tag)
- [Strands Evaluation Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/evals-sdk/quickstart/index.md) (1 shared tag)
- [Strands Shell Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/shell/quickstart/index.md) (1 shared tag)
- [TypeScript Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/quickstart/typescript/index.md) (1 shared tag)
- [Red Teaming Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/evals-sdk/red-teaming/quickstart/index.md) (1 shared tag)
- [Voice & Realtime Quickstart](/docs/user-guide/concepts/bidirectional-streaming/quickstart/index.md) (1 shared tag)