Is AutoGen Deprecated? 61,753 Stars on an Unarchived Repo

AutoGen’s README says the project is archived. GitHub’s archive flag, read at the end of a pass at 07:41:51 UTC on November 9, 2026, was false. The repository had 61,753 stars.

Those two sentences are the whole disagreement. A README can say “archived” while the API field archived stays false. AI Agents Info read both on the same morning. The November 5 framework snapshot already had this repository in a table of 19, at 61,706 stars, and the public page does not answer the maintenance question. This page does.

Is AutoGen deprecated?

Microsoft’s current README says the project is archived and no longer maintained. GitHub’s repository record, the same morning, said it was not archived.

The README on main, fetched November 9, opens the caution with “Project archived and no longer maintained.” The next sentences say Microsoft is not providing bug fixes, security fixes, new features, or support, and that the repository remains available for historical reference. A later sentence says new users should start with Microsoft Agent Framework, and points existing users at the migration guide.

The API response for GET /repos/microsoft/autogen in that pass returned "archived": false. It also returned 61,753 stars, 9,392 forks, open_issues_count 1,172, the SPDX id CC-BY-4.0, Python as the primary language, created_at 2023-08-18T11:43:45Z, and pushed_at 2026-10-28T14:45:27Z. The latest-release call returned tag python-v0.7.5, published 2025-09-30T06:18:26Z.

A search request later the same morning, still November 9, split that 1,172. It counted 572 open issues and 600 open pull requests. 572 plus 600 is 1,172, so the split matched the repository field. GitHub’s open_issues_count includes pull requests. The 1,172 figure is not 1,172 bug reports.

61,753 minus 14,598 is 47,155. The repository whose README says Microsoft will not ship fixes had 47,155 more stars than the repository Microsoft’s own pages name as the successor.

The November 5 snapshot recorded AutoGen at 61,706 stars, 9,367 forks, and open_issues 1,144, with the same release tag and the same pushed_at. The archive boolean in that file was already false. Four days later the star field was 47 higher. The release tag had not moved. The November 9 framework comparison lists the same release, python-v0.7.5 on September 30, 2025, and calls the row an older Microsoft framework. It does not quote the README.

When did the README change from maintenance mode to archived?

The archived wording landed in the README on October 16, 2026. On April 6, 2026 the same file said maintenance mode.

Commit 004749e6b7, committer date 2026-10-16T16:14:36Z, is titled “docs: clarify AutoGen is archived and no longer maintained.” The README at the previous banner commit, 027ecf0a37, committer date 2026-04-06T22:35:32Z, used a maintenance-mode badge. Its caution said AutoGen was in maintenance mode, would not receive new features or enhancements, and was community managed going forward. It already sent new users to Microsoft Agent Framework.

The October 16 text is stricter. It names bug fixes, security fixes, new features, and support as things Microsoft is not providing. It tells the reader to use an archived repository with caution, and it says AutoGen was developed for research and experimentation. The April text did not say that.

The October 16 commit was 23 days and about 15 hours before the API pass. The wording a person meets on the front of the repository today is the October wording, plus whatever else is on main. The April file is the one to open if you want the earlier banner.

What has been committed since that notice?

The last push GitHub recorded was October 28, 2026, and the subject line of that commit is documentation.

These are the five newest commits the API returned for the default branch:

Of those five, the newest subject that is not a documentation banner is the March 26 fix. This page did not read the diffs. A commit titled “docs” can still touch code, and a commit titled “fix” can be small. The subjects are the evidence. The latest release tag is older than all five: python-v0.7.5, September 30, 2025, which was 405 days before the API pass.

The repository description GitHub returned was still “A programming framework for agentic AI.” The homepage field was https://microsoft.github.io/autogen/. Neither field carried the archive sentence. The sentence lives in the README and, as of the October 28 commit, on the landing page that commit names.

Is Semantic Kernel in the same position?

No. Semantic Kernel’s README points people at Agent Framework, and the repository is still publishing releases.

The README’s notice, read the same day, says “Semantic Kernel is now Microsoft Agent Framework” and calls that framework the enterprise-ready successor. It links a migration guide. It does not say Microsoft has stopped bug fixes, and it does not use the word archived.

The API agreed with the release history. archived was false. Stars were 28,747. Forks were 4,857. open_issues_count was 329. The license field was MIT. The primary language was C#. pushed_at was 2026-11-07T00:59:55Z. The latest release was dotnet-1.82.0, published 2026-11-07T01:00:07Z, twelve seconds after that push. pushed_at moves when any ref is pushed, including a release tag, so that clock is not by itself the date of the newest commit on main. The newest commit the API returned for main was “.Net: Bump package version to 1.82.0,” committer date November 5, 2026. The one before it prepared a Python 1.47.0 release.

28,747 minus 14,598 is 14,149. Semantic Kernel still had 14,149 more stars than Agent Framework, and it had shipped a release two days before this reading. AutoGen’s README and Semantic Kernel’s README are both sending new work toward the same successor. Only AutoGen’s README says Microsoft is not providing fixes.

What does Microsoft say to use instead?

Agent Framework, in both the AutoGen README and the Learn overview.

The overview, read November 9, 2026, says Agent Framework combines AutoGen’s agent abstractions with Semantic Kernel’s enterprise features, and then says the framework is the direct successor, created by the same teams. A later sentence says it is the next generation of both Semantic Kernel and AutoGen. The page also says that if you can write a function for the task, do that instead of using an agent. The same page describes a Harness Agent for long tasks, with planning, context compaction, file access, memory, tool approval, and observability. On this site that surrounding software is a harness. The directory page is Microsoft Agent Framework.

The successor’s own repository, in the same API pass, had 14,598 stars and 2,596 forks. archived was false. The license field was MIT. The description was “A framework for building, orchestrating and deploying AI agents and multi-agent workflows with support for Python and .NET.” The latest release tag was python-1.25.0, published 2026-11-07T15:52:42Z. pushed_at was 2026-11-09T06:38:42Z, about an hour before the AutoGen read. The November 5 snapshot had this repository at 14,539 stars and release python-1.24.0, published October 30, 2026. The tag moved. The star count moved by 59.

The AutoGen README also contains the sentence “Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0 gives you enterprise-grade multi-agent orchestration.” The release tag GitHub returned for that repository on November 9 was python-1.25.0, not a tag named 1.0. This page treats 1.25.0 as the release tag and treats “1.0” as a phrase in the README. The README sentence as fetched also contains the typo “FrameworkAF in now.” That typo is in the file. It is not a second product.

The migration guide’s background section says Agent Framework is a new multi-language SDK and that it was developed by the core AutoGen and Semantic Kernel teams. One difference it names: AutoGen’s AssistantAgent is single-turn unless max_tool_iterations is raised, and Agent Framework’s Agent keeps invoking tools until it can return an answer. Another: AutoGen’s high-level Team sits on an event-driven core, and Agent Framework centers on a typed graph workflow. Those are the guide’s distinctions. This page did not port a project.

Why do the framework star pages skip this?

They are release tables. The question they rank for is which framework shipped, and which repository has the stars. Maintenance is a different question, and it is the one a person asks before installing autogen-agentchat.

The November 5 report copies stars, forks, issues, license, language, creation, and the latest release for 19 repositories. AutoGen is one row. LangChain led that snapshot at 149,047 stars. AutoGen’s 61,706 was enough to sit in the table and not enough to force a sentence about the README. The November 9 comparison reads the license and the latest tag again. AutoGen’s tag had not changed since September 30, 2025, so the row looks quiet, and the page says so. Quiet is not the same sentence as “Microsoft says it is not providing security fixes.”

The practical stake is the star count. 61,753 stars still sat on a repository whose own front page says there will be no security fixes. A star is an account’s bookmark, and it does not come off when a README changes. A tutorial from 2024 still finds the package. The install block is still in the README, under the caution, including pip install -U "autogen-agentchat". The caution is above the install. Both are on the page.

The count of stars on the successor is the other stake. Agent Framework has the commits and the November 7 release. AutoGen has the reputation, measured the only way this page measured it: 61,753 stars against 14,598.

How an agent framework fits the loop around a model is How do AI agents work?. The harness definition is What is an AI agent harness?. Both sit on the agent harnesses hub. A separate November 9 count, of stars on agent products rather than on these three libraries, is How many GitHub stars does OpenClaw have?.

FAQ

Is AutoGen deprecated?

Microsoft’s README says the project is archived and no longer maintained, and that Microsoft is not providing bug fixes, security fixes, new features, or support. At 07:41 UTC on November 9, 2026, GitHub’s repository API still returned archived: false. The latest release was python-v0.7.5, published September 30, 2025. The repository had 61,753 stars.

Did GitHub archive the AutoGen repository?

The archived field was false. That field is the archive switch. The README, and the October 28 commit that adds an archive caution to the landing page, are text in the repository. They do not flip the switch by themselves.

When did AutoGen’s README start saying archived?

On October 16, 2026, in commit 004749e6b7. The README at the April 6, 2026 banner commit said maintenance mode, and that the project would not receive new features and was community managed going forward.

Is Semantic Kernel deprecated too?

Its README says Semantic Kernel is now Microsoft Agent Framework. The API the same morning returned archived: false, 28,747 stars, and release dotnet-1.82.0, published November 7, 2026. The README does not say Microsoft has stopped fixes.

What does Microsoft say to use instead of AutoGen?

The AutoGen README and the Learn overview both name Microsoft Agent Framework. The overview calls it the direct successor of AutoGen and Semantic Kernel. The successor’s repository had 14,598 stars, and its latest release was python-1.25.0, published November 7, 2026.