The repo tries to compare Semantic Kernel and LangChain to show the difference and similarity between them.
| LangChain | Semantic Kernel | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Chains | Kernel | Construct sequences of calls |
| Agents | Planner | Auto create chains to address novel needs for a user |
| Tools | Plugins (semantic functions + native function) | Custom components that can be reused across different apps |
| Memory | Memory | Store context and embeddings in memory or other storage |
LangChain: Oct, 2022
Semantic Kernel: Mar, 2023
Semantic Kernel: 
LangChain: 
| Language | LangChain | Semantic Kernel |
|---|---|---|
| Python | ✅ | ✅ |
| JavaScript | ✅ | ❌ |
| C# | ❌ | ✅ |
| Java | ✅ | ✅ |
Many LLM applications require user-specific data that is not part of the model's training set. The primary way of accomplishing this is through Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). In this process, external data is retrieved and then passed to the LLM when doing the generation step.
| Building block | LangChain | Semantic Kernel |
|---|---|---|
| Document loaders: Load documents from many different sources | Over 100 document loaders: File Loaders (CSV, Docx, EPUB, JSON, PDF, Markdown...) and Web Loaders (Azure Storage, S3, GitHub, Figma...) | Word |
| Document transformers: Split documents, drop redundant documents, and more | Multiple Split methods | ❌ |
| Text embedding models: Take unstructured text and turn it into a list of floating point numbers | Over 25 different embedding providers: OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Hugging Face, Cohere, Google PaLM, Google Vertex AI, TensorFlow... | OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Hugging Face |
| Vector stores: Store and search over embedded data | Over 50 vector stores | About 10 vector stores |
| Retrievers: Query your data | Simple semantic search, Contextual compression, Time-weighted vector store retriever, Parent Document Retriever, Self Query Retriever, Ensemble Retriever, and more. | Simple semantic search |
| Type | LangChain's Agents | Semantic Kernel's Planner |
|---|---|---|
| Conversational | ✅ | ❌ |
| Plan and execute | ✅ | ✅ (SequentialPlanner) |
| ReAct | ✅ | ✅ (StepwisePlanner) |
| Tree of Thoughts (ToT) | ✅ | ❌ |
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent