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LlamaIndex Review 2026 — Best Open-Source RAG Framework
LlamaIndex is the leading open-source framework for building RAG apps. 35K+ GitHub stars, LlamaParse for complex PDFs, 150+ data connectors, LlamaCloud managed service.
LlamaIndex gives developers Python and TypeScript SDKs, connectors, indexing, retrieval, memory, state management, human-in-the-loop components, and agent-building tools. It supports conversational applications, RAG systems, structured extraction, and multi-step workflows.
The core framework is open source and free to use. LlamaParse and related hosted document-processing services are separate paid products with credit-based pricing; enterprise features and higher usage cost extra.
Features
- Python and TypeScript SDKs for building context-aware AI agents
- Connectors for APIs, PDFs, documents, SQL, and other data sources
- Indexing and retrieval components for RAG applications
- Agent building blocks including memory, state, and human-in-the-loop
- Workflow support for controlled multi-step and multi-agent applications
- Structured data extraction from unstructured documents
- Open-source framework under the MIT License
Use cases
- Build conversational applications over private or enterprise data
- Create customer-support agents with retrieval over internal documents
- Automate document-heavy processes with agents and workflows
- Develop RAG pipelines over PDFs, databases, and business systems
- Extract structured fields from unstructured documents
- Prototype and deploy multi-agent applications
Pros
Cons
Pricing
- Starting price
- Free
- Pricing checked
- 2026-09-19
Free
$0 /month
- Includes 10K credits
- 100 users
- Basic support
Starter
$50 /month
- Includes 40K credits
- Pay-as-you-go up to 400K credits
- 100 users
- Basic support
Pro
$500 /month
- Includes 400k credits
- Pay-as-you-go up to $5,000/mo
- 100 users
- Priority Slack support
Enterprise
Custom
- Volume discount on credits
- 5x higher rate limits
- Enterprise SSO
- SaaS or Hybrid cloud deployment
- Dedicated account manager