What is AutoGen
Microsoft AutoGen is an open-source framework for single- and multi-agent applications. AgentChat provides a high-level conversational API, Core supplies an event-driven runtime, Extensions connect models and tools, and AutoGen Studio provides a low-code prototyping interface.
Pricing and licence
As of September 9, 2026, Microsoft does not sell an AutoGen subscription or hosted AutoGen plan. The official project remains available under the MIT licence, so there is no framework licence fee or per-seat price. Users still pay for their chosen model APIs, compute, storage and other infrastructure.
Current project status
Microsoft's official repository now places AutoGen in maintenance mode: it is community-managed and is expected to receive fixes and documentation maintenance rather than new features. Microsoft recommends Microsoft Agent Framework for new projects and provides migration guidance for existing AutoGen applications.
Users pay for the infrastructure and services they connect, including model APIs, containers, storage, observability and production hosting. AutoGen supports model clients, MCP tools, Docker-based code execution, distributed runtimes and community extensions, but those third-party services retain their own prices.
Production note
Microsoft describes AutoGen Studio as a prototyping interface rather than a production-ready application. Teams deploying it should add their own authentication, authorisation, isolation, monitoring and security controls.
Official sources: Microsoft AutoGen documentation, official AutoGen repository and MIT licence.