LlamaIndex vs Swarms (2026): which should you pick?

Pick LlamaIndex if

• Fits if you feed PDFs and other documents into language-model pipelines
• Works for developers who also use the open-source LlamaIndex libraries

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you do not write code, as it is an API product
• Pricey if you outgrow pay-as-you-go: Pro is $500 a month
• Tight if you stay free: about 1,000 pages once, and 1 project
• Watch out: layout-aware parsing modes cost more than 1 credit a page
• Watch out: SSO and VPC deployment are Enterprise only

Pick Swarms if

• Fits if you want to run several coordinating agents from Python or a REST call
• Works for developers who would rather rent the hosting than run it

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a no-code builder, as agents are built in code or the API
• Tight if you stay free: batch, reasoning agents and graph workflows are paid
• Watch out: tokens cost the provider price plus 15%, and each agent in a swarm adds $0.01
• Watch out: calls fail when the credit balance falls under $1.00

LlamaIndex

• The pricing page covers LlamaParse only; the open-source LlamaIndex and Workflows libraries are separate and free.
• Cost scales with pages: parsing starts at 1 credit a page and layout-aware modes cost more.
• Pro is $500 a month; SSO, VPC deployment and custom BAAs need Enterprise.
• Pricing is shown separately for US and Europe regions; the figures here are the US page.

Swarms

• Tokens are billed at each model's provider price plus a 15% service fee, with $0.01 per agent in swarm workflows and $0.25 per image.
• Premium endpoints (batch, reasoning agents, graph workflows) are not available on the Free plan.
• Billable calls need a credit balance above $1.00 and return an error below it.
• It is a developer product: agents are built in code or through the API, not through a no-code builder.

LlamaIndex

Parse

Turns PDFs, Office files, spreadsheets and images into text, markdown or JSON, with table, chart and layout handling and several accuracy tiers.

Extract, classify and split

Schema-based extraction agents pull structured fields from documents, with citations and confidence scores; documents can also be classified and split.

Index

A chunking and embedding pipeline prepares documents for retrieval in RAG applications.

Document agent builder

A builder turns natural-language descriptions into workflows, with starter templates and one-click deploys from GitHub repositories.

Open-source libraries

LlamaIndex, Workflows and LiteParse are open-source projects the company maintains for building AI apps and parsing documents locally.

Swarms

Multi-agent architectures

Build hierarchical, sequential and parallel agent collaborations, with agent-to-agent communication and shared memory systems.

Python and Rust frameworks

Agents are written in Swarms Python or Swarms Rust, and the vendor describes the Python framework as open source.

Hosted Swarms API

Send agent configurations and a task over REST from any language and get the result back, without running the orchestration yourself.

Run monitoring in Swarms Cloud

A dashboard shows each run's logs, token use, cost and context use.

Marketplace for agents

Agents, prompts, tools, MCP servers and skills can be bought and sold; sellers keep 90% of each sale.

LlamaIndex

• Pay-as-you-go$0

  per month, plus $1.50 per 1,000 credits

  10K credits included, 5 concurrent parse jobs, 1 project and basic community support.

• Pro$500

  per month, with credits at $1.25 per 1,000

  400K credits included, 20 concurrent jobs, 5 projects and priority Slack support; an 800K-credit bonus is offered for a limited time.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Volume credit discounts, 5x higher rate limits, SSO, VPC or hybrid deployment and a dedicated account manager.

Swarms

• Free$0

  Pay-per-use credits, 100 requests a minute, 1,200 requests a day, 200K tokens per agent, marketplace access.

• Pro$19.99

  per month

  Adds global availability zones, extra multi-agent architectures, API telemetry, priority queue, Pro models and premium endpoints.

• Premium$100

  per month ($1,020 per year)

  2,000 requests a minute, 100,000 a day, 2M tokens per agent, 500 agents per batch, SOC 2 compliance and 24/7 support.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom rate limits, dedicated infrastructure, on-premise or VPC deployment, custom SLAs and white-label options.

LlamaIndex

• Startups

  Startup program with free credits

  The pricing page invites startups to apply for free credits, dedicated support and community spotlights.

Swarms

• Annual discount

  Premium billed yearly saves 15%

  Premium is $100 a month, or $1,020 a year, which the pricing page describes as a 15% saving.

• Other savings

  Half-price tokens overnight

  Swarm completions get 50% off token costs between 8 PM and 6 AM Pacific Time; agent fees are unchanged.