# DSPy review

> DSPy: The framework for programming—not prompting—language models

Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026. Canonical page: https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/dspy/

## DSPy at a glance

- **Category:** [Agent frameworks](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/categories/agent-frameworks/)
- **Website:** [dspy.ai](https://dspy.ai)

## Usage data (the week of Oct 25–31, 2026)

- Board rank: #259 overall, #24 in Agent frameworks, momentum score 36
- Downloads that week: 1.3M (+2% vs 4-week average)
- New GitHub stars per week (last 12 weeks): Aug 9: 490; Aug 16: 272; Aug 23: 148; Aug 30: 142; Sep 6: 210; Sep 13: 170; Sep 20: 220; Sep 27: 131; Oct 4: 115; Oct 11: 105; Oct 18: 112; Oct 25: 102

## DSPy alternatives

| Rank | Tool | Stars | Downloads/wk |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | [Harness²](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/google-research-harness2/) | 21.7k | – |
| #2 | [HyperFrames](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/heygen-com-hyperframes/) | 76.6k | 1.5M |
| #3 | [AgentScope](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/agentscope-ai-agentscope/) | 35k | 51.4k |
| #4 | [AG-UI](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/ag-ui/) | 16.9k | 4.6M |
| #5 | [LangGraph](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/langgraph/) | 44.2k | 18.5M |
| #6 | [Bifrost](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/maximhq-bifrost/) | 9.3k | – |

## DSPy FAQ

### How popular is DSPy?

DSPy has 38.9k GitHub stars as of Nov 1, 2026. It gained 102 new stars in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, against a 12-week average of 185 a week. Its main package had 1.3M downloads that week, +2% against its own 4-week average. That made it #24 among AI agent frameworks on the Devtoolwatch Board.

### What are the best alternatives to DSPy?

Other AI agent frameworks on the Devtoolwatch Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum: Harness² (#1), HyperFrames (#2), AgentScope (#3), AG-UI (#4), LangGraph (#5). The alternatives table above has their numbers.

## Sources

1. [Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/)