Rasa
Conversational AI platform built on the CALM framework, with flows that orchestrate sub agents over MCP and A2A, messaging and voice channels, and self managed or managed deployment.
Rasa is a framework and platform for building conversational AI agents, text and voice assistants that a company hosts and controls itself. It began as one of the best-known open-source options in this space, rooted in machine learning for understanding language and managing dialogue, and its current generation centers on an approach the company calls CALM, short for Conversational AI with Language Models, which marks a shift away from the older method of hand-labeling intents and training phrases.
The idea behind CALM is a deliberate separation of concerns. A language model handles the fluent part of a conversation, interpreting what a user means and gracefully handling things like topic changes, corrections, and clarifications, while the actual steps the agent is allowed to take are defined by the developer as Flows, structured business processes broken into clear steps.
The model understands the user, but it does not invent the business logic. That design keeps execution deterministic and debuggable, which is a large part of why regulated industries gravitate toward it. The customer chooses and routes its own models, including self-hosted ones, so an assistant can run with no calls to external LLMs.
The broader Rasa Platform splits into a pro-code framework called Rasa Pro, with tracing, end-to-end testing, PII management, and secrets handling, and a no-code interface called Rasa Studio for business users, with single sign-on and role-based access, so technical and non-technical teams can work on the same agents.
A free Developer Edition lets a team build and run one assistant within a monthly conversation limit; paid plans are quoted by sales. Flows can hand steps to sub agents, built-in ones that use tools from MCP servers or outside agents over A2A, and a Rasa assistant can itself be exposed as an A2A agent. Assistants deploy across web, mobile, messaging channels, and voice gateways.
What consistently distinguishes Rasa is control. It is built to be self-managed on a team's own infrastructure or private cloud, or run as a managed service, giving full ownership over data, models, and behavior, which suits organizations with strict privacy, compliance, or reliability requirements that are not comfortable handing conversations to a fully managed third party.
Vendor details
Canonical URL
https://rasa.com
Category
Multi-agent platform
Company status
independent
Use cases & customers
Target customers
Deployment options
In practice
You need a chatbot that can't improvise its way into a compliance problem. Rasa's CALM lets a language model interpret the user while you define the exact steps it can take as Flows, keeping execution deterministic and auditable.
Your data can't leave your infrastructure. Rasa is built to be self-hosted on-premises, can run with small fine-tuned models and no calls to external LLMs, and gives you full ownership of models and behavior.
Your technical and business teams both need to work on the assistant. Rasa pairs a pro-code framework with a no-code Studio, plus a browser playground to prototype CALM agents and a free developer edition to start.
Sources & related URLs
Agentic Index coverage score
11.5 / 14 capabilities · 82%
| Integrations & Tool Calling | Full |
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Flows call tools from MCP servers directly with a call step and input and output mappings, ReAct sub agents pick MCP tools at runtime, and a custom actions server built on the Rasa SDK reaches any backend API. No prebuilt connector catalog is published beyond channel connectors. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/build/mcp-integration.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Workflow Orchestration | Full |
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Flows define business processes as steps with conditions, links and calls to other flows, and Rasa acts as the orchestrator for sub agents inside them: built in ReAct sub agents with MCP tools and external agents over A2A, with shared context, state checks, resume after interruption and up to three retries with backoff. Sourcerasa.com/docs/reference/config/agents/overview-agents.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Knowledge Grounding & RAG | Full |
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Enterprise search indexes the customer's documents in FAISS, Milvus or Qdrant, or a custom retriever, and the enterprise search policy retrieves relevant passages when it detects a knowledge question and has the model answer from them. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/build/configuring-enterprise-search.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Human Oversight & Guardrails | Partial |
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A human handoff conversation pattern passes the conversation to a person, and CALM limits the model to developer defined flows so it cannot invent steps, but no surface where a reviewer approves or rejects an agent action before it runs is documented; the live agent side of a handoff sits in the customer's contact center. Sourcerasa.com/docs/learn/concepts/conversation-patterns.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Security, Identity & Governance | Full |
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Studio ships SSO and role based access, set up through Keycloak, the Rasa Pro API takes token or JWT auth with role based access, and Pro adds PII management and Vault secrets. No attestation is published: the security page says controls are aligned with ISO 27002 and names no SOC 2 or ISO certificate, and a SOC 2 claim appears only in third party writeups, not on rasa.com. Sourcerasa.com/pricingread 2026-09-27 |
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| Observability & Auditability | Full |
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Tracing records the assistant's own processing, LLM calls with prompts, inputs, outputs and token usage, generated commands, flow transitions and custom actions, exported to Jaeger, an OTEL collector or Langfuse; an analytics pipeline streams conversation events through Kafka to a warehouse, and Studio adds a conversation view. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/improve/tracing.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Memory & State Persistence | Partial |
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Slots are the documented memory, key value state the assistant collects within a conversation. Tracker stores keep every conversation, and user scoped conversations let the API list all trackers for one user, but that is the conversation record, not a memory layer with a stated scope and lifetime that the assistant reads across sessions. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/build/assistant-memory.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Deployment & Data Residency | Full |
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The paid platform deploys self managed on premises or in a private cloud, or as a managed service, with Kubernetes deployment through Helm and deployment playbooks for AWS, Azure and GCP, and the finance page adds hybrid setups; the free Developer Edition runs locally or in production. Sourcerasa.com/pricingread 2026-09-27 |
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| Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs | Partial |
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Project templates such as tutorial and calm scaffold a starter assistant through rasa init, and default conversation patterns come built in, but no catalog of ready to use agents is published. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/tutorial.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Triggers & Channel Coverage | Full |
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An HTTP endpoint lets an outside system inject an intent into a conversation in place of a user message, after which the assistant runs its response and sends it to a named output channel, and a ReminderScheduled event lets the assistant schedule itself to act later; these are the autonomous seams. Most work arrives from people on the documented messaging and voice channels (web, Slack, Telegram, Messenger, Twilio, Genesys Cloud, AudioCodes, Jambonz, Vonage and others). Sourcerasa.com/docs/reference/api/pro/http-api/tracker/inject-an-intent-into-a-conversation.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Model Flexibility & Routing | Full |
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The customer configures model deployments in endpoints.yml, including Azure and self hosted endpoints such as vLLM, Llama.cpp and Ollama, and a multi LLM router spreads requests by shuffle, least busy, latency, cost or usage with failover to the next deployment. Sourcerasa.com/docs/pro/deploy/llm-routing.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility | Full |
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The Rasa Pro REST API covers status, models, conversation trackers and message injection with token or JWT auth, the Rasa SDK builds custom actions, and an A2A server exposes the assistant to outside orchestrators with an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json and bearer JWT auth. Sourcerasa.com/docs/reference/api/pro/rasa-pro-rest-api.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Testing, Debugging & Optimization | Full |
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End to end tests assert each step of scripted conversations with coverage reports and are meant for CI, and evals drive simulated users through YAML scenarios scored by an LLM judge plus deterministic assertions; the docs say evals are not yet suited to blocking CI. Sourcerasa.com/docs/reference/testing/evals/overview.mdread 2026-09-27 |
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| Browser & Computer Use | Not documented |
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The product covers channels, flows, sub agents, MCP tools and APIs, with no browser or computer use capability documented; any browser work would come from an outside MCP server or A2A agent. Sourcerasa.com/docs/llms.txtread 2026-09-27 |
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The Agentic Index coverage score grades every vendor Full, Partial or Not documented against the same 14 buyer facing capabilities, from public evidence only. Each capability links to how all vendors in the index score on it. How this evidence is graded
Recent platform changes
Rasa relaunched its platform around Mantle, a new orchestrator where builders write each skill as plain language instructions and Mantle routes between skills, calls tools and tracks memory. Deterministic guarantees such as required values, confirmation steps and strict sequences are added only where they are needed.
Bears on: Workflow orchestration
View sourceRasa Pro 3.17.3 was issued to urgently backport the removal of the LangChain dependency cluster, addressing a critical arbitrary local file read vulnerability within the LangSmith TracingMiddleware. It also fixes missing input and output spans in Langfuse tracing.
Bears on: Security / enterprise
View sourceRasa Pro 3.18.0 removes the LangChain dependency cluster to patch a critical file-read vulnerability, migrating vector stores to native SDKs and mandating a model retrain. The release also adds a new Capabilities API endpoint for dynamic conversational flows and a local document retrieval backend for the Rasa copilot.
Bears on: MCP / tool calling / API
View sourcePricing
Free Developer Edition · paid plans quoted by sales
subscription (by conversations)
Included quota
Developer Edition: free Rasa license usable locally or in production, one bot per company, up to 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month. Paid plans add Rasa Studio, SSO and RBAC, higher volume and basic or premium support at quoted prices.
What is public
Public: the free Developer Edition and its limits (one bot per company, up to 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month, community support), the feature contents of Rasa Pro, the Business plan (Rasa Pro plus Rasa Studio, self managed or managed deployment, basic support) and Enterprise (full platform, premium support with 24/7 response and a customer success team). Not public: any paid price.
Billing mechanics
An annual platform subscription quoted by sales above a free Developer Edition. Self managed deployments carry their own infrastructure and model inference costs; the managed service is available on paid plans.
Cost watchouts
Self managed deployments put infrastructure and, with frontier models, LLM inference costs on the customer on top of the license. The AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect IVR connector is sold separately. Paid pricing is quoted by sales.
Variable cost rationale
The Rasa platform fee is a flat annual subscription tiered by conversation volume, which is predictable, but Rasa is self hosted, so model inference and infrastructure costs sit with the customer and scale with usage. CALM can run on smaller on premises models with no external LLM calls to hold marginal cost down, so exposure is moderate and largely within the customer's control.
Additional watchouts
Beyond the free Developer Edition every plan is quote based. Self managed deployments put infrastructure and model costs on the customer. The free tier is capped at one bot and a low monthly conversation volume. The AudioCodes IVR connector is an additional purchase.
Overage / add-ons
The free edition is capped at one bot and 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month; higher volume requires a quoted paid plan.
Sales call required
Yes, required for paid access
Free / trial
Free Developer Edition: one bot per company, up to 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month, community support.
Lowest paid plan
None published; paid plans (Business: Rasa Pro + Studio; Enterprise) are quoted by sales.
Commercial notes
Positioned as the control first option for regulated industries: self managed on premises or private cloud, or a managed service, with CALM keeping execution to developer defined flows. The tradeoff is engineering ownership and quoted pricing once you pass the free Developer Edition.
Key ambiguities
No paid figure is published, and the page shows a Business plan column while saying there are two subscription categories (Developer Edition and Enterprise). Self managed infrastructure and model costs are separate.
Support SLA / resale
Developer Edition: community forum. Business: basic support through a web portal, break and fix, best effort in business hours. Enterprise: premium support with 24/7/365 enhanced response times, a customer success manager and engineer, and business reviews.
Missing data
No paid price is published; Business and Enterprise are quoted by sales.
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Alternatives to Rasa
The closest documented capability profiles to Rasa among multi-agent platforms tracked by Agentic Index, ordered by similarity on the same 14 point evidence the rankings use. No vendor pays for placement.
- CrewAI13.0 / 14Adds documented Browser & Computer Use
- Databricks Agent Bricks13.0 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Human Oversight & Guardrails and Memory & State Persistence
- Dataiku13.0 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Human Oversight & Guardrails and Memory & State Persistence
- Relevance AI13.0 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Human Oversight & Guardrails and Memory & State Persistence
- Akka12.5 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Human Oversight & Guardrails and Memory & State Persistence
- Legion Intelligence11.5 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Human Oversight & Guardrails and Prebuilt Agents, Templates & PacksRasa vs Legion Intelligence →
Similarity is computed from each vendor's Agentic Index coverage score evidence, axis by axis, not from the totals. How this evidence is graded