Keywords AI

Langfuse vs LangSmith

Compare Langfuse and LangSmith side by side. Both are tools in the Observability, Prompts & Evals category.

Quick Comparison

Langfuse
Langfuse
LangSmith
LangSmith
CategoryObservability, Prompts & EvalsObservability, Prompts & Evals
PricingOpen SourceFreemium
Best ForTeams who want open-source LLM observability they can self-host and customizeLangChain developers who need integrated tracing, evaluation, and prompt management
Websitelangfuse.comsmith.langchain.com
Key Features
  • Open-source LLM observability
  • Detailed trace and span tracking
  • Prompt management
  • Evaluation scoring
  • Self-hosted and cloud options
  • Trace visualization for LLM chains
  • Prompt versioning and management
  • Evaluation and testing suite
  • Dataset management
  • Tight LangChain integration
Use Cases
  • Self-hosted LLM monitoring
  • Open-source tracing for AI applications
  • Prompt versioning and management
  • Cost tracking across providers
  • Community-driven observability
  • Debugging LangChain and LangGraph applications
  • Prompt iteration and A/B testing
  • LLM output evaluation and scoring
  • Team collaboration on prompt engineering
  • Regression testing for LLM apps

When to Choose Langfuse vs LangSmith

Langfuse
Choose Langfuse if you need
  • Self-hosted LLM monitoring
  • Open-source tracing for AI applications
  • Prompt versioning and management
Pricing: Open Source
LangSmith
Choose LangSmith if you need
  • Debugging LangChain and LangGraph applications
  • Prompt iteration and A/B testing
  • LLM output evaluation and scoring
Pricing: Freemium

About Langfuse

Langfuse is an open-source LLM observability platform that provides tracing, analytics, prompt management, and evaluation for AI applications. It captures detailed traces of LLM calls, supports custom scoring, and integrates with LangChain, LlamaIndex, Vercel AI SDK, and raw API calls. Langfuse can be self-hosted for data privacy or used as a managed cloud service. Its open-source model and generous free tier make it popular with startups and developers.

About LangSmith

LangSmith is LangChain's observability and evaluation platform for LLM applications. It provides detailed tracing of every LLM call, chain execution, and agent step—showing inputs, outputs, latency, token usage, and cost. LangSmith includes annotation queues for human feedback, dataset management for evaluation, and regression testing for prompt changes. It's the most comprehensive debugging tool for LangChain-based applications.

What is Observability, Prompts & Evals?

Tools for monitoring LLM applications in production, managing and versioning prompts, and evaluating model outputs. Includes tracing, logging, cost tracking, prompt engineering platforms, automated evaluation frameworks, and human annotation workflows.

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