Langfuse vs LangSmith
Side-by-side comparison of framework coverage, pricing, capabilities, and target customers. Last verified April 2026.
https://aicompliancevendors.com/compare/langfuse-vs-langsmithLangfuse
Open Source LLM Engineering Platform
Langfuse is an open-source LLM observability platform that provides tracing, evaluations, prompt management, and analytics for debugging and improving LLM applications and agents. Key differentiators include model/framework-agnostic SDKs, OpenTelemetry compatibility, self-hosting option, and integrated workflow for observability, experiments, and human annotation. Typical buyers are AI engineering teams at startups to Fortune 50 companies developing production AI products. Notable: Acquired by ClickHouse in January 2026; supports compliance certifications like SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA eligible.
LangSmith
AI Agent & LLM Observability Platform
LangSmith is an LLM observability platform that provides tracing, monitoring, and evaluation for AI agents and LLM applications. It offers native tracing for agent frameworks, cost and latency tracking, online LLM-as-judge evals, custom dashboards, and alerts via webhooks or PagerDuty. Framework-agnostic with SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, and OpenTelemetry support, it works with OpenAI, Anthropic, LlamaIndex, and custom stacks. Typical buyers are engineering teams building production LLM apps needing visibility into agent behavior, debugging failures, and performance optimization. Enterprise plans include self-hosted and BYOC options for data residency.LangSmith homepage Pricing
The verdict
Both Langfuse and LangSmith are LLM observability platforms purpose-built for engineering teams running agents and chains in production: tracing, evals, prompt management, and cost / latency monitoring. The decision usually comes down to data control and ecosystem fit. Langfuse is MIT-licensed open source with a free, self-hostable container plus a managed cloud, and publishes SOC 2 Type II + ISO 27001 + GDPR + HIPAA eligibility for the cloud. LangSmith is closed-source SaaS from LangChain, Inc. with a BYOC / self-hosted option on enterprise plans. Neither vendor currently publishes a dedicated EU AI Act or NIST AI RMF solution page; both can support those workflows operationally (audit trails, eval logs, dataset lineage), but mapping to controls is on the buyer.
Choose Langfuse if…
You want open source under MIT with a credible self-hosted path, your data must stay in your VPC or on-prem, you already use frameworks beyond LangChain (CrewAI, LiteLLM, Mistral, Bedrock), or you need flat-rate pricing — Langfuse Cloud is $29 / $199 / $2,499 per month with 50k–100k units included, plus usage. Langfuse also publishes SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA-eligible status for the managed cloud.
Choose LangSmith if…
You are committed to the LangChain ecosystem, want first-party support for LangGraph and LangChain agents, prefer SaaS billing with included quotas (Plus includes 10k base traces per month and unlimited seats with usage-based overage at $2.50 per 1k base traces), and value the closer integration with LangChain Hub, prompts, and deployments. Hybrid and self-hosted options that keep data in your VPC are available on the Enterprise plan.
At a glance
| Attribute | Langfuse | LangSmith |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2023 | 2023 |
| Headquarters | Berlin, Germany | San Francisco, US |
| Employees | 11-50 | 51-200 |
| Funding | $4M total (Seed, November 2023) | $160M total (Series B, Oct 2025) |
| Pricing | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Website | Visit site | Visit site |
Framework coverage
| Framework | Langfuse | LangSmith |
|---|
Capabilities
| Capability | Langfuse | LangSmith |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Tracing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drift Detection | ✓ | ✓ |
| LLM Evaluation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Model Monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Prompt Management | ✓ | ✓ |
Industries served
Langfuse
- None listed
LangSmith
- SaaS & Technology
Integrations
Langfuse
- OpenAI API
- Anthropic API
- LangChain
- LlamaIndex
- Vercel AI SDK
- LiteLLM
- CrewAI
- Amazon Bedrock
- Azure OpenAI Service
- Mistral AI
- Groq
- GitHub
LangSmith
- OpenAI API
- Anthropic API
- OpenTelemetry
- LlamaIndex
Frequently asked
What is the difference between Langfuse and LangSmith?+
Langfuse is Open Source LLM Engineering Platform; LangSmith is AI Agent & LLM Observability Platform. The full side-by-side covers framework coverage (0 shared, 0 unique to Langfuse, 0 unique to LangSmith), pricing model, and capability overlap.
How do Langfuse and LangSmith pricing compare?+
Langfuse: Hobby free forever; Core $29/mo, Pro $199/mo, Enterprise $2499/mo; all include 100k units/mo (50k for Hobby), additional usage $8/100k units decreasing with volume; discounts for startups/OSS/EDU. LangSmith: Developer free (1 seat, 5k base traces/mo); Plus $39/seat/mo (unlimited seats, 10k base traces/mo); traces $2.50/1k base (14d), $5/1k extended (400d); Enterprise custom with self-hosting.Pricing page
Which AI compliance frameworks do Langfuse and LangSmith both support?+
There is no published overlap in framework coverage between Langfuse and LangSmith based on each vendor's own materials.
Get quotes from both
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Editorial independence: This comparison is free and was not paid for by either vendor. See our methodology.