Agentic Index
Braintrust vs Langfuse (2026)
Choose Braintrust for eval first AI development with polished experiment tooling and choose Langfuse for open source observability you can self host without limits. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Braintrust offers a free Starter tier and Pro at 249 dollars a month, while Langfuse runs from a free Hobby tier through Core at 29 dollars a month and Pro at 199 dollars a month, with the MIT core free to self host. Teams that live in evals and datasets lean Braintrust; teams that want tracing everywhere at open source economics lean Langfuse.
On the Agentic Index agent infrastructure ranking, Braintrust and Langfuse both clear the bar: each documents all five production contract capabilities in full. 34 of the 186 vendors in the lane clear it. See the agent infrastructure ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Braintrust and Langfuse are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 956 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Braintrust if
- Systematic evals, datasets, and experiments are the daily workflow you are buying
- You want human review loops and playground iteration in the same product
- No per seat fees on a managed platform matters more than self hosting
Choose Langfuse if
- Self hosting the full product under MIT with no usage caps is decisive
- Unlimited users at 29 dollars a month fits a growing engineering org
- OpenTelemetry native tracing across any framework is the core need
| At a glance | Braintrust | Langfuse |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Agent infrastructure | Agent infrastructure |
| Entry price | Free Starter (1 GB data, 10K scores) · Pro $249/mo | Free Hobby (50K units/mo) · Core $29/mo · open source self host |
| Free / trial | Free Starter plan, no card: 1 GB processed data, 10K scores a month, 14-day retention, unlimited users, $10 model credits a month. Qualifying startups can get 6 to 12 months of Pro free. | Free Hobby plan, no card (50K units/mo, 2 users) |
| Pricing confidence | public exact | public exact |
| Feature | B Braintrust |
L Langfuse |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Full / Explicit | Partial |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
Partial | No / Not documented |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
Full / Explicit | Partial |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
Partial | Partial |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | B Braintrust |
L Langfuse |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Free Starter (1 GB data, 10K scores) · Pro $249/mo | Free Hobby (50K units/mo) · Core $29/mo · open source self host |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, exact | Public, exact |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
usage | usage |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Medium variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tier
|
Free tier
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Self-serve |
Langfuse was acquired by ClickHouse in January 2026 and continues as an open source, self hostable platform under the MIT license. Buyers outside the ClickHouse ecosystem should weigh roadmap priorities accordingly.
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