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Langfuse vs LangSmith
LangSmith for LangChain and LangGraph teams that want deployment plus evals. Langfuse for self-hosting, open source, and teams with many users. Compare units with traces instead of the $29 and $39 list prices.
Moneda may earn a commission from some product links. Partner economics do not affect our recommendations. This page is research-based — conclusions come from product evidence and documentation, not a claim that we personally purchased every product listed.
No single winner
Depends on the job
Choose LangSmith when the team builds on LangChain or LangGraph and wants deployment plus evals. Choose Langfuse when you want open source, self-hosting, or a framework-agnostic plan whose fee does not grow with every user. A Langfuse unit is not a LangSmith trace, so the sticker prices are not comparable.
Try LangfuseHow we evaluated this
Evaluation note: We assessed LangChain deployment versus framework-agnostic tracing, Self-host and open source, Seat billing versus unit billing against vendor docs, product pages, and workflow fit — not synthetic benchmark scores. 4 primary sources checked. No single tool led for most teams. The segment recommendations are the decision.
Which of these are you?
Your pick
Langfuse
The open-source build is free to self-host. Cloud Core is $29 a month, unlimited users, and bills units rather than seats.
Tradeoff
LangSmith can be better when the task is mostly langchain or langgraph teams that want deployment plus evals.
Highlighted = better for Teams that want to self-host or stay framework-agnostic
Spec at a glance
Hobby: $0, 50k units/month, 30-day data access, 2 users - Checked 2026-10-10: https://langfuse.com/pricing · Core: $29/month, 100k units included then $8/100k, unlimited users, 90-day data access - Checked 2026-10-10: https://langfuse.com/pricing · Pro: $199/month, 100k units included, 3-year data access - Checked 2026-10-10: https://langfuse.com/pricing · Enterprise: $2,499/month - Checked 2026-10-10: https://langfuse.com/pricing · Self-hosted open source: free under the MIT license, no usage bill - Checked 2026-10-10: https://langfuse.com/docs/administration/billable-units
Developer: $0/seat, 1 seat, 5,000 base traces/month, then 0.005 LSU per extra base trace (1 LSU = $1) - Checked 2026-10-10: https://www.langchain.com/pricing · Plus: $39/seat/month, 10,000 base traces included, then 0.005 LSU per extra base trace - Checked 2026-10-10: https://www.langchain.com/pricing · Extended retention upgrade: 0.0025 LSU per trace. Base traces kept 14 days, extended traces 180 days - Checked 2026-10-10: https://www.langchain.com/pricing · Enterprise: custom. Cloud, hybrid, or self-hosted - Checked 2026-10-10: https://www.langchain.com/pricing
✅ Included · ❌ Missing · ⚠️ Partial or add-on. Shaded cell = stronger option for your segment.
Don't pick Langfuse if
the purchase is LangSmith Deployment for LangGraph agents. Langfuse traces applications. It does not replace that deployment product.
Don't pick LangSmith if
you need the open-source build on your own machines. LangSmith self-hosting is an Enterprise option, not the open core.
What we evaluated
Evaluation criteria: LangChain deployment versus framework-agnostic tracing, Self-host and open source, Seat billing versus unit billing. Conclusions are based on primary documentation, product evidence, and workflow fit — not hands-on benchmark runs unless noted. 4 primary sources checked.
LangSmith is the pick for a LangChain or LangGraph team that wants deployment and evals in the same product. Langfuse is the pick for self-hosting, open source, and a framework-agnostic team, especially when many people need accounts. There is no single winner. The job decides, and the invoices do not use the same unit.
Prices checked 10 October 2026 on langfuse.com/pricing and langchain.com/pricing.
Do not compare $29 with $39
Langfuse Core is $29 a month. LangSmith Plus is $39 per seat per month. Those numbers sit next to each other on the two pricing pages and answer different questions.
Langfuse bills units. Its docs define a unit as a trace, plus an observation (a span, event, or generation), plus a score. One agent run with 10 spans and one score is 12 units, not one. Hobby includes 50,000 units, 30 days of data access, and 2 users. Core includes 100,000 units, 90 days of data access, and unlimited users, then $8 per 100,000 units up through 1 million (the rate steps down after that). Pro is $199 a month with the same included units and 3 years of data access. Enterprise is $2,499 a month. Self-hosting the open-source build is free under the MIT license, with no usage bill.
LangSmith bills seats and traces. Developer is $0 for one seat and 5,000 base traces a month. Plus is $39 per seat, unlimited seats, and 10,000 base traces included for the organization. Additional base traces are 0.005 LSU each. One LSU is $1, so that is $0.005 per extra base trace. Upgrading a trace to extended retention adds 0.0025 LSU. Base traces are kept 14 days. Extended traces are kept 180 days. Both figures are on langchain.com/pricing. Plus includes LangSmith Deployment (one free small serverless deployment, then usage). Enterprise adds hybrid and self-hosted deployment.
Worked example
Five people, 20,000 agent runs in a month. Each run has 10 spans and one score. No deployment compute, no extended retention.
- LangSmith Plus. 5 × $39 = $195 in seats. 20,000 traces is 10,000 past the included 10,000, so 10,000 × $0.005 = $50 in traces. $245 before deployment. The spans inside the trace are not a separate LangSmith line. A trace can contain many steps.
- Langfuse Core. Units are 20,000 traces + 200,000 observations + 20,000 scores = 240,000. The first 100,000 are included. The next 140,000 are at $8 per 100,000, which is $11.20. Plan plus units is $40.20. The five users add nothing on Core.
- Langfuse Hobby cannot hold five users. The cap is two, and 240,000 units is past the 50,000 included. It is the wrong plan for this team.
- LangSmith Developer cannot hold five seats. It is one person and 5,000 included base traces.
Langfuse’s own pricing page walks similar unit math. A Core project at 200,000 units is $37 ($29 plus $8). That example is theirs. The five-person example above is ours, using their unit definition and LangSmith’s published seat and trace rates.
If the workload is one trace with almost no child spans, LangSmith’s trace price looks cheaper than it does here, and Langfuse’s unit count shrinks toward one unit per run. Count the observations before you pick the cheaper sticker.
Teams leaving Helicone
Helicone joined Mintlify on 3 March 2026 and is in maintenance mode: security updates, new models, and bug and performance fixes. It is not where a new observability buy should start. See Helicone vs Arize.
A team leaving Helicone has two reasonable landings on this page:
- Langfuse, if the Helicone use was a framework-agnostic log of requests, especially self-hosted, or the team has more than a couple of users. You will re-instrument. A Helicone request does not map 1:1 to a Langfuse unit.
- LangSmith, if the application is already LangChain or LangGraph and you want evals and deployment, not only a proxy log.
Arize Phoenix is the other open-source landing, and AX is the managed span plan. That comparison is LangSmith vs Arize.
Both buttons on this page are product links. Langfuse goes to langfuse.com. LangSmith goes to langchain.com/langsmith. Neither vendor has an affiliate URL in this repo.
What we evaluated: LangChain deployment against framework-agnostic tracing, self-hosting, and seat billing against unit billing. LangSmith won for LangChain teams that deploy. Langfuse won for self-hosting and for many users.
This call changes if Langfuse adds a managed deployment that replaces LangSmith Deployment, or if LangSmith’s cloud plan stops charging per seat. Until then, follow the segment.