Overview

Rating

10.0 / 10

Rating

Best For

AI teams who need a unified platform for logging, evaluating, and improving LLM applications

Best For

ML engineers and AI teams, especially those in the Databricks ecosystem

Product Summary

Braintrust is an end-to-end AI product platform trusted by companies like Notion, Stripe, and Vercel. It combines logging, evaluation datasets, prompt management, and an AI proxy with automatic caching and fallback. Braintrust's evaluation framework helps teams measure quality across prompt iterations with customizable scoring functions.

Product Summary

Open-source MLOps platform with comprehensive GenAI tracing, evaluation, prompt management, and AI gateway. Maintained by the Linux Foundation.

Starting Price

Freemium

Starting Price

Free

Free Trial

Yes

Free Version

Yes

Website

braintrust.dev

Website

mlflow.org

Key features

Core capabilities each platform advertises.

Braintrust

Real-time LLM logging and tracing
Built-in evaluation framework
Prompt playground
Dataset management
Human review workflows

MLflow

OpenTelemetry-native tracing
50+ built-in eval metrics & LLM judges
Prompt versioning & management
Built-in AI gateway
Full MLOps lifecycle (experiments, model registry, deployment)

Strengths and tradeoffs

What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.

Braintrust

Pros

Custom-built Brainstore database optimized for AI data with fast full-text search and low latency
Framework agnostic with native SDKs for multiple languages and no vendor lock-in
Comprehensive security and compliance certifications including SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA
AI-assisted Loop Agent for automated optimization of prompts and evaluations
Strong backing with $80M Series B funding and customers including Vercel, Notion, Coursera, and Dropbox

Cons

Relatively new platform founded in 2022, less mature than some competitors
Pro plan at $249/month may be expensive for smaller teams or individual developers
Limited public information about advanced features and customization options

MLflow

Pros

Truly open source with Linux Foundation governance — no vendor lock-in, Apache 2.0 license
Massive ecosystem with 900+ contributors and integrations with 100+ AI frameworks across Python, TypeScript, Java, and R
Comprehensive GenAI platform with OpenTelemetry tracing, 50+ eval metrics, prompt management, and built-in AI Gateway
Unmatched adoption at 60M+ monthly downloads and 19,000+ companies globally
Unique combination of traditional MLOps and modern GenAI observability in a single platform

Cons

Braintrust or MLflow — which should you choose?

Choose Braintrust if you wantChoose if you want

Iterating on prompts with real production data
Running evaluations across model versions
Building golden datasets from production traffic
Human-in-the-loop review of LLM outputs
Cost and latency optimization

Choose MLflow if you wantChoose if you want

LLM observability & tracing
Automated evaluation
Prompt optimization
Model deployment
Production monitoring

Compare Braintrust and MLflow on your own traffic

10KFree traces/mo

500+Models

5 minSetup

Respan lets you trace LLM and agent calls across any model or framework, A/B test prompts on production traffic, and route requests across 500+ models through one gateway.

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Braintrust vs MLflow (2026)

Overview

Key features

Strengths and tradeoffs

Braintrust or MLflow — which should you choose?

Compare Braintrust and MLflow on your own traffic

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