LangSmith vs Traceloop (2026)
Updated March 9, 2026
vs
Overview
Rating
10.0 / 10
Rating
10.0 / 10
Best For
Teams building agents on LangChain or LangGraph who want tracing, evals, and deployment from one vendor
Best For
Teams already using Datadog/Splunk wanting LLM observability
Product Summary
LangSmith is LangChain's platform for tracing, evaluating, and deploying AI agents. Compare its features, pricing, pros and cons, and alternatives.
Product Summary
The OpenTelemetry standard for AI. Pipes LLM telemetry into Datadog, Splunk, or any OTel backend.
Starting Price
Free
Starting Price
open-source
Free Trial
Yes
Free Trial
No
Free Version
Yes
Free Version
No
Website
Website
Key features
Core capabilities each platform advertises.
- Native tracing for LangChain and LangGraph
- OpenTelemetry and multi-language SDKs
- Offline and online evaluations
- Annotation queues and datasets
- Prompt Hub with versioning
- OpenTelemetry
- OpenLLMetry
- Vendor-neutral
- OTel integration
Strengths and tradeoffs
What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.
Pros
- Native LangChain and LangGraph tracing with no extra instrumentation
- Evals, datasets, and annotation queues sit in the same workspace as traces
- Tracing, deployment, and sandboxes from one vendor
- Framework-agnostic SDKs and OpenTelemetry support
Cons
- Per-seat pricing on Plus, and the free plan allows one seat
- 14-day base retention, with longer retention billed at a higher rate
- LLM Gateway is still in beta
- Self-hosting and hybrid deployment are Enterprise only
Pros
- Acquired by ServiceNow for $60-80M providing strong financial backing and integration opportunities
- Built on OpenTelemetry standards with open-source OpenLLMetry SDK
- Recognized as Gartner Cool Vendor demonstrating industry validation
- One-line code integration for quick setup and deployment
- Enterprise-ready with SOC 2, HIPAA compliance and multiple deployment options
Cons
- ServiceNow acquisition may lead to platform changes, pricing adjustments, or strategic shifts
- Small team of 9 employees may be absorbed into larger ServiceNow organization affecting support
- Limited transparent pricing information following acquisition
- Uncertainty around long-term product roadmap under new ownership
LangSmith or Traceloop — which should you choose?
Choose LangSmith if you wantChoose if you want
- Debugging LangChain and LangGraph agents
- Evaluating agent output against datasets
- Human review through annotation queues
- Deploying long-running agents
Choose Traceloop if you wantChoose if you want
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Compare LangSmith and Traceloop on your own traffic
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