LLM Observability
LS

LangSmith

TypeScriptPythonLangChainTracing

LangChain's observability and evaluation platform — trace, debug, and evaluate LLM applications with deep LangChain ecosystem integration.

License

Proprietary

Language

TypeScript / Python

80
Trust
Strong

Why LangSmith?

Your app is built on LangChain or LangGraph — integration is seamless

You need prompt management and dataset-driven evaluations

Team wants a managed cloud with minimal setup

Signal Breakdown

What drives the Trust Score

PyPI downloads
2.5M / wk
Commits (90d)
220 commits
GitHub stars
3.5k ★
Stack Overflow
200 q's
Community
High
Weighted Trust Score80 / 100

Download Trend

Last 12 months

Tradeoffs & Caveats

Know before you commit

You want a fully open-source or self-hostable solution — use Langfuse

Not using LangChain — the value proposition is weaker

Pricing

Free tier & paid plans

Free tier

Free tier: 5k traces/mo

Paid

Plus: $39/mo, Team plans available

Alternative Tools

Other options worth considering

LF
Langfuse85Strong

Open-source LLM observability platform for tracing, evaluating, and debugging AI applications — self-host or use the cloud.

He
Helicone73Good

Lightweight LLM observability via a proxy URL swap — get cost tracking, request logging, and caching with a one-line integration.

BT
Braintrust70Good

AI evaluation and observability platform focused on running structured evals, scoring LLM outputs, and prompt iteration workflows.

Often Used Together

Complementary tools that pair well with LangSmith

langchain

LangChain

AI Orchestration

96Excellent
View
openai-api

OpenAI API

LLM APIs

87Strong
View
anthropic-api

Anthropic API

LLM APIs

79Good
View

Learning Resources

Docs, videos, tutorials, and courses

Get Started

Repository and installation options

View on GitHub

github.com/langchain-ai/langsmith-sdk

npmnpm install langsmith
pippip install langsmith

Quick Start

Copy and adapt to get going fast

import { Client } from 'langsmith';

const client = new Client({ apiKey: process.env.LANGSMITH_API_KEY });

// Auto-traces when LANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=true is set
// Or manually:
const run = await client.createRun({
  name: 'my-llm-call',
  run_type: 'llm',
  inputs: { prompt: 'Hello' },
});

Community Notes

Real experiences from developers who've used this tool