LangSmith Reviews, Pricing, and Alternatives (December 2025)
Blog post from Openlayer
LangSmith is a developer tool tailored for debugging, testing, and monitoring AI applications built with LangChain, offering detailed traceability of LLM calls and execution steps. It is particularly useful for teams focused on development workflows but lacks pre-built tests, drift detection, and runtime guardrails needed for comprehensive production-level security and compliance. Self-hosting is only available with Enterprise pricing, which may not suit teams with specific data residency needs. As the observability market grows, alternatives like Openlayer, Langfuse, Braintrust, and Deepchecks provide varied features including automated testing, real-time security guardrails, and compliance mapping, addressing the needs of organizations deploying AI at scale. The global demand for advanced observability tools is driven by AI's increasing complexity and regulatory requirements, with Openlayer standing out as a comprehensive solution for regulated industries requiring unified governance and security controls. LangSmith's pricing is based on a per-seat model with consumption-based charges, and while it integrates seamlessly with LangChain, its compatibility with other frameworks requires additional setup.