LangSmith vs Vellum
A side-by-side comparison of LangSmith and Vellum, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | LangSmith | Vellum |
|---|---|---|
| Category (differs) | Observability | Eval |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Platforms (differs) | API, Web | Web, API |
| Model support (differs) | Model-agnostic | Multi-model |
| Vendor (differs) | LangChain | Vellum |
The honest brief
LangSmith
Deepest native LangChain/LangGraph tracing — but cloud-only, where Langfuse lets you self-host the same.
- Native LangChain/LangGraph tracing
- Works standalone via SDKs
- Datasets + eval orchestration
- Prompt playground built in
- Closed source, cloud-only
- Self-host is Enterprise-only
- Best value inside LangChain stack
Vellum
Passes model token costs straight through at cost, so the platform fee is unbundled from usage — unlike marked-up LLMOps tools.
- Visual builder plus Python SDK
- Prompt, RAG, eval, monitoring in one
- Eval and test suites before/after deploy
- Non-technical collaborators supported
- Free tier available
- Cloud-only platform
- Breadth over best-in-class depth
- Seat costs at Pro/Enterprise
- Lock-in to its workflow model