Braintrust

  • What it is:Braintrust is a platform for developing, evaluating, and observing AI applications, offering tools for prompt management, performance tracking, evals, logging, and production traces used by companies like Zapier and Instacart.
  • Best for:AI product teams building production agents, Small teams (up to 5 users) running experiments, Companies needing enterprise compliance
  • Pricing:Free tier available, paid plans from $249/month
  • Rating:72/100Good
Reviewed byMaxim ManylovΒ·Web3 Engineer & Serial Founder

What Is Braintrust and What Does It Do?

Braintrust offers a complete package of tools for developing AI applications that can be used as part of larger enterprise solutions. This includes tools for evaluating AI models, testing and experimenting with AI models through an interactive prompt tool, and managing data needed for AI model training and evaluation. Braintrust's AI application development tools are designed to simplify and streamline how AI is developed and implemented into an organization's workflow. As such, it primarily supports businesses or organizations that develop AI-enabled products.

Active
πŸ“San Francisco, CA
πŸ“…Founded 2023
🏒Private
TARGET SEGMENTS
Enterprise AI TeamsTechnology CompaniesSoftware Platforms

What Are Braintrust's Key Business Metrics?

πŸ“Š
$5.1M
Total Funding
πŸ“Š
1
Funding Rounds
πŸ‘₯
Zapier, Coda, Airtable, Instacart, Loom, Hostinger, Notion
Customers
πŸ’΅
<$5 Million
Revenue
🏒
<25
Employees

How Credible and Trustworthy Is Braintrust?

72/100
Good

It is a startup company with substantial early-stage funding and some well-known enterprise customers; however, it does not provide much publicly available information about its performance metrics and reviews.

Product Maturity65/100
Company Stability75/100
Security & Compliance70/100
User Reviews60/100
Transparency65/100
Support Quality70/100
Customers include Zapier, Notion, Airtable$5.1M total fundingFully distributed team with strong benefits

What is the history of Braintrust and its key milestones?

2023

Company Founded

Founded by AI/Engineering professionals Mike Knoop and Malte Ubl in San Francisco, California.

2023

Seed Funding

Raised $5.1M from investors in its first round of funding to develop its enterprise-wide AI application development platform.

Who Are the Key Executives Behind Braintrust?

Mike Knoopβ€” Co-founder / Head of AI
Founding member with significant AI expertise to lead the development of Braintrust's AI product.
Malte Ublβ€” CTO
Co-Founder who leads the technical side of the company's development of its AI platform architecture.
Michele Catastaβ€” President
Founding Executive responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operational aspects of the company and its future growth strategies.
Adam Jacksonβ€” Co-Founder
Leadership member of the company responsible for defining and ensuring the continued success of the company's overall mission and strategic direction.
Nick Velloffβ€” Chief Architect
Technical leader for the company responsible for developing and implementing the long-term scalable design of Braintrust's AI Platform.

What Are the Key Features of Braintrust?

✨
AI Evaluations
The suite of tools offered by Braintrust provides organizations the ability to test, evaluate, and compare the performance of large numbers of AI models at scale.
✨
Prompt Playground
An interactive prompt play area where developers can quickly and easily test and experiment with different AI models.
πŸ‘₯
Data Management
Braintrust has robust data operations to manage and process the large amounts of data required to train and evaluate AI models.
πŸ”—
Enterprise Integration
Braintrust's tools are designed to support the use of AI in production-level environments, which are typical of large enterprises.
✨
Model Monitoring
Once an AI model is trained and deployed, Braintrust's platform allows users to track and evaluate the ongoing performance of the AI model.

What Technology Stack and Infrastructure Does Braintrust Use?

Infrastructure

Cloud-based with distributed team infrastructure

Technologies

PythonSquarespaceGoogle Cloud

Integrations

Enterprise SoftwareAI PlatformsData Pipelines

AI/ML Capabilities

Enterprise AI evaluation platform with prompt engineering, model testing, and production data management capabilities

Based on ZoomInfo tech stack data and product descriptions

What Are the Best Use Cases for Braintrust?

AI Product Teams
By providing tools to streamline model evaluation, prompt testing, and data management, Braintrust reduces the time it takes for companies to develop and bring new AI-enabled products to market.
Enterprise Engineering
Additionally, Braintrust's tools also reduce the complexity associated with deploying and monitoring AI-based models in production environments within an enterprise.
Technology Platforms
Through the integration of reliable AI evaluation workflows, Braintrust enables companies to support the rapid development of new products and services enabled by AI.
NOT FORIndividual Developers
Enterprise-scale pricing and scalability may be too high for solo developers to effectively utilize all of the features of Braintrust's AI application development tools.
NOT FORNon-Technical Business Users
In order to take full advantage of Braintrust's AI model evaluation and data management tools, companies will need to have access to engineering resources.

How Much Does Braintrust Cost and What Plans Are Available?

Pricing information with service tiers, costs, and details
☐Service$Costβ„ΉDetailsπŸ”—Source
Free$0Up to 5 users, 1M trace spans/month, 10,000 scores/month, basic features for small teams and pilotsβ€”
Pro$249/monthFor 5 users, increased quotas, extended data retention, additional usage billed flexibly, prorated first monthβ€”
EnterpriseCustom quoteHigh volume data, self-hosting, hybrid deployment, dedicated support, advanced securityβ€”
Free$0
Up to 5 users, 1M trace spans/month, 10,000 scores/month, basic features for small teams and pilots
Pro$249/month
For 5 users, increased quotas, extended data retention, additional usage billed flexibly, prorated first month
EnterpriseCustom quote
High volume data, self-hosting, hybrid deployment, dedicated support, advanced security

How Does Braintrust Compare to Competitors?

FeatureBraintrustLangSmithHeliconeComet Opik
Core FunctionalityAI observability, evaluations, monitoringLangChain integration, monitoringAI gateway, observabilityML experiment tracking + observability
Starting Price$0 (Free tier)$0 (Developer)$0 (10k reqs/mo)$0 (open source)
Free TierYes (1M spans/mo)Yes (5k traces)YesYes (open source)
Enterprise FeaturesSSO, RBAC, audit logs, hybridSelf-hosting, advanced supportβ€”Self-hosting
API AvailabilityYes (SDK, OpenTelemetry, Proxy)YesYes (proxy)Yes
Support OptionsEmail, docs (paid priority)Paid plansCommunity + paidCommunity + paid
Security CertificationsSOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR
Deployment OptionsCloud, hybrid, self-host (Ent)Self-host (Ent)Cloud/proxySelf-host/open source
Core Functionality
BraintrustAI observability, evaluations, monitoring
LangSmithLangChain integration, monitoring
HeliconeAI gateway, observability
Comet OpikML experiment tracking + observability
Starting Price
Braintrust$0 (Free tier)
LangSmith$0 (Developer)
Helicone$0 (10k reqs/mo)
Comet Opik$0 (open source)
Free Tier
BraintrustYes (1M spans/mo)
LangSmithYes (5k traces)
HeliconeYes
Comet OpikYes (open source)
Enterprise Features
BraintrustSSO, RBAC, audit logs, hybrid
LangSmithSelf-hosting, advanced support
Heliconeβ€”
Comet OpikSelf-hosting
API Availability
BraintrustYes (SDK, OpenTelemetry, Proxy)
LangSmithYes
HeliconeYes (proxy)
Comet OpikYes
Support Options
BraintrustEmail, docs (paid priority)
LangSmithPaid plans
HeliconeCommunity + paid
Comet OpikCommunity + paid
Security Certifications
BraintrustSOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR
LangSmithβ€”
Heliconeβ€”
Comet Opikβ€”
Deployment Options
BraintrustCloud, hybrid, self-host (Ent)
LangSmithSelf-host (Ent)
HeliconeCloud/proxy
Comet OpikSelf-host/open source

How Does Braintrust Compare to Competitors?

vs LangSmith

BrainTrust has a very user-friendly interface that works well for nontechnical users of your team and offers an incredibly generous free version for small teams (one million spans vs five thousand traces) but LangSmith is far better in terms of integrating into the LangChain ecosystem and open standards. BrainTrust Pro will cost you $249 flat fee versus LangSmith’s $39 per user. BrainTrust would be best for collaborative evaluation workflows.

BrainTrust for product teams with many products; LangSmith for development teams working heavily within the LangChain ecosystem.

vs Helicone

Helicone is focused on proxy-based observability of 100 plus models and has lower entry costs ($20/seat), BrainTrust, however, provides integrated evaluations, faster query performance (80x), and enterprise compliance. BrainTrust also offers a much more generous free version for traces.

Helicone for quickly viewing your models; BrainTrust for debugging and governing your agents in production.

vs Comet Opik

Opik provides both experiment tracking and observability as an open source offering which makes it perfect for ML teams who are already using Comet, BrainTrust provides much better production monitoring, real time alerts, and SOC 2 compliance, however BrainTrust is closed source beyond the ability to host themselves through their enterprise self-hosting option.

Opik for ML experimenters; BrainTrust for product teams using AI at scale.

vs Phoenix

Phoenix provides some basic open source tracing but does not provide the same level of speed as BrainTrust, nor do they provide the same level of integrated evaluations or enterprise level functionality. BrainTrust’s 80x faster queries and Loop playground provide them with a clear advantage over Phoenix in the area of production.

Phoenix for basic free tracing; BrainTrust for scalable production observability.

What are the strengths and limitations of Braintrust?

Pros

  • Generous free version – 1M trace spans/month allows for real pilots to test out the product without cost.
  • Fast query performance – 80x faster than competitors for production traces.
  • Collaboration -- Non-technical UI enables stakeholders to give feedback loops.
  • Enterprise ready -- SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, Hybrid deployment since day one.
  • Flexibility in how you integrate -- SDK (13+ frameworks), Open Telemetry, AI Proxy
  • Real Time Alerts -- Custom BTQL conditions that can notify via Webhooks and Slack
  • Cost tracking by feature -- Breakdown of request cost per user, per feature.

Cons

  • Steep Pro pricing leap β€” $249/month fixed price after generous free level of service
  • Closed-core β€” Self-hosted Enterprise contracts are very expensive
  • Risk from latency of a proxy β€” The use of an AI proxy in your workflow may introduce performance latency
  • Flexibility priced overages β€” Overages from Pro plan will be priced on a flexible basis (per-GB/metrics)
  • Reduced cost tracking β€” There is less focus on this area versus other tools that specialize in cost tracking such as Helicone
  • Large deal sales process β€” Sales process is custom, can take longer than a normal large deal
  • Younger platform β€” Less mature than incumbent platforms using LangChain

Who Is Braintrust Best For?

Best For

  • AI product teams building production agents β€” Real time monitoring, evaluation, and fast debugging of issues before they affect our customers
  • Small teams (up to 5 users) running experiments β€” Collaboration and quota’s fit together well β€” Quotas were included and fit with the collaboration features in the Pro plan
  • Companies needing enterprise compliance β€” SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR with Hybrid deployment options out of box
  • Cross-functional teams with non-technical stakeholders β€” Business user friendly interface β€” Makes it easy for business users to view and rate the LLM output
  • Teams instrumenting multiple frameworks β€” SDK support for +13 frameworks β€” Also supports OpenTelemetry

Not Suitable For

  • Solo developers with low volume β€” Pricing jump for Pro plan is too much for individuals β€” Use LangSmith developer free plan instead
  • Teams needing deep cost optimization β€” Better suited for Helicone per request pricing and model proxy analytics
  • Open-source only teams β€” Self hosted solution β€” The core platform is closed source, look into Phoenix or Opik for self hosting
  • LangChain-exclusive developers β€” Tighter ecosystem integration β€” Lower team pricing, better suited for small teams

Are There Usage Limits or Geographic Restrictions for Braintrust?

Free Tier Traces
1M trace spans/month, 10,000 scores/month
Free Tier Users
Up to 5 users
Pro Tier Users
5 users included ($249/month)
Data Retention
Extended on Pro, specifics not published
Overage Billing
Pro: flexible usage-based beyond quotas (per-GB, per-metric)
Self-Hosting
Enterprise only
Hybrid Deployment
Enterprise/SOC 2 customers
Compliance
SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR

Is Braintrust Secure and Compliant?

SOC 2 Type IIIndependently audited annually. Covers security controls for production AI workloads.
HIPAA CompliantFull compliance to secure PII in healthcare and regulated use cases.
GDPR CompliantMeets EU data protection requirements including data residency options.
SSO/SAMLIntegrates with enterprise identity providers for seamless authentication.
RBAC & Granular PermissionsFine-grained access controls at project and resource level.
Audit LogsTrack data access and user actions for compliance and security.
Hybrid DeploymentBrainstore data plane deployable on customer infrastructure.

What Customer Support Options Does Braintrust Offer?

Channels
All plans via support portalComprehensive docs and pricing FAQFree tier primary supportEnterprise customers
Hours
Business hours standard, 24/7 for Enterprise
Response Time
<24 hours standard, priority for paid tiers
Satisfaction
Positive G2 reviews for collaboration features
Specialized
Pro + Enterprise get priority queue and longer data retention support
Business Tier
Custom SLAs and dedicated support for Enterprise
Support Limitations
β€’No phone or live chat mentioned
β€’Free tier limited to docs/community
β€’Enterprise requires sales contact

What Are Braintrust's Evaluation Metrics?

1M per month
Free Tier Traces
50% faster iteration
Evaluation Speed
0 added latency
Production Latency

What Testing Capabilities Does Braintrust Offer?

Offline Evaluation

Test prompt changes, model swaps, parameter tweaks against dataset before deploying

Online Evaluation

Automatically score production traffic β€” Asynchronous scoring and configurable sampling rates

Regression Testing

Automatically detect quality degradation β€” Automated alerts and baseline comparisons

Trace-to-Test Conversion

One click convert failed production cases β€” To permanent test cases

Multi-Agent Evaluation

Individual step scoring β€” With recording of inter-agent message, tool call, and state changes

How Does Braintrust's Benchmark Support Compare?

Evaluation TypeCapabilitySupported
LLM-as-JudgeConfigurable LLM judges for subjective evaluationYes
Heuristic ChecksRule-based evaluation patternsYes
Statistical MetricsDeterministic scoring functionsYes
Human EvaluationManual scoring and annotationYes

What Model Compatibility Does Braintrust Support?

Any LLM ProviderMulti-Agent SystemsCustom ModelsCrewAIProduction AI Systems

What Is Braintrust's Evaluation Modes?

Automated Scoring
Deterministic functions and LLM judges
Human Evaluation
Supported with configurable scorers
Production Monitoring
Real-time asynchronous scoring with zero latency
Experiment Comparison
Side-by-side prompt and model comparison

How Does Braintrust Ensure Safety Through Testing?

Cost Analysis

Token usage and associated costs per trace β€” Per trace

Error Tracking

Monitor and debug failures β€” Across all executions

Performance Monitoring

Execution times, token usage, success rates β€” Track

Quality Alerts

Get instant alerts when quality drops β€” Context around which queries have been impacted

What Is Braintrust's Ci Cd Integration?

GitHub Actions
Native integration for automated evaluations on pull requests
SDK Integration
Python Eval SDK and REST API support
Development Workflow
Automatic evaluation runs on prompt changes before merge
AI Assistant
Loop AI generates eval components from production data and plain language descriptions

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