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Baseten vs LangSmith

Baseten logo

Baseten

Software Development

Inference is everything

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
LangSmith logo

LangSmith

Software Development

Know what your agents are really doing

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Baseten pro and Enterprise pricing not published; requires contacting sales; LangSmith usage-based pricing applies beyond included traces; LCU charges at $1.50/LCU and LSU at $1.00/LSU
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 29 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Baseten and LangSmith actually diverge.

Attributes where Baseten and LangSmith differ
AttributeBasetenLangSmith
Pricing modelusage-basedfreemium

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Software Development).

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Baseten

  • Custom model deploymentnot LangSmith
  • Fine-tuned LLM hostingnot LangSmith
  • Inference API scalingnot LangSmith

LangSmith

  • Tracing agent execution step-by-step in productionnot Baseten
  • Detecting agent failures affecting latency and costnot Baseten
  • Monitoring token usage and latency percentilesnot Baseten
  • Clustering traces to identify failure modesnot Baseten
  • Self-hosting traces within VPC for data residencynot Baseten

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Baseten

  • Pro and Enterprise pricing not published; requires contacting sales
  • Pricing varies significantly by compute type and model

LangSmith

  • Usage-based pricing applies beyond included traces; LCU charges at $1.50/LCU and LSU at $1.00/LSU
  • Free tier limited to 1 seat and 5,000 traces per month

Pricing, plan by plan

Baseten

Free
  • BasicFree
    • Pay-as-you-go deployments
    • Dedicated model APIs
    • SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance
  • Pro$null/month
    • Priority GPU access
    • Unlimited autoscaling
    • Volume discounts available
  • Enterprise$null/month
    • Self-hosted options
    • Custom SLAs
    • Data residency control

LangSmith

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • 1 seat maximum
    • 5,000 base traces monthly
  • Plus$39/month
    • Unlimited seats
    • 10,000 base traces monthly
    • 1 free small serverless deployment
  • Enterprise$null/mo
    • Custom pricing
    • Self-hosted and hybrid options
    • Custom SSO, ABAC, RBAC

Which should you pick?

Choose Baseten if

  • You want to start without paying.
Baseten review

Choose LangSmith if

  • You want to start without paying.
LangSmith review

Questions people ask

Is Baseten or LangSmith better?
Neither clearly leads. Baseten starts at Free and LangSmith at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Baseten or LangSmith?
Baseten starts at Free and LangSmith at Free.
Does Baseten or LangSmith run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Baseten for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Baseten best used for?
Baseten is most often used for custom model deployment, fine-tuned llm hosting, inference api scaling. Of those, custom model deployment and fine-tuned llm hosting are not what LangSmith is typically brought in for.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Baseten: Does Baseten have a free tier?

Yes, Baseten's Basic plan is free with a pay-as-you-go model for dedicated deployments and model APIs.

Source
LangSmith: What does LangSmith cost?

LangSmith Developer plan is free with up to 5,000 base traces monthly. Plus plan costs $39/month per seat with 10,000 base traces included. Enterprise pricing is custom.

Source
Baseten: How are GPU instances priced on Baseten?

GPU instances are priced per minute: T4 at $0.01052/min, H100 at $0.10833/min, and B200 at $0.16633/min. CPU instances range from $0.00058 to $0.01382 per minute.

Source
LangSmith: How does LangSmith usage-based pricing work?

Beyond included traces, LangSmith charges $1.50 per LCU (LangChain Compute Unit) for computational work and $1.00 per LSU (LangChain Storage Unit) for data storage.

Source
Baseten: What are Model API costs on Baseten?

Model API pricing varies by model: DeepSeek V4 Flash costs $0.13 per million input tokens and $0.028 per million output tokens; GLM-5.3-Flash costs $0.15 and $0.03 respectively.

Source
LangSmith: Is there a free tier for LangSmith?

Yes, the Developer plan is free with limits on seat count (1 seat maximum) and trace volume (5,000 base traces per month).

Source
Baseten: Does Baseten charge for idle compute time?

No, Baseten does not charge for idle time; billing only covers active compute usage on deployments.

Source
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