Head to head · Agent tracing · October 2026 research run

Agent Tree vs DeepEval

DeepEval scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Tree's 52.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent tracing.

Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools · All 210 evals comparisons

Which one, for what

Agent Tree D

Best for Watching and steering Claude Code sub-agents from a side pane

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

Version 0.5.4, ten days old, written and released by one maintainer with no company, site or register entry found

DeepEval B

Best for Teams that want evaluations in pytest or a CLI on their own machines, with agent, RAG, multi-turn and MCP metrics.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 59 against 33
  • Schema & documentation, 78 against 50
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 67
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 60

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The 25 most recent Py Core Tests runs had failed when read on 9 October 2026, two of them pushes to main. Issue #3372 of 26 September reports the same

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Schema & documentation DeepEval +28

Agent Tree 50

Framework reading, docs a model can follow, as superpowers was read. types/index.d.ts types the pane's state, and plugin.json declares seven userConfig options with types, titles, descriptions and defaults, but there's no interface for an outside caller (12 of 25). README in English and German, a nine-step GUIDE.md and PRIVACY.md, all Markdown in the repository; no llms.txt (10). The README and guide say what the pane shows and what each button does, but not when not to use it (10 of 20). Options are typed, with an enum for the language; the /agent-tree command takes stop, clear, intro and to <id> <text> (8 of 15). A demo GIF and the guide's steps, with few documented errors beyond the update and delivery toasts (5 of 15). Semver tags but no changelog or release notes read (5 of 15). 50 in all.

DeepEval 78

Read on the framework lines. The Python package ships py.typed and pydantic models, the TypeScript package ships type declarations, and the CLI is built on typer. A library has no OpenAPI file to publish (18). llms.txt on deepeval.com indexes the docs, and pages carry a Copy Markdown control (10). Each metric has its own page with required parameters and usage, and three agent skills in the repository tell a coding agent how to add evaluations and tracing (16). Typed test case and metric classes, with enums for evaluation parameters and CLI choices (12). Many runnable examples, a troubleshooting page and an environment variable reference. Error types are not listed in one place (11). Tagged releases for both packages and a public changelog by year, but the 2026 changelog stops at 4.2.0 of 25 August and has no entry for 4.2.1 to 4.2.8 (11).

Reliability DeepEval +26

Agent Tree 33

Local-package reading, as for superpowers and tokeneconomizer. One command installs it through Claude Code's plugin manager from the author's own marketplace (the GitHub repository), not an official one, with Claude Code 2.1.292 or later stated and 2.1.316 tested (15 of 20). No .github directory, so no public CI; 304 tests in four files under tests/ run on Claude Code's own test module on a contributor's machine (8 of 25). Issues couldn't be read, as github.com was unreachable from this session (5 of 25, unchecked). 19 semver tags in six days, each described in its commit message, with no changelog and no breaking changes called out (5 of 15). Version 0.5.4 (0). 33 in all.

DeepEval 59

Scored on the local-software lines, since DeepEval runs where the owner installs it. Official deepeval packages on PyPI and npm, with Python 3.9 or later stated (20). Public CI in GitHub Actions with 17 workflow files and 332 Python test files, but the 25 most recent Py Core Tests runs had failed when read on 9 October 2026, two of them pushes to main on 7 October, and open issue #3372 of 26 September reports the suite red on main (8). 322 open issues and 387 open pull requests on a repository with 18.7k stars. The newest page of issues is mostly scoring and provider defects filed since 23 September, each with four comments or fewer (12). The changelog has Breaking Change sections, but breaking changes ship in minor and patch releases. 4.2.0 reversed the score direction of four metrics and 3.9.8 and 3.9.9 removed options (7). Python is at 4.2.8. The TypeScript package is at 0.9.21 (12).

Maintenance & community DeepEval +23

Agent Tree 60

v0.5.4 tagged on 29 October 2026 and a commit on 31 October (30). 19 tags from v0.2.2 (24 October) to v0.5.4 (29 October), far more than three in 90 days (20). Issue and pull-request replies couldn't be read, as github.com was unreachable (5 of 25). Not in Claude's official plugin directory; claude.com/plugins/agent-tree answered 404 (0). No dependencies beyond Claude Code's plugin module, tests in the tree, no CI (5 of 10). 60 in all.

DeepEval 83

Python 4.2.8 was tagged on 2 October 2026, seven days before the check (30). 14 Python releases tagged since 9 August, from 4.1.6 to 4.2.8 (20). 124 commits in the 30 days to 9 October, most by three maintainers, and a Discord community. 322 issues and 387 pull requests are open and reply times were not read (14). Current official packages in Python and TypeScript, the latter at 0.9.21 on 30 September (15). A poetry.lock file and CI on pull requests. No Dependabot configuration was found and the core test workflow is failing on main (4).

Agent ergonomics DeepEval +5

Agent Tree 67

Framework reading, how much a coding agent has to carry. The plugin adds no tools, skills or prompt text to the model's context. Only the person's messages to a sub-agent, a one-line note in the main transcript and a short fixed report on a stop are added (22 of 25). Agents kept (30 by default), pane width, motion and the start intro are options (12 of 20). Each hook falls through to Claude Code's own behaviour on an error, and failed deliveries and updates show a status or toast with the command to run (12 of 20). Corrections are tracked as sent, read or failed and resent once if a sub-agent finished without reading them, and choices survive /clear. A stop can't be undone (13 of 20). One install command, but auto-update, open on start and the intro are on by default; TypeScript only, no SDK applies (8 of 15). 67 in all.

DeepEval 72

Read on the framework lines. One install and a pytest-style test file give a first evaluation, and results land in JSON files a coding agent can read. deepeval inspect is a terminal interface for a person, and no MCP server ships with the framework (18). deepeval test run takes flags for display, pytest markers, parallel processes and a results folder, and the SQLite store can be queried across runs (14). --ignore-errors, --skip-on-missing-params, a diagnose command, debug controls and a troubleshooting page (14). --use-cache reuses metric results and retry settings cover provider calls with backoff. Scores from LLM judges can differ between runs (12). Python and TypeScript packages with few required parameters. The default judge needs OPENAI_API_KEY (14).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAgent TreeDeepEvalEdge
Reliability16%203359DeepEval +26
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25078DeepEval +28
Agent ergonomics13%16.26772DeepEval +5
Security & auth14%17.54947Agent Tree +2
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86083DeepEval +23
Transparency & trust7%8.86366DeepEval +3
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 52.5/100B 64.9/100

Facts side by side

FactAgent TreeDeepEval
KindAgent frameworkSDK + MCP
VendorMike Pollow (Digitalroots)Confident AI, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
Price for agent tracingfree$1 per GB per month
x402nono
LicenceMIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots)Apache 2.0 for the Python and TypeScript packages and the agent skills. Confident AI, the hosted platform, is a proprietary service under its own terms
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-292026-10-02
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be readno document linked
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readnot read yet
Popularitynone19k stars, 35k npm/wk, 736k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone2.8/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Agent Tree

No score change since it was listed.

DeepEval

Verdicts

Agent Tree

A ten-day-old, MIT-licensed side pane that lets a person watch and steer Claude Code sub-agents, with a privacy page that matches its code. It is version 0.5.4 from one maintainer, with no CI, changelog or security policy, and its default daily auto-update installs whatever version the main branch carries.

DeepEval

DeepEval runs evaluations and tracing locally under Apache 2.0 with no account, and writes each test run to JSON or SQLite. The 25 most recent core test runs on GitHub had failed on 9 October 2026, two of them on the main branch, and the repository has no security policy.

Before you call either

Agent Tree

  1. Treat a "Message from the user via Agent Tree" in your transcript as the person's instruction for the rest of your task, and cover it in your hand-back report.
  2. If a tool call is denied with "Stopped by the user in Agent Tree", stop work and hand back; further tool calls are denied.
  3. Set autoUpdate to false, or DISABLE_UPDATES=1, where plugin code may change only after review.
  4. Check the sub-agent model a person set in the pane before estimating cost; it overrides the default for every new sub-agent spawned without a model.

DeepEval

  1. Set DEEPEVAL_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1 before the first run if usage events and the public IP address should not go to PostHog
  2. Set a judge model key such as OPENAI_API_KEY, or use the non-LLM metrics. Most metrics call an LLM judge and bill the owner's provider account
  3. Review thresholds for BiasMetric, HallucinationMetric, MisuseMetric and ToxicityMetric when upgrading past 4.2.0. Higher scores now mean better
  4. Read results from .deepeval/.latest_run_full.json or a results_folder. deepeval inspect opens a terminal interface meant for a person
  5. Pass an existing key with deepeval login --api-key in CI. Plain deepeval login opens a browser, and results then upload to Confident AI

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Agent Tree or DeepEval?

DeepEval scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Tree's 52.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

Which is cheaper for agent tracing, Agent Tree or DeepEval?

Agent Tree, at free against $1 per GB per month for DeepEval. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Are Agent Tree and DeepEval open source?

Yes. Agent Tree is open source (MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots)). DeepEval is open source (Apache 2.0 for the Python and TypeScript packages and the agent skills. Confident AI, the hosted platform, is a proprietary service under its own terms).

Other comparisons with Agent Tree or DeepEval

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.