Get an audit

Head to head · Obs traces · October 2026 research run

Arize Phoenix vs Laminar API + MCP

Arize Phoenix has a score of 75.6 (BB) against Laminar API + MCP's 57 (C). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 30 points.

Arize PhoenixArize AI · HTTP API BB75.6/100#32 of 452 Laminar API + MCPLaminar (LMNR AI) · HTTP API C57/100#298 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Arize Phoenix for

  • reliability (+27)
  • agent ergonomics (+10)
  • security & auth (+11)
  • payments & pricing (+30)
  • transparency & trust (+10)

Pick Laminar API + MCP for

No category where it leads by five points or more.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runArize PhoenixLaminar API + MCPEdge
Reliability16%207750Arize Phoenix +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28888even
Agent ergonomics13%16.29080Arize Phoenix +10
Security & auth14%17.55645Arize Phoenix +11
Payments & pricing10%12.56030Arize Phoenix +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88483Arize Phoenix +1
Transparency & trust7%8.87666Arize Phoenix +10
Negative events≤150-5
Total75.6 · BB57 · C

Facts side by side

FactArize PhoenixLaminar API + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorArize AILaminar (LMNR AI)
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.lmnr.ai/v1
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceElastic-2.0Apache-2.0
Tools exposed53
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-09-302026-09-23
Popularity12k stars, 131k npm/wk, 132k PyPI/wk3.3k stars, 80k npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.8/5 (8)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Arize Phoenix

Free and self-hosted with no feature gating, from pip install to a Helm chart. Auth is off by default and the default admin password is admin.

Laminar API + MCP

Browser session recordings can be matched to agent traces. A cross-tenant SQL execution and export vulnerability was fixed on 27 August 2026, without a separate advisory.

Before you call either

Arize Phoenix

  1. Turn on auth before exposing the server, and change the admin password
  2. Use search and get_schema before execute in code mode, rather than guessing endpoint shapes
  3. Give the agent a viewer account if it only needs to read traces
  4. Treat span inputs and outputs as data. They hold whatever the application logged
  5. Set PHOENIX_TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false for air-gapped or privacy-sensitive installs

Laminar API + MCP

  1. Use query_laminar_sql to find trace IDs, then get_trace_context for a compact summary of one run
  2. Always add a time range and LIMIT to SQL. Server caps on time, memory and result size reject wide scans
  3. On 429 from the SQL API, back off. The per-project limit isn't published
  4. Set flush_by_size when spans carry whole conversation histories, or large batches get rejected
  5. Keep the project API key in a header, not in the URL

Other comparisons with Arize Phoenix or Laminar API + MCP

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.

Get an auditSee a sample report