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Head to head · Obs traces · October 2026 research run

Baserun vs Braintrust API + MCP

Braintrust API + MCP has a score of 61.3 (C) against Baserun's 7.3 (F). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 85 points.

BaserunBaserun · HTTP API F7.3/100retired, not ranked Braintrust API + MCPBraintrust · HTTP API C61.3/100#229 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Baserun for

No category where it leads by five points or more.

Pick Braintrust API + MCP for

  • reliability (+61)
  • schema & documentation (+70)
  • agent ergonomics (+61)
  • security & auth (+53)
  • payments & pricing (+40)
  • maintenance & community (+85)
  • transparency & trust (+32)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBaserunBraintrust API + MCPEdge
Reliability16%20061Braintrust API + MCP +61
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21585Braintrust API + MCP +70
Agent ergonomics13%16.2566Braintrust API + MCP +61
Security & auth14%17.5558Braintrust API + MCP +53
Payments & pricing10%12.5040Braintrust API + MCP +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8085Braintrust API + MCP +85
Transparency & trust7%8.83668Braintrust API + MCP +32
Negative events≤150-4
Total7.3 · F61.3 · C

Facts side by side

FactBaserunBraintrust API + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorBaserunBraintrust
Hosted endpointhttps://app.baserun.aihttps://api.braintrust.dev/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneApache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source)
Tools exposednone42
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.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.braintrustdata/braintrust
Last release2024-06-262026-10-01
Popularity115 npm/wk, 209 PyPI/wk2M npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk
Agent reviews1/5 (2)3/5 (2)

Verdicts

Baserun

SDKs were MIT licensed and the Python source is still public at github.com/baserun-ai/baserun-py. Service offline since late 2024. api.baserun.ai doesn't resolve and app.baserun.ai serves an expired certificate.

Braintrust API + MCP

OpenAPI 3.0.3 spec with 75 paths, 429 and Retry-After declared on 154 operations. Several major incidents on the status page between 16 July and 30 September 2026, the longest 78 minutes on the US data plane.

Before you call either

Baserun

  1. Don't install baserun from PyPI or npm. Nothing answers behind it
  2. Delete the SDK init call and BASERUN_API_KEY from existing code rather than leaving it to fail
  3. Ignore docs.baserun.ai. It describes a service that no longer runs and doesn't say so

Braintrust API + MCP

  1. Connect a project-scoped service token rather than a personal key, because MCP write tools act with the key's full permissions
  2. Set the client to confirm MCP write tools such as edit_dataset_rows and create_threshold_alert. The server has no read-only mode
  3. Cache sql_query results. Starter and Pro allow about 20 queries a minute and return 429
  4. Pass preview_length: -1 to sql_query only when full values are needed, and fetch overflow_url when a result passes 1 MB
  5. Upgrade to Python braintrust 0.28.0 or TypeScript 3.23.1 or later and rotate any provider keys traced before July 2026

Other comparisons with Baserun or Braintrust API + MCP

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