# Baserun vs Navige

> Navige scores 42.8 (E) to Baserun's 7 (F) for agent tracing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Baserun shut down on 2024-09-30. Navige scores 42.8 (E) on agent readiness against Baserun's 7 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent tracing.

- Baserun: grade F, 7/100, rank retired, not ranked. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baserun.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baserun.json
- Navige: grade E, 42.8/100, rank #1012 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/navige.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/navige.json
- Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-observability/index.md
- All 136 evals comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Baserun (F)

Good for: Nothing new. It shut down on 2024-09-30.

Watch for: Service offline since late 2024. api.baserun.ai doesn't resolve and app.baserun.ai serves an expired certificate

### Navige (E)

Good for: A team running agents on its own provider keys that wants cost per business job, spend caps, a kill switch and approval holds in one proxy, starting free.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 28 against 0
- Schema & documentation, 42 against 15
- Agent ergonomics, 61 against 5
- Security & auth, 53 against 5
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 51 against 0
- Transparency & trust, 50 against 33

Also in its favour:
- Still running. Baserun has shut down
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.0 against 1.0 out of 5

Watch for: The Terms (version 1.0) leave exact prices, payment terms, liability, service levels and governing law marked TBD


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Baserun | Navige | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 0 | 28 | Navige +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 15 | 42 | Navige +27 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 5 | 61 | Navige +56 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 5 | 53 | Navige +48 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 35 | Navige +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 0 | 51 | Navige +51 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 33 | 50 | Navige +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **7 · F** | **42.8 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Baserun | Navige |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Baserun | Navige Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.baserun.ai` | `https://api.navige.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary hosted service under Navige's Terms of Use (version 1.0, effective 13 October 2026) and Data Processing Agreement (version 1.2, effective 14 October 2026). The `navige` npm SDK and the `n8n-nodes-navige` node are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2024-06-26 | 2026-09-07 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read |  |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 115 npm/wk, 209 PyPI/wk | 11 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | 2/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Navige.** Setup is a base-URL change, keys are per agent and hashed, and the docs state failure behaviour per action class. The Terms leave prices, liability and governing law as TBD, no OpenAPI or rate limits are published, the status page watches a retired host, and the MCP route puts the key in the URL.

## 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

### Navige

1. Send the Navige key in `x-navige-key` on the proxy. `Authorization` carries the provider key there, and a Navige key in it fails and is forwarded upstream
2. Act only on `allow` or `approved` from `/enforce`. Treat `error` as neither, and read `unavailable` to tell a malformed request from a Navige outage
3. Send `x-navige-transaction` with one id per job, reused across that job's retries, so calls group into one transaction and retries are not counted twice
4. On a 429 from the proxy, check for a blocking budget before retrying. Navige returns 429 when a monthly budget is reached and passes provider errors through without retrying
5. Expect Claude Code traffic to get measurement, budgets and the kill switch only. Context trimming, routing, the output ceiling and prompt caching are switched off for it

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Baserun or Navige?

Navige scores 42.8 (E) on agent readiness against Baserun's 7 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Baserun and Navige need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Baserun and Navige without installing anything?

Yes. Baserun has a hosted endpoint at https://app.baserun.ai and Navige at https://api.navige.ai.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-navige.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-navige.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "baserun", "b": "navige"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare baserun navige`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baserun.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/navige.json

## Other comparisons with Baserun or Navige

- [Arize Phoenix vs Baserun](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-baserun.md)
- [Arize Phoenix vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-navige.md)
- [Baserun vs Braintrust API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-braintrust.md)
- [Baserun vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Baserun vs Galileo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-galileo.md)
- [Baserun vs Helicone AI Gateway + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-helicone.md)
- [Baserun vs HoneyHive](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-honeyhive.md)
- [Baserun vs Laminar API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-laminar.md)
- [Baserun vs Langfuse API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-langfuse.md)
- [Baserun vs LangSmith API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-langsmith.md)
- [Baserun vs LangWatch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-langwatch.md)
- [Baserun vs MLflow Tracing](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-mlflow-tracing.md)
- [Baserun vs Prefactor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-prefactor.md)
- [Baserun vs Pydantic Logfire](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-pydantic-logfire.md)
- [Baserun vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-respan.md)
- [Baserun vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-wandb-weave.md)
- [Braintrust API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-navige.md)
- [DeepEval vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-navige.md)
- [Galileo API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/galileo-vs-navige.md)
- [Helicone AI Gateway + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-navige.md)
- [HoneyHive vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honeyhive-vs-navige.md)
- [Laminar API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/laminar-vs-navige.md)
- [Langfuse API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langfuse-vs-navige.md)
- [LangSmith API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langsmith-vs-navige.md)
- [LangWatch vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langwatch-vs-navige.md)
- [MLflow Tracing vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlflow-tracing-vs-navige.md)
- [Navige vs Prefactor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-prefactor.md)
- [Navige vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-wandb-weave.md)
- [Navige vs Pydantic Logfire](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-pydantic-logfire.md)
- [Navige vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-respan.md)

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