# Braintrust API + MCP vs DeepEval

> DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) to Braintrust's 61.1 (C) for agent tracing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-deepeval
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-deepeval.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-deepeval.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) on agent readiness against Braintrust API + MCP's 61.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Braintrust API + MCP leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do agent tracing.

- Braintrust API + MCP: grade C, 61.1/100, rank #479 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/braintrust.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/braintrust.json
- DeepEval: grade B, 64.7/100, rank #343 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepeval.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepeval.json
- Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-observability/index.md
- All 120 evals comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Braintrust API + MCP (C)

Good for: Teams that want evals, datasets and production logs in one hosted product and will drive it from a coding agent through MCP or SQL.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 78
- Security & auth, 58 against 47

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Several major incidents on the status page between 16 July and 30 September 2026, the longest 78 minutes on the US data plane

### DeepEval (B)

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

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 66
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Also in its favour:
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Braintrust API + MCP loses 4 points for them

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Braintrust API + MCP | DeepEval | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 59 | Braintrust API + MCP +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 78 | Braintrust API + MCP +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 72 | DeepEval +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 47 | Braintrust API + MCP +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | DeepEval +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 83 | Braintrust API + MCP +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 63 | Braintrust API + MCP +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.1 · C** | **64.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Braintrust API + MCP | DeepEval |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Braintrust | Confident AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.braintrust.dev/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for agent tracing | not published | $1 per GB per month |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed 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 |
| Tools exposed | 42 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.braintrustdata/braintrust` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-07 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-09-21 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 2M npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk | 19k stars, 35k npm/wk, 736k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Braintrust API + MCP or DeepEval?

DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) on agent readiness against Braintrust API + MCP's 61.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Braintrust API + MCP leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Braintrust API + MCP and DeepEval without installing anything?

Braintrust API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.braintrust.dev/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for DeepEval.

### Are Braintrust API + MCP and DeepEval open source?

No open-source release is listed for Braintrust API + MCP. 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).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Braintrust API + MCP or DeepEval

- [Arize Phoenix vs Braintrust API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-braintrust.md)
- [Arize Phoenix vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Baserun vs Braintrust API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-braintrust.md)
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- [DeepEval vs Laminar API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-laminar.md)
- [DeepEval vs Langfuse API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-langfuse.md)
- [DeepEval vs LangSmith API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-langsmith.md)
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- [DeepEval vs MLflow Tracing](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-mlflow-tracing.md)
- [DeepEval vs Prefactor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-prefactor.md)
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