# DeepEval vs Respan API + MCP

> Respan and DeepEval score within a point of each other for evaluations, 65.5 and 64.7 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-respan
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-respan.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-respan.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-respan.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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

Respan API + MCP and DeepEval score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 65.5 (B) and 64.7 (B). DeepEval leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do evaluations.

- 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
- Respan API + MCP: grade B, 65.5/100, rank #317 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/respan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/respan.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

### 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 30
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

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

### Respan API + MCP (B)

Good for: Teams that want a gateway and tracing in one integration and an agent that can manage prompts, datasets and evaluators over MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 59
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 78
- Security & auth, 66 against 47

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

Watch for: 67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no `readOnlyHint` or `destructiveHint` annotations


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepEval | Respan API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 59 | 73 | Respan API + MCP +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 89 | Respan API + MCP +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 66 | DeepEval +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 47 | 66 | Respan API + MCP +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | DeepEval +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 85 | Respan API + MCP +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 57 | DeepEval +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **64.7 · B** | **65.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepEval | Respan API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Confident AI, Inc. | Respan (formerly Keywords AI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.respan.ai/api` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | 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 | Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source) |
| Tools exposed | none | 67 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-02-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-02-25 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 19k stars, 35k npm/wk, 736k PyPI/wk | 270 npm/wk, 13k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Respan API + MCP.** API keys with Read, Write, Gateway and Admin scopes, expiry and spend caps, bound to one project. 67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no `readOnlyHint` or `destructiveHint` annotations.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Respan API + MCP

1. Create a key with only the Read scope for agents that analyse logs. New keys get Read, Write and Gateway by default
2. Set `Respan-Enabled-Tools` to a short list such as list_traces,get_trace_tree,list_logs. All 67 tools load otherwise
3. Pass `filters` to `list_logs` rather than paging through everything. The default window is the last hour
4. Call `list_organizations` first when results look empty over OAuth. Every tool acts on the active organisation only
5. Append `.md` to any docs URL for clean Markdown

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, DeepEval or Respan API + MCP?

Respan API + MCP and DeepEval score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 65.5 (B) and 64.7 (B). DeepEval leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for DeepEval. Respan API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.respan.ai/api.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with DeepEval or Respan API + MCP

- [Arize Phoenix vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Arize Phoenix vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-respan.md)
- [Baserun vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Baserun vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-respan.md)
- [Braintrust API + MCP vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Braintrust API + MCP vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-respan.md)
- [Galileo API + MCP vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/galileo-vs-respan.md)
- [Helicone AI Gateway + MCP vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-respan.md)
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- [Respan API + MCP vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/respan-vs-wandb-weave.md)
- [DeepEval vs Galileo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-galileo.md)
- [DeepEval vs Helicone AI Gateway + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone.md)
- [DeepEval vs HoneyHive](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-honeyhive.md)
- [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)
- [DeepEval vs LangWatch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-langwatch.md)
- [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)
- [DeepEval vs Pydantic Logfire](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-pydantic-logfire.md)
- [DeepEval vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-wandb-weave.md)