Comparison
Langfuse vs DriftRail
Comparing two approaches to LLM observability
Langfuse and DriftRail both help you understand what your LLMs are doing, but they're built for different use cases. Langfuse excels at development workflows—tracing, prompt management, and evaluation. DriftRail focuses on production safety—compliance, guardrails, and risk classification.
What is the difference between Langfuse and DriftRail?
Langfuse focuses on LLM tracing, prompt management, and evaluation for development workflows. DriftRail focuses on production safety, compliance reporting, and real-time guardrails. Langfuse is open-source and self-hostable. DriftRail is cloud-only with built-in AI safety classification.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Langfuse | DriftRail |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Tracing & evaluation | Safety & compliance |
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | SDKs only |
| Self-hosted option | Yes | No |
| Hallucination detection | Custom evals | Built-in |
| PII detection | No | 12+ types |
| Prompt injection detection | No | Built-in |
| Inline guardrails | No | Block/redact/warn |
| Compliance reports | No | SOC2/HIPAA/GDPR |
| Prompt playground | Yes | No |
| LangChain integration | Native | Manual SDK |
| Free tier | 50K observations/mo | 10K events/mo |
When to Choose Langfuse
Langfuse is the better choice when:
- You need deep LangChain integration with native tracing
- You want to self-host on your own infrastructure
- Prompt iteration and A/B testing are priorities
- You're building custom evaluation pipelines
- Budget is constrained and open-source is preferred
When to Choose DriftRail
Is Langfuse or DriftRail better for compliance?
DriftRail is better for compliance. It provides one-click SOC2, HIPAA, and GDPR audit reports, immutable audit logs with database-level tamper protection, PII detection and auto-redaction, and DSAR handling. Langfuse provides standard logging but lacks compliance-specific features.
DriftRail is the better choice when:
- You're in a regulated industry (healthcare, finance, legal)
- Compliance reporting is required for audits
- You need to block or redact dangerous outputs in real-time
- Hallucination and safety detection should be automatic
- PII protection is a requirement
Using Both Together
Can I use Langfuse and DriftRail together?
Yes, many teams use both. Langfuse for development tracing, prompt iteration, and evaluation during development. DriftRail for production safety monitoring, compliance, and guardrails. They solve different problems and complement each other well.
A common pattern is using Langfuse during development for prompt engineering and evaluation, then adding DriftRail for production monitoring and compliance. The tools don't conflict—they address different stages of the LLM lifecycle.
Safety Detection Comparison
Which is better for hallucination detection?
DriftRail has built-in hallucination detection that runs automatically on every event. Langfuse requires you to build custom evaluations for hallucination detection. If hallucination monitoring is a priority, DriftRail provides it out of the box.
DriftRail includes 8 built-in detection types that run on every event:
- Hallucination detection
- PII detection (12+ types)
- Prompt injection detection
- Toxicity detection
- Policy violation detection
- Confidence analysis
- Factual accuracy (with RAG sources)
- Brand safety
Langfuse provides the infrastructure to build custom evaluations, but you need to implement the detection logic yourself or integrate third-party classifiers.
Bottom Line
Choose Langfuse if you're focused on development workflows, want self-hosting, or need deep LangChain integration. Choose DriftRail if compliance, safety detection, and production guardrails are priorities. Many teams use both for different stages of their LLM lifecycle.