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LangChain

Open source agent frameworks plus the LangSmith platform for tracing, evaluating and deploying AI agents.

LangChain is a company and open source project for building AI agents. Developers use the LangChain, LangGraph and Deep Agents frameworks to write agents with any model provider, then use the LangSmith platform to trace runs, evaluate behaviour, deploy to production and monitor quality. A no-code product, Fleet, lets non-developers create agents in natural language.

Best for Engineering teams that build LLM agents in code and need tooling to test, deploy and observe them in production.

LangChain website home page
Screenshot of langchain.com, captured 9 Oct 2026
Platforms
Web, API, MCP
Pricing model
Freemium
Free plan
Yes
API
Yes
Made by
LangChain
Added

Last verified: . Information taken from langchain.com.

What is LangChain?

LangChain is an agent engineering platform made up of open source frameworks and a commercial product called LangSmith. The frameworks cover three levels: langchain for getting an agent running quickly with a chosen model provider, langgraph for agents that need low-level control and some determinism, and deepagents for autonomous, long-running work. LangSmith follows the rest of the lifecycle. Observability gives step-by-step traces of agent runs, and Evaluation turns those traces into datasets and scores each step with online and offline evals. Deployment hosts long-running, stateful agents behind more than 30 Agent Server endpoints, while Sandboxes execute agent-generated code in isolation. An LLM Gateway applies spend limits, fallbacks and redaction of sensitive data to model calls, and Engine watches production traces, groups failures into issues and proposes fixes. Fleet offers agent building without code. LangSmith can run as managed cloud, in a hybrid setup or fully self-hosted.

Key Features

Open Source Frameworks

Provides langchain, langgraph and deepagents libraries for writing agents at different levels of control.

Observability

Records every step of an agent run so developers can debug it and query large traces quickly.

Evaluation

Builds datasets from real traces and runs online and offline evals, with annotation queues for human feedback.

Deployment and Sandboxes

Hosts agents on infrastructure built for persistent state and runs generated code in isolated, short-lived environments.

LLM Gateway

Sits between agents and model providers to control cost, rate limits, fallbacks and PII or secrets redaction.

Engine and Fleet

Engine detects and diagnoses production failures automatically; Fleet lets teams build agents in everyday language.

Videos

How Clay manages 300M agent runs a month with LangSmithCustomer story from the official LangChain channel on running agents at scale with LangSmith. Watch on YouTube
How Lyft Builds Evals That Actually Matter in Production | Interrupt 26Conference talk from the official LangChain channel on building production evals. Watch on YouTube
How Harvey Built Reliable AI Agents with LangSmith & Custom ToolsCustomer story from the official LangChain channel on building agents with LangSmith and custom tools. Watch on YouTube

Use Cases

Customer Support Agents
Build and monitor an assistant that resolves support cases.
Debugging an Agent
Trace a failing run step by step to see which tool call or prompt went wrong.
Regression Testing
Evaluate a new prompt or model against a dataset before releasing it.
Production Monitoring
Track cost, latency, errors and quality across live agent runs with dashboards and alerts.
Company-Wide Agents
Give non-technical teams templates for agents that handle daily tasks.

Things to know

Pricing page covers LangSmith
The frameworks are open source; the paid plans and seat prices on the site apply to the LangSmith platform.
Usage-based billing
Traces beyond the included monthly amount, deployments and sandbox time are billed pay-as-you-go.
Seat limits
The Developer plan is limited to one seat, while Plus allows unlimited seats.
Startup programme
Startups with venture funding can apply for reduced pricing and usage credits.

FAQs

What is LangChain?

LangChain is an agent engineering platform that combines open source frameworks for building AI agents with LangSmith, a hosted platform for testing, deploying and monitoring them.

What is LangChain used for?

LangChain is used to build LLM-powered agents and applications, and its LangSmith platform is used to trace, evaluate and run those agents in production.

Is LangChain free?

LangChain's frameworks are open source, and LangSmith has a Developer plan at no seat cost for one user with a monthly allowance of traces, followed by pay-as-you-go usage.

How much does LangSmith cost?

LangSmith has Developer, Plus and Enterprise plans, with usage beyond the included amounts metered in LangChain Standard Units. See the official pricing page for current rates.

What is the difference between LangChain, LangGraph and Deep Agents?

LangChain is for starting agents quickly from templates, LangGraph is for agents that need low-level control, and Deep Agents is for highly autonomous, long-running tasks.

Can LangSmith be self-hosted?

Yes. LangSmith is offered as managed cloud, and the Enterprise plan adds hybrid and fully self-hosted options.

Does LangChain work with any model provider?

Yes. LangChain says its frameworks let developers build agents with any model provider and keep control of model choice.

Who it's for

  • AI engineers
  • Software developers
  • Machine learning teams
  • Startups
  • Enterprises

Tagsagent frameworkLangGraphLangSmithobservabilityevaluationopen source

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