Langfuse vs Weave
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Langfuse
Open-source observability and analytics for LLM apps
VS
Weave
Toolkit for tracking and evaluating LLM applications
| Feature | Langfuse | Weave |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 98 · Excellent | 83 · Excellent |
| Category | Self-Hosted AI | Self-Hosted AI |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 34,989 | ★ 1,130 |
| First released | 2023 | 2023 |
| Replaces | LangSmith | LangSmith |
What are Langfuse and Weave?
Langfuse
Langfuse is an open-source platform for tracing, evaluating, and monitoring LLM applications. It captures detailed traces, manages prompts, and provides analytics dashboards for production AI systems.
- LLM tracing and analytics
- Prompt management
- Evaluation tooling
- Self-hostable
Weave
Weave is a lightweight toolkit from Weights & Biases for logging, tracing and evaluating LLM application calls. The tracing server component can be self-hosted to keep AI evaluation data on your own infrastructure.
- LLM call tracing
- Evaluation framework
- Self-hostable server
- Python-native
Langfuse vs Weave: key differences
Langfuse is written in TypeScript, while Weave is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Langfuse versus Apache-2.0 for Weave. Weave is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Langfuse. Langfuse has the considerably larger community, at 34,989 GitHub stars versus 1,130.
Why pick each one
Choose Langfuse if…
- Detailed LLM tracing
- Prompt management built in
- Many SDK integrations
Watch out for
- ClickHouse and Redis required
- Some features enterprise
Choose Weave if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is Langfuse or Weave better?
Neither is universally better. Langfuse has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Langfuse and Weave free and open-source?
Yes. Langfuse is licensed under MIT and Weave under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Langfuse and Weave with Docker?
Langfuse: yes. Weave: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Langfuse or Weave?
Weave has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Langfuse. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.