Prompt flow vs Ragas
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Prompt flow | Ragas |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 78 · Good | 72 · Good |
| Category | Self-Hosted AI | Self-Hosted AI |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,244 | ★ 15,834 |
| First released | 2023 | 2023 |
| Replaces | LangSmith, Vertex AI | LangSmith |
What are Prompt flow and Ragas?
Prompt flow
Prompt flow is an open-source development toolkit from Microsoft for building, testing, and evaluating LLM-powered applications. It provides a visual flow editor, batch evaluation, and tooling to debug prompt pipelines locally.
- Visual flow authoring
- Batch evaluation runs
- Local debugging tools
- VS Code extension
Ragas
Ragas is an open-source framework for evaluating retrieval-augmented generation pipelines. It provides metrics for faithfulness, answer relevancy, and context precision that can be run entirely on self-hosted infrastructure.
- RAG-specific metrics
- Synthetic test set generation
- Framework agnostic
- Local evaluation
Prompt flow vs Ragas: key differences
Both projects are written in Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Prompt flow versus Apache-2.0 for Ragas. Ragas is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Prompt flow. Prompt flow lists first-class Docker deployment; Ragas does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Prompt flow if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 11.2k GitHub stars
- Written in Python
Choose Ragas if…
- Research-backed metrics
- Simple Python API
- Framework integrations
Watch out for
- Metrics need LLM calls
- Frequent API changes
Frequently asked questions
Is Prompt flow or Ragas better?
Neither is universally better. Ragas has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Prompt flow and Ragas free and open-source?
Yes. Prompt flow is licensed under MIT and Ragas under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Prompt flow and Ragas with Docker?
Prompt flow: yes. Ragas: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Prompt flow or Ragas?
Ragas has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Prompt flow. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.