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Phoenix by Arize

Open-source AI observability and evaluation platform built on OpenTelemetry for tracing, debugging, and monitoring LLM applications and AI agents in production.

Starting atFree
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💡

In Plain English

Open-source tool for understanding and debugging your AI — trace LLM calls, evaluate output quality, detect hallucinations, and optimize prompts with production data.

OverviewFeaturesPricingGetting StartedUse CasesLimitationsFAQAlternatives

Overview

Phoenix by Arize is an open-source AI observability platform designed for experimentation, evaluation, and troubleshooting of LLM applications and AI agents. Built on OpenTelemetry standards, Phoenix provides detailed tracing that reveals where LLM workflows break — including issues with retrieval, tool execution, and hallucination.

The platform offers both real-time monitoring and offline evaluation capabilities. Phoenix automatically captures traces from 20+ popular frameworks including LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, and Anthropic SDKs, providing detailed visibility into agent execution flows, token usage, latency, and failure patterns. The tracing system supports complex multi-agent workflows with agent tracing graphs and dependency mapping across interactions.

Phoenix's evaluation engine supports multiple scoring methods: LLM-as-a-judge evaluators, code-based checks, and human annotation labels. Pre-built evaluators handle hallucination detection, relevance scoring, toxicity assessment, and custom business metrics. The platform supports both automated evaluation during development and continuous online evaluation in production, with alerts for performance degradation or safety violations.

The experiment playground enables rapid prompt iteration — replay traced LLM calls, compare different prompt variations side-by-side, adjust parameters, and measure impact with statistical rigor. This tight feedback loop between production traces and experimentation accelerates prompt optimization.

Token and cost tracking covers 100+ models across providers, giving teams visibility into spend per agent, per workflow, and per model. This financial observability helps optimize model selection and identify cost reduction opportunities.

Phoenix is available in two forms: the open-source library (free, self-hosted) and Arize AX (managed cloud platform). The open-source Phoenix library provides full observability features with self-managed infrastructure. Arize AX adds managed hosting, online evaluations, the Alyx AI assistant for trace debugging, product observability (monitors and custom metrics), and enterprise security features including SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance.

Originally announced at Arize AI's Observe 2023 summit to address LLM hallucination detection, Phoenix has evolved into a comprehensive observability solution adopted by teams at companies like Handshake, GetYourGuide, and hundreds of others building production AI applications.

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Editorial Review

Phoenix is the strongest open-source option for AI observability — the OpenTelemetry foundation ensures interoperability, the multi-method evaluation engine covers diverse quality needs, and the experiment playground closes the loop between production monitoring and prompt improvement. The free self-hosted option removes cost barriers for getting started. Arize AX adds managed infrastructure and enterprise features for teams that need compliance, online evaluations, and the Alyx AI assistant.

Key Features

OpenTelemetry-Based LLM Tracing+

Automatic trace collection from 20+ frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, Anthropic) with agent tracing graphs, multi-agent workflow visualization, and span-level detail on every LLM call, tool invocation, and retrieval step.

Use Case:

Debugging a multi-agent customer service system by tracing exactly which agent handled a query, what retrieval documents were used, which tool calls were made, and where the response quality degraded.

Multi-Method Evaluation Engine+

Score traces and spans using LLM-based evaluators (hallucination, relevance, toxicity), code-based checks (regex, assertions), or human annotation labels. Supports both offline batch evaluation and continuous online evaluation in production.

Use Case:

Running hallucination detection on every production response while maintaining a human labeling queue for edge cases, creating a continuous quality improvement loop.

Experiment Playground+

Replay traced LLM calls with different prompts, models, or parameters. Compare results side-by-side with evaluation scoring. Iterate rapidly on prompt engineering without deploying changes to production.

Use Case:

Taking a poorly-performing production trace, replaying it with three different prompt variations, scoring each with relevance and accuracy evaluators, and deploying the winner.

Token & Cost Tracking+

Track token usage and costs across 100+ models from all major providers. Attribute costs to specific agents, workflows, and traces for financial visibility and optimization.

Use Case:

Identifying that a sales agent's summarization step consumes 60% of total token budget, then testing a smaller model for that specific step to reduce costs while maintaining quality.

Hallucination Detection & Quality Flagging+

Built-in evaluators that detect when LLM responses contain fabricated information, are irrelevant to the query, or violate quality thresholds — with automatic flagging and alerting.

Use Case:

Monitoring a medical information chatbot for factual accuracy, automatically flagging responses where the model generates unsupported claims, and routing flagged interactions for human review.

Alyx AI Assistant (AX Cloud)+

Arize's built-in AI agent for trace debugging and analysis. Alyx can explain span context, debug traces, create dashboards and widgets, optimize prompts, and search traces using natural language.

Use Case:

Asking Alyx 'Why did response quality drop for support queries last Tuesday?' and getting an analysis of trace patterns, evaluation scores, and potential root causes.

Pricing Plans

Phoenix Open Source

$0

Teams wanting full AI observability without vendor lock-in who can manage their own infrastructure

  • ✓Full observability library — tracing, evaluation, experimentation
  • ✓Self-hosted with user-managed infrastructure
  • ✓All core features including agent tracing graphs
  • ✓OpenTelemetry-based instrumentation
  • ✓Python and JavaScript SDKs
  • ✓Community support

AX Free

$0

Individuals and startups getting started with production AI observability

  • ✓25,000 trace spans per month
  • ✓1 GB ingestion per month
  • ✓7-day data retention
  • ✓Alyx AI assistant for debugging
  • ✓Online evaluations (LLM-as-judge and code-based)
  • ✓Product observability (monitors and custom metrics)
  • ✓Community support

AX Pro

$50

Small teams and startups needing higher volume and longer retention for production applications

  • ✓50,000 trace spans per month
  • ✓100 GB ingestion per month
  • ✓15-day data retention
  • ✓Additional spans at $10 per million
  • ✓Additional storage at $3 per GB
  • ✓Higher rate limits
  • ✓Email support
  • ✓Everything in AX Free

AX Enterprise

Custom

Enterprise organizations requiring compliance, custom retention, and self-hosted or multi-region deployments

  • ✓Custom span limits and ingestion volume
  • ✓Configurable data retention
  • ✓SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance
  • ✓Enterprise SSO (Okta, AzureAD/EntraID)
  • ✓Space-level RBAC and audit logs
  • ✓Self-hosted deployment option
  • ✓Multi-region and data residency
  • ✓Dedicated support and uptime SLA
  • ✓Training sessions
  • ✓adb Data Fabric
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Getting Started with Phoenix by Arize

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    Best Use Cases

    🎯

    Production LLM Application Monitoring: Continuous observability for production AI systems — tracing every LLM call, retrieval step, and tool invocation to detect quality degradation, hallucinations, and performance issues in real-time.

    ⚡

    Systematic LLM Evaluation & Quality Scoring: Building evaluation pipelines that score LLM outputs using multiple methods — LLM-as-judge for nuanced quality, code-based checks for formatting compliance, and human labels for ground truth calibration.

    🔧

    Prompt Engineering & Optimization: Using the experiment playground to replay production traces with different prompts, compare results side-by-side with evaluation scoring, and deploy optimized prompts with measurable improvement evidence.

    🚀

    AI Cost Optimization: Tracking token usage and costs per agent, workflow, and model to identify expensive operations, test cheaper model alternatives, and optimize AI infrastructure spending without sacrificing output quality.

    Limitations & What It Can't Do

    We believe in transparent reviews. Here's what Phoenix by Arize doesn't handle well:

    • ⚠Self-hosted Phoenix requires managing database infrastructure (PostgreSQL) and compute resources for trace storage and evaluation
    • ⚠Evaluation accuracy depends on evaluation prompt quality — LLM-as-judge evaluators need careful calibration and testing
    • ⚠AX Free tier's 7-day retention and 25K span limit constrains usefulness for most production workloads beyond prototyping
    • ⚠Learning curve is steeper than simple logging — teams need familiarity with distributed tracing concepts and evaluation methodologies
    • ⚠JavaScript SDK is newer and less mature than the Python SDK — some features may have gaps in non-Python environments

    Pros & Cons

    ✓ Pros

    • ✓Open-source core with no vendor lock-in — full observability features available free for self-hosted deployments
    • ✓Built on OpenTelemetry standards for interoperable, standardized instrumentation across any AI framework
    • ✓Multi-method evaluation (LLM-as-judge, code-based, human labels) provides flexible quality scoring for different needs
    • ✓Experiment playground enables rapid prompt iteration with production trace replay and side-by-side comparison
    • ✓Detailed token and cost tracking across 100+ models helps optimize AI spending at the agent and workflow level

    ✗ Cons

    • ✗AX Pro cloud pricing based on span volume ($10/million additional) can become costly for high-throughput production applications
    • ✗Self-hosted open-source deployment requires managing PostgreSQL, storage, and compute infrastructure
    • ✗Steeper learning curve than simpler logging solutions — requires understanding of tracing concepts, spans, and evaluation methodologies
    • ✗AX Free tier limited to 25K spans/month and 7-day retention — may be too constrained for even moderate production workloads

    Frequently Asked Questions

    How does Phoenix differ from general monitoring tools like Datadog?+

    Phoenix provides LLM-specific metrics — hallucination detection, prompt drift, semantic similarity, retrieval quality — that general monitoring tools don't support. It understands AI-specific concepts like tokens, embeddings, and evaluation scores while Datadog focuses on infrastructure metrics. Phoenix's experiment playground for prompt iteration has no equivalent in traditional monitoring.

    Can Phoenix monitor custom agent frameworks or direct API calls?+

    Yes. While Phoenix provides automatic instrumentation for 20+ popular frameworks, it also supports custom instrumentation via Python SDK, JavaScript SDK, and OpenTelemetry-compatible spans for monitoring any LLM application or custom agent implementation.

    What's the difference between Phoenix (open-source) and Arize AX (cloud)?+

    Phoenix is the open-source library with full tracing, evaluation, and experimentation features — self-hosted and free. Arize AX is the managed cloud platform that adds hosted infrastructure, online evaluations, the Alyx AI assistant, product monitoring, compliance certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA), and enterprise features like SSO and RBAC.

    Is Phoenix suitable for real-time monitoring or just offline analysis?+

    Both. Phoenix supports real-time trace collection with low-latency ingestion, plus offline batch evaluation for deep analysis. AX adds online evaluations that score production traces continuously and trigger alerts on quality degradation or safety violations.

    How does pricing work for Arize AX?+

    AX Free includes 25K spans/month and 1 GB ingestion. AX Pro is $50/month with 50K spans and 100 GB, with overages at $10 per million spans and $3 per GB. Enterprise pricing is custom based on volume, retention, and compliance requirements.
    🦞

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    What's New in 2026

    Phoenix expanded its evaluation capabilities with online evaluations (session evals and agent path evals), introduced the Alyx AI assistant for natural-language trace debugging, added agent tracing graphs for multi-agent visualization, and launched AX Pro at $50/month with 50K included spans. The platform now supports 100+ model cost tracking and multi-region data residency for enterprise deployments.

    Alternatives to Phoenix by Arize

    LangSmith

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    Langfuse

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    Leading open-source LLM observability platform for production AI applications. Comprehensive tracing, prompt management, evaluation frameworks, and cost optimization with enterprise security (SOC2, ISO27001, HIPAA). Self-hostable with full feature parity.

    Helicone

    Analytics & Monitoring

    Open-source LLM observability platform and API gateway that provides cost analytics, request logging, caching, and rate limiting through a simple proxy-based integration requiring only a base URL change.

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    User Reviews

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    Quick Info

    Category

    Analytics & Monitoring

    Website

    phoenix.arize.com
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