Confident AI vs Promptfoo
Both are eval frameworks tools. Here is how they actually differ on price, billing model and deployment.
Confident AI
The commercial cloud layer over DeepEval. It recently moved from per-seat to flat per-organisation pricing at $200 and $2,000 a month - a change most third-party reviews have not caught up with.
Promptfoo
The de-facto open-source CLI for LLM eval and red-teaming, driven by declarative YAML. MIT-licensed, ~23.5k stars, and acquired by OpenAI in March 2026 - still open source, now part of OpenAI Frontier.
| Confident AI | Promptfoo | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Eval Frameworks | Eval Frameworks |
| Our rating | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Starting price | $200/mo per org | $0 |
| Billing meter | gb-month | No usage metering |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free self-hosting | No or paid tier only | Yes, free |
| Best for | Teams already using DeepEval who need shared datasets, persistence, online evaluation and collaboration, and who are large enough that unlimited seats on a flat plan beats per-seat competitors. | Security and CI teams who want config-driven LLM eval plus serious red-teaming, from an OSS tool with no seat cost |
Our verdict on Confident AI
Confident AI is the managed layer over DeepEval, and the most useful thing to know about it right now is that its pricing changed and most of the internet has not noticed. It now bills flat per organisation - $200 a month for Starter with unlimited seats and 5 GB-months, $2,000 for Team with 75 GB-months - having previously used a per-seat model that third-party reviews still quote at figures like $19.99 or $49.99 per seat. If you are comparison shopping from review sites you are working from stale numbers. The new model is genuinely favourable for larger teams, because unlimited seats on a flat plan beats per-seat pricing badly once you have more than a handful of engineers, and traces are unlimited on every tier with billing on stored data instead. The underlying DeepEval framework is Apache 2.0 and free, so your evaluation logic stays portable, and a self-hosted option exists. The main structural criticism is the 10x gap between Starter and Team with nothing published in between.
Full Confident AI review →Our verdict on Promptfoo
The clearest pick if red-teaming and security testing are part of your eval story, and its YAML-in-git approach fits CI cleanly. The OpenAI acquisition in March 2026 is the thing to weigh - the commitment to stay MIT is on the record, but you are now betting on OpenAI's stewardship of the project. For the free tier alone it is still an easy yes.
Full Promptfoo review →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between Confident AI and Promptfoo?
Confident AI: Teams already using DeepEval who need shared datasets, persistence, online evaluation and collaboration, and who are large enough that unlimited seats on a flat plan beats per-seat competitors. Promptfoo: Security and CI teams who want config-driven LLM eval plus serious red-teaming, from an OSS tool with no seat cost Both sit in Eval Frameworks, so the decision usually comes down to billing model and deployment rather than raw capability.
Which is cheaper, Confident AI or Promptfoo?
It depends entirely on your workload shape, because they meter differently - Confident AI bills on gb-month and Promptfoo bills on no usage metering. Published starting prices are $200/mo per org and $0 respectively, but those numbers are not comparable until you apply them to the same traffic. Use our cost calculator to model both against your own request volume and span count.
Can I self-host Confident AI or Promptfoo?
Confident AI: No or paid tier only. Promptfoo: Yes, free. Free self-hosting means no licence fee, not no cost - you still own the infrastructure, upgrades and on-call.