openlit vs re_gent
openlit is much bigger: 2.9k stars against 801. Over the days we have tracked them openlit moved +8.8% and re_gent +2.4%, so openlit is growing faster right now.
They split the axes: openlit leads on model freedom, re_gent on setup ease.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
OpenLIT provides an OpenTelemetry-native, open-source AI observability platform combining traces, built-in evaluations, a rule engine, prompt management and guardrails in one stack.
- Stars
- 2.9k
- Tracked growth
- +8.8%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 52m ago
- Language
- TypeScript
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Self-hosted; you pay for LLM/provider API usage.
Provides content-addressed, per-step audit trails and per-line 'blame' tied to the exact prompt and conversation that produced a change—something traditional VCS and most tools do not track.
- Stars
- 801
- Tracked growth
- +2.4%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 109d ago
- Language
- Go
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Free local CLI; external model/API usage may incur costs
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | openlit | re_gent |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Full-stack traces | ●●●●● Workspace snapshot |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Rule engine filters | ●●●●● Ignore & dedupe |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Rules & prompts | ●●●●● Config file & hooks |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Bring-your-key | ●●●●● Known providers |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● Docker + config | ●●●●● One-command init |
Which one to pick
Pick openlit if…
Open-source, self-hostable — choose OpenLIT when you need vendor-neutral, full-stack LLM observability plus integrated evaluations, rule-driven guardrails, and prompt/version management.
- Model freedom: Bring-your-key (5/5 against 3/5)
Pick re_gent if…
Agent-auditability — pick re_gent when you need a zero-config, local audit trail that shows which prompt wrote each line and lets you inspect full step and conversation context.
- Setup ease: One-command init (5/5 against 3/5)
What people want from each one
openlit/openlit
Hacker News: Show HN: OpenLIT – Open-Source LLM Observability with OpenTelemetry drew 62 points and 22 comments.
regent-vcs/re_gent
Questions people ask
Is openlit better than re_gent?
They split the axes: openlit leads on model freedom, re_gent on setup ease. openlit is worth picking when open-source, self-hostable — choose OpenLIT when you need vendor-neutral, full-stack LLM observability plus integrated evaluations, rule-driven guardrails, and prompt/version management.
Which of openlit and re_gent keeps my code private?
openlit: Self-hostable (4/5). re_gent: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
openlit: Self-hosted; you pay for LLM/provider API usage.. re_gent: Free local CLI; external model/API usage may incur costs.
Full profiles: openlit/openlit and regent-vcs/re_gent. Everything else in Observability & tracing.