head to head · open source
langchain vs promptflow
langchain has 146,538 GitHub stars, 24,504 forks, 492 open issues and last shipped yesterday. promptflow has 11,243 stars, 1,122 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. langchain leads on adoption by 1,203% (146,538 vs 11,243 stars). langchain is written in Python under MIT; promptflow is written in Python under MIT. langchain has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, promptflow 10%. langchain was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, chatgpt), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| langchain | promptflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 147K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 25K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick langchain if
- You weight community size — 147K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick promptflow if
- You want the promptflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and promptflow fits your workflow better
About langchain
LangChain is an open source framework for building agents and LLM powered applications, written in Python and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically among AI development platforms, and it works by chaining together interoperable components and third party integrations so that AI application development becomes simpler. The project describes itself as the agent engineering platform, and its abstractions are designed to keep applications working as the underlying technology evolves.
read the full langchain overview →
About promptflow
Prompt flow is a Microsoft developed, MIT licensed suite of Python development tools that streamlines the end to end lifecycle of LLM based AI applications — ideation, prototyping, testing, evaluation, production deployment and monitoring — for developers and teams who need prompt driven apps to reach production quality rather than stay in a notebook.
read the full promptflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is langchain or promptflow more popular?
langchain has 146,538 GitHub stars and promptflow has 11,243. langchain has the larger community by that measure.
Are langchain and promptflow free?
Both are open source. langchain is licensed under MIT and promptflow under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between langchain and promptflow?
langchain is written in Python and promptflow in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, langchain or promptflow?
Choose langchain if you want the larger community (146,538 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose promptflow if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.