The Monitoring Landscape
AI agent monitoring has become its own category in 2026. As more teams deploy agents in production, the need for specialized monitoring has driven rapid innovation. Here's our roundup of the best options.
1. ClawHQ — Best Overall for Fleet Management
ClawHQ is a purpose-built management platform for AI agent fleets. It combines monitoring, task management, analytics, and team collaboration in one dashboard.
Key Features:
- Real-time health monitoring for every agent
- Kanban-style Task Board for fleet-wide task management
- Cost tracking per agent and per task
- Multi-channel alerting (email, Slack, Discord, webhooks)
- Skill Store integration
- Visual workflow monitoring for multi-agent pipelines
Pricing: Free (3 agents), Pro $49/month (25 agents), Enterprise custom.
Best for: Teams running OpenClaw agents who need full fleet management. The deepest integration with the OpenClaw ecosystem.
2. LangSmith — Best for Tracing and Evaluation
LangSmith, from the LangChain team, excels at tracing agent execution and evaluating output quality.
Key Features:
- Detailed execution traces showing every step of agent reasoning
- Evaluation frameworks for testing agent quality
- Dataset management for testing
- Prompt versioning and A/B testing
Pricing: Free tier available, paid plans from $39/month.
Best for: Teams using LangChain who need deep tracing and quality evaluation. Complementary to ClawHQ (tracing + evaluation alongside fleet management).
3. Datadog AI Monitoring — Best for Enterprise Integration
Datadog has added AI agent monitoring to its platform, integrating agent observability with their broader infrastructure monitoring.
Key Features:
- LLM token tracking and cost monitoring
- Trace-level observability for agent execution
- Integration with existing Datadog dashboards and alerts
- APM for the full stack including AI components
Pricing: Starts at $25/host/month, AI monitoring add-on additional.
Best for: Enterprises already using Datadog who want to add agent monitoring to their existing observability stack.
4. Helicone — Best for Cost Optimization
Helicone focuses specifically on LLM cost tracking and optimization.
Key Features:
- Detailed cost breakdown by model, prompt, and user
- Caching to reduce redundant API calls
- Rate limiting and usage controls
- Prompt management
Pricing: Free tier available, Pro from $20/month.
Best for: Teams primarily concerned with controlling LLM costs.
5. Grafana + Prometheus — Best DIY Solution
For teams that want full control, the open-source Grafana + Prometheus stack can be configured for agent monitoring.
Key Features:
- Fully customizable dashboards
- Powerful alerting with AlertManager
- Open source and self-hosted
- Massive ecosystem of data sources
Pricing: Free (self-hosted), Grafana Cloud from $29/month.
Best for: Teams with DevOps expertise who want maximum customization and don't mind building agent-specific dashboards from scratch.
Comparison Matrix
- Fleet management: ClawHQ ★★★★★ | LangSmith ★★☆ | Datadog ★★★ | Helicone ★★☆ | Grafana ★★★
- Cost tracking: ClawHQ ★★★★ | LangSmith ★★★ | Datadog ★★★ | Helicone ★★★★★ | Grafana ★★☆
- Tracing: ClawHQ ★★★ | LangSmith ★★★★★ | Datadog ★★★★ | Helicone ★★☆ | Grafana ★★☆
- Setup time: ClawHQ 5min | LangSmith 10min | Datadog 30min | Helicone 10min | Grafana 2hr+
- Free tier: ClawHQ 3 agents | LangSmith limited | Datadog 14-day trial | Helicone 10K requests | Grafana unlimited (self-hosted)
Our Recommendation
For most teams running AI agents in production:
- Start with ClawHQ for fleet management, monitoring, and task orchestration
- Add LangSmith if you need deep tracing and quality evaluation
- Add Helicone if cost optimization is your primary concern
- Use Datadog if you're an enterprise already invested in their ecosystem
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